MY MOTHER PARTICIPATES IN one of those sponsor-a-child programs and has a boy in Guatemala to whom she sends money each month. She’s been doing it for a long time.
“He sent me a Christmas card,” she said that first holiday season.
“That’s so sweet,” my sister said. “What’s his name?”
“Felix.”
“Felix?” we said. “That doesn’t sound very Guatemalan. What’s his last name?”
“Wait,” my mother said. “Let me get the card … It’s Navidad.”
She thought the name of her sponsored child was “Merry Christmas.”
We still joke about Mr. Felix Navidad.
I am a firm believer in giving back, and I encourage you to do as much charity work as you possibly can —especially if your work allows me finally to take a break. In fact, in writing this book, I’ve been surprised by how often I’ve said things that could fall under the theme It’s Hard to Be Nice.
That’s not saying you shouldn’t be nice for society’s sake, nor that it doesn’t ultimately pay off for you personally, but let’s be honest: Niceness can at times feel a little bit thankless.
My wonderful associate, Marsha, and I have lunch together in my office every day when we’re both free. At one recent lunch she was teasing me about how many charity lunches I go to. We took a bet on how many it actually was, and then we got out the calendar. A little math later, we realized I had attended more than sixty such lunches in the past year. That’s more than one a week, far more than I see my family or my closest friends.
It’s a hard thing to complain about. And no one knows this more than I do, having spent most of my life far from the in crowd. But please indulge me. There is this expectation that once you’re in a certain social world, you have endless obligations to it.
I was at a reception for Bill Clinton at someone’s apartment on Park Avenue, and as thrilled as I was to be there on one level, on another, I was just so drained from a long day of work that my idea of a good time involved getting under the covers with a book. While I was there, I was thinking how ironic it was that at one time I would have killed to be at this party. Now I would kill to be home watching game shows.
But maybe part of the problem is that I am just too clueless to move in high society. I’m often struck by how unworldly I am. A lot of invitations I get are receptions or dinners where you’re expected to write a check, especially if it’s for a political figure or a cause. And there I am showing up, ready just to have a drink and gossip, when in fact I’m supposed to be calculating how many thousands of dollars I have to hand over. I’ve realized I need to read the fine print.
The worst part is that the hosts are always surprised when I’m surprised. “Why did you think we were having this party?” they say when I stumble at the check-writing portion of the evening.
“Um, for fun?” I am so naive.
IT FEELS RIDICULOUS TO complain about a call from Bette Midler, but I feel like I can, because it’s not like she ever calls just to chat. It’s always about an event. Not long ago, she called to invite me to a fund-raiser for the New York Restoration Project, her tree-planting initiative here in New York City. Well, it wasn’t really an invite as much as an order. “You are coming to this event I’ve having, aren’t you?” she said. “And you are buying a tree, aren’t you?”
I did go, and I bought two trees, and it was all perfectly charming—but also, like all these things, a little painful. I was sitting next to Martha Stewart at the dinner, and the second Bette stood up to speak, Martha vanished. I turned around and she was just gone, without a trace.
“Where did she go?” I whispered to someone at the table.
“When she knows she’s about to get hit up for money, she does a disappearing act,” the person replied.
It’s harder on people who, unlike me, have really serious money. My friend Dr. Sheila C. Johnson, who founded and ran Black Entertainment Television with her now ex-husband, received 1.5 billion dollars in a divorce settlement. We go to events together occasionally, and I’m always struck by how shameless people are in asking her for money wherever she goes. Her mother’s friends are forever calling her, asking for $7 million for the church or some such thing, and she’s always telling her mom, “Please stop telling your friends I will give them money. It’s my money, and I will choose what to do with it!”
For the last event we went to together, I suggested we make a train of gold foil coins to attach to her gown. It would trail behind her to announce, “The horn of plenty has arrived!”
IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T guessed by now, I’m at these kinds of events all the time. I can’t get more than a sip of a glass of wine at a party because I’m getting pulled this way and that for press or for work or for the show. There’s no air in my schedule.
I know it’s a high-class problem, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world. After being a poverty-stricken academic for so long, I am glad I can now afford to write checks occasionally to benefit worthy causes. But now that I’m not broke I have problems a lot more complicated than deciding which flavor of ramen noodles to cook up. Specifically: When do all the pleas for money stop? When I run out of cash and am back to the ramen?
This is one of the pitfalls of being nice: You wind up overextending yourself. That’s why one of the most important things to learn after you master good behavior is how to say no gracefully. It’s ultimately better for everyone, because you don’t burn out and wind up in a mental institution, making you no good to anyone at all.
Slowly but surely, I’m learning where to draw the line and what does or doesn’t make sense when it comes to do-gooding and to time commitments.
I ran the Parsons Fashion Benefit for years. I enjoyed doing it, but it kept getting more and more overwhelming, and I started to realize people would have gladly paid more not to attend. I constantly sat in opposition to what the party planners thought was best for the event. My belief is: Shorter is better. Always. But the people in charge always thought the more money people were spending the longer the evening should be. Wrong! They want to go home.
We have to rethink these things. It should be about collecting the money and saying thanks. A French luxury-goods organization used to have a ridiculously lavish benefit every year.
I DO A LOT of speaking engagements and love it. In spite of how formal I look with my suits and ties, I try to keep lectures very casual and relaxed. I don’t like podiums. I like to walk around. And I keep track of how the audience is responding. If they seem bored, I just stop altogether. I usually designate someone in the front row to keep track of the time for me and to raise her arm when it’s time to wrap it up.
At that point, we can have a Q&A, or we can just leave. Teaching helps me to do a decent job with pretty much any auditorium full of students, because I can really read a room. I’m lucky to have this skill and the humility to put it into practice. By contrast, celebrities typically come with a script and don’t know how to improvise or wrap up quickly if things go off track.
The worst ever was Phil Donahue. He was an honoree at a benefit, and I was presenting an award after his acceptance speech. I heard the stage manager remind him that he had three minutes to speak, but he talked for forty minutes. Forty minutes. It was mind-numbing. The first thing I said when I walked out was, “I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to say.” It got a big laugh.
Recently I was at a college event. There was to be a talk, then a Q&A, and then a forty-five-minute book signing. The schedule was mapped out, and I was looking forward to getting back to the hotel by nine thirty p.m. even if it ran over. I could almost taste the room service.
During the Q&A, I noticed that a third of the audience had left, and I thought,
