The Miller in Manila: comic Lynn Ruth discovers the benefits of now being 85

On her last appearance in this blog, London-based American stand-up storytelling comic and late-blooming burlesque dancer Lynn Ruth Miller was telling tales of her six – count ‘em, six – 85th birthday parties in London and Brighton and was on her way to Cannes. 

Now she is in the Far East.

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It started in the tube train going to London Airport. I wondered how on earth I was going to get my heavy, heavy case up stairs and escalators when I got to Terminal 3.

But a lovely man said he too was getting off at my terminal and WITHOUT MY ASKING dragged the case up escalators, down escalators through swinging doors right to my check-in desk. Then he hugged me and hurried off to his job. He is the one who replaces the floor tiles in the terminal when disgusting clods like me tramp on them and dislodge them.  

I make my living telling naughty jokes that emasculate men and I am properly ashamed. This man represents Britain at its Best even though he was a Bulgarian immigrant who could barely speak English and sends his whole paycheck home to his starving mother and over-privileged cat.

I flew Philippine Airlines and it felt like I was going first class instead of steerage. Their planes are immaculate and roomy. 

I had been told everyone has a helluva time in Immigration at Manila Airport, but Filipinos love little old ladies. At least the ones in Immigration do. Despite the fact that I couldn’t remember the day I was leaving and forgot the name of the hotel I was in, I was whooshed through the line and literally given my bag as it sailed around the carousel by two eager young men who were afraid I would fall apart and my bones would scatter all over their luggage.   

Two policemen called me “Darling” and showed me the reception area at the airport. That was when magic happened.  

The warm reception for Lynn Ruth at Manila Airport

Dilip Budhrani was there with his wife Saira, and his two children Mika (8 going on 21) and Vedant (11 going on 40). Both children hugged me and handed me a spectacular bouquet of flowers. I felt like Cinderella before midnight.  

I was taken to The Picasso Boutique Hotel in Salcedo Village in Makati City. The walls are filled with Picassos from his cubist period. I went up to my room expecting a ROOM.

Instead I was in a three room suite that is bigger than my entire Stamford Hill flat. It had an electric range, a refrigerator, the usual tea kettle and with teas and coffees and a sunken bathtub.

I felt like I should have had my hair and nails done and got a complete overhaul before entering the place. 

Naturally I had no idea how to turn on the recessed lights, open the refrigerator or find the closet, but 8 year old Mika knew. Then all of us went out for dinner at a Spanish restaurant down the street. Guess what was waiting for me when I came back after an amazing dinner at Terry’s? ANOTHER birthday cake.

I was beginning to think I could never live up to what these people expect of me. I am far too ordinary.

However I was wrong. 

I went to the Relik Bar and performed my show This Is Your Future to THE most appreciative audience ever.  

The guy in the front table was David Charlton from Sunderland who owns a chain of beauty salons. He took one look at me and insisted I go to one of his salons to get made over before the show tomorrow night – in Manila, not Sunderland. 

Sunderland is very North in England, which explains why he understood the underlying filth in my performance. No-one else in the place knew what dogging was… and he probably invented it. He has a glamorous Filipino partner who was conservatively dressed, which must puzzle him. Girls up north in England go out on the town with a fur wrap and band-aids over their bits.

“Response got me all revved up…”

The next day I did my inspirational talk Optimistic Living at The Union Jack Tavern. To my shock, the place was filled and I told my silly stories about giving it a go, no matter how bleak the prospects. They evidently loved it. They told me this was because it gave them hope that, even though they had messed up their lives, they had another chance to make things right. Their response got me all revved up to do Ageing is Amazing. Sadly I had forgotten to bring my costume for this event.

But Dilip’s wife Saira managed to get together an acceptable costume, a feather boa and some disposable diapers. Her PR friend had loads and loads of wigs. I rehearsed the songs over and over and OVER and remembered it all and sung without a mistake. I got a standing ovation for that one. Afterwards, guess what they brought up on stage?

ANOTHER birthday cake.

A word about Manila…  

It has unbelievable traffic and buildings with offices open all night. These are the call centers. More than 1 million Filipinos now work at call centers and in related outsourcing businesses, mostly serving American companies. Corporations such as Citibank, Safeway, Chevron and Aetna as well as smaller companies ranging from a Georgia medical collection agency to a New York spa operator that outsources its customer appointments. People in these centers earn as much as $700 a month (£535.50) which is double the salary of a Manila bank teller.  

Flying high – “Filipinos are uncommonly polite and caring.”

Filipinos are uncommonly polite and caring.

You never enter a door that someone doesn’t open for you (at least I didn’t) and, when I was out in a sudden rainstorm, a lovely man walked me under his umbrella to an intersection where he was turning and a young woman going the opposite direction then turned around and took me to the hotel.    

When I did the inspirational talk, a lovely woman gave me a truly exquisite scarf beautifully wrapped to welcome me to Manila. I walked by a deli just to check it out and, when I returned to grab a coffee and a scone, that doorman remembered me and welcomed me. I came back the next day for an omelette and again he greeted me as if I were his best friend.  

This kind of thing does not happen in America.

If you get caught in a rainstorm there, it is your problem and, if you walk by a store without going in and SPENDING LOTS OF MONEY, they hate you.

Such is the culture from which I sprouted. 

Donald Trump is no surprise.  

Next stop, Jakarta in Indonesia.  

… CONTINUED HERE …

 

Lynn Ruth Miller on being back ‘home’ in the US and being disliked as a Jew

Lynn Ruth Miller – an American performer now based in the UK – continues her tales of returning to the US for three weeks of gigs in and around San Francisco after four years away…

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That night was going to be the big one. I was going to perform my show This Is Your Future at Beth Lemke’s A Grape in The Fog – her wine bar in Pacifica – and this was the city I lived in and loved for thirty years.  

This Is Your Future makes them laugh in Australia and the UK.

But would I get a giggle from the Americans?  

A Grape in The Fog is Beth’s baby (along with her special child, Daphne, a teeny tiny Chihuahua with a gigantic attitude). 

Pacifica is a bedroom community filled with restaurants and services for people who commute to San Francisco or to Silicon Valley. The level of sophistication one needs to create a successful wine bar for the beer-drinking, hamburger-guzzling local residents does not exist.  

Daphne the Chihuahua with a gigantic attitude

However, Beth is very innovative and staged events like jazz-and-wine, art-and-wine, games-and-wine, even a Yappy Hour so Daphne the Chihuahua could show off her new costumes to other less pampered pets.   

It has taken Beth eight years of persistence and creativity, but she has now established a stable, niche market for her fine and very expensive gourmet wines.

To my delight, A Grape in The Fog was packed with people who knew me back in those halcyon days of walking too many dogs, writing columns for their newspaper and telling dirty jokes.

Every person who came to the show was a gift to me, but, as with all things, every good bit of news brings bad news to counter it. 

I learned that my really young fifty-ish neighbors across the street had both died. Way too young. So had my neighbor to the east who was blind and very old when I lost my house. We all knew that was coming. The man of the house on the west had died too, but his harpy of a wife – a woman who reported me to the police for giving her son champagne for his high school graduation – still spreads her venom. 

There is no justice or logic to those who continue and those who stop, is there?

Just one of Lynn Ruth Miller’s books

One very special guest at A Grape in The Fog was Lennon Smith who helped me formulate my very first one woman show Farewell To The Tooth Fairy – a series of stories from my book Thoughts While Walking The Dog. It was she who began me on the path that led to the Toast Award and the cabarets I do regularly in London and Edinburgh.

So there I was, my past clustered about me, drinking exquisite wine and smiling indulgently as well-meaning, kind people insisted I had not changed one whit even though I am two inches shorter and look like something someone soaked in the bath two hours too long.  

They laughed at British jokes they could not understand because they cared about me.  

‘Dogging’ to them is following someone too closely.

‘Bums’ live in the street.

 But so what?  

I was once theirs and they wanted me to know I was not forgotten.

The next day was my day with Pattie Lockard.

Pattie has been not just a fan but a promoter and a helper for years and years.  

I discovered her doing PR for Menopause the Musical and now she is the founder and spirit behind Nurse Talk – a call-in and political radio series that explores nurses’ rights, health issues and adventures in the nursing profession. It is a beautiful mix of humor and information and I did several short pieces on the show.

Pattie and I met that day at The Cheesecake Factory which serves portions that would make an elephant flinch and then tops it with a slice of cheesecake that would send the slimmest among us to Weight Watchers.  

Then we drove out to her new home in Napa.

Napa is the place that makes all those California wines we buy at Sainsbury’s. It is a charming place filled with vineyards and wineries, Victorian houses and boutique shops.

Pattie’s partner is a working nurse. She is directly involved in the health care system in California and sees first hand the way the insurance companies have profited at the expense of the sick. She is a strong advocate for single pay insurance, as is Pattie. But she is not fond of me.

When I had the misfortune to stay at their home years ago after I broke my heel, Pattie’s partner screamed at me: “You and your Jew ways!” and asked me to leave the house, when I was doing nothing but sitting in her living room with my leg in a cast.  

When she heard I was visiting Pattie this time, she left the house to visit a relative.  

I spent the night in their home and, at ten the next morning, Pattie came in to tell me I had to leave immediately because her partner was on her way home,

I have encountered many people who do not like me and I have always believed that is their right. After all, if everyone loves you, you are really nothing to anybody.  

However, this time I felt a bit miffed because, as far as I know, I have done nothing offensive to this woman to ignite this level of disgust.  

I am beginning to understand the insult people feel when they are discriminated against for something that has nothing to do with who they are… and I also realize nothing I can do will change that attitude.  

We are all different people and that is a good thing.

I believe this was a very good experience for me to learn compassion for others.   

I understand much more completely now how invasive and illogical racism is and how it feels to be hated (such a strong word) by someone you have hardly had a conversation with.

… CONTINUED HERE …