There are free tubs of fancy red lipstick next to every sink on the bathroom counter. I take one even though I don’t wear lipstick because it’s free. I put it on and look like a little girl playing dress up. I wet a paper towel and wipe most of it off before heading back into the theater. Jeffrey Tambor is accepting his award for Transparent. Were you alive to see this show? God, it’s good. You would love it.
My heart starts pounding during the segment before the In Memoriam segment. The screen displays a warning that it’s coming up next. Then the lights go dim, and Mom fetches Kleenex out of her purse. We grab hands tightly. The room falls silent. Your picture flashes on the screen for several moments with the caption Harris Wittels, Writer/Producer. It’s a shot of you playing Harris, the animal-control guy, on Parks. You’re wearing a flannel over a purple Phish T-shirt with a rainbow logo. Your head is in a vise. It’s the weirdest photo in the bunch. Mom and I cry. The people around us cry. When the slide show is over, the boisterous, bustling crowd is completely still, reverent and quiet. The whole room is focused on honoring those who have recently passed. You are the youngest one by several decades.
© 2014 NBCUniversal Media, LLC.
Parks loses Best Comedy series to Veep, which is bullshit. I mean, it was a likely conclusion but still disappointing. No one is particularly bummed about it. I guess it’s just how it goes. But it would have been nice to win, since the show just wrapped forever and one of the executive producers was just featured in the In Memoriam with his head in a vise.
After the awards ceremony, which takes a short lifetime, the entire auditorium at the Microsoft Theater files out of the same three side doors and walks in a herd to the Governor’s Ball at the convention center across the street. It is like walking into magic or the most expensive wedding reception I’ve ever seen. Thousands of twinkling lights hang from floor to ceiling. A huge, layered stage is in the center of the room like a gigantic cake with a band on top. Pink and magenta lights shine into every corner. Massive, white floral arrangements sit on every table. Every inch is dripping with money.
Right when we enter, we are greeted warmly by the woman you were dating on and off during the year leading up to your death. The one who came after Sarah. She’s a talent agent, which is why she’s here. We know her because she’s Jewish and from Houston, so we’re basically from the same tribe. You actually went on your first date when you were home last Christmas break—I remember how skeptical you were but how much fun you ultimately had. I don’t know why it didn’t work out between you two. Well, I do. Heroin. I know that you went to her house the night before you died and begged her to let you inside, to give it another shot. But she was already dating someone else by then, and your last-ditch effort failed. Yet another shame. She was a good one.
After hugs and goodbyes, we head to our table: 420, your birthday, the birthday of Hitler, and the National Day of Weed. We sit down with the Parks producers. Everyone swears they had nothing to do with the table number. Of all the numbers in the room, we are all randomly seated at 420? It’s a sign. It has to be a sign. (You did this, right?)
After a few minutes, we track down Amy Poehler and Mike Schur. Amy grabs us and squeezes us tightly. I remember when we first met her. It must have been 2010. Mom and I were visiting you in LA, and you were shooting a scene at some bar that would be the Snakehole Lounge in Pawnee, the fictitious Indiana town where the show takes place. At some point, the actors went on a short break, and Amy and Rashida Jones rushed over to meet Mom and me. They were both eating bags of potato chips. Amy was like, “Oh my gosh, is this your family?! We love him so much!” She embraced us both with enormous hugs. She asked what I did, and I told her I taught middle-school theater (which was true at the time), to which she responded, “I loved doing theater in school! What are you working on?” Mom jumped right in and responded, “She just directed The Importance of Being Earnest and she won first place at UIL!” This was just the most Mom moment. As if Amy Poehler gives a shit about my stupid middle-school drama competition. But you sure would have thought I’d said I was the president of the United States. Both of them were so excited about it. “Wow, that’s amazing!” When a production person came to pull them back to set to shoot the next scene, they apologized to us for having to go.
You always said Parks was the nicest set in Hollywood, and I learned then that it was true. These were normal, nice people. I’m glad that they were the
