Friday, May 28, 2010

Heather Pink Interview V

Luke Ford says:

Luke: “Why did you move to LA in 2006?”

Heather: “After the Andrew Parker scandal, I was blacklisted. People wouldn’t talk to me. People sided with him because he could get them into the better parties, better clubs. It’s very superficial here like that. And he was the It Boy at the time. I basically had to leave. I was pushed out of the social circle.

“People would talk to me to see what I was doing so they could report back to him. Or they would tell me, oh yeah, we saw him out with that girl or these people. I didn’t really want to hear that, so I just left.

“Los Angeles was a hard adjustment. The first year I couldn’t stand it. I hated the food, so I learned to cook really well to emulate the food I was eating in New York. I made some very good friends. I probably have better friends in LA than I do in New York now.”

Luke: “Why did you leave ****?”

Heather: “I think I just grew up. I kinda wanted a relationship. I wanted people to take me seriously. I had the potential to do other things.

Read On



Heather Pink Interview III

Luke Ford says:

“The next thing I knew, I was traveling. I was in it for years. I was working at the Gold Club in Atlanta.

“I didn’t stay there long. I wasn’t jaded by life enough to do that. The dances there were $10 and they charged you $300 a night to work there.

“I took a regular job.”

Luke: “How did working as a dancer affect your life?”

Heather: “I have knee problems to this day. I wasn’t eating a lot, but I drank every day for eight months. It was basically a requirement. If you refused alcohol, you’d be reprimanded. Now I don’t even drink at all, hardly.”

Luke: “Why would the clubs want you to drink alcohol?”

Heather: “Because it increased your sales. They could charge more money for dancer’s drinks.”

Read On



Heather Pink Interview

Luke Ford says:

I met Heather Pink and her boyfriend Andrew Parker in Tampa Bay between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of 2005.

We were at the “Tampa Show”, an informal gathering of Shakespeare scholars.

I wrote then:

She’s a nice Jewish girl (the youngest of five children) who went to Brandeis University before transferring to the University of Miami where she graduated with degrees in journalism and political science.

Heather grew up in New York (she now lives in Manhattan), attending at times a Reform synagogue with her family. At age 12, she had a bat mitzvah. “My brother had a better one.”

She says she’s been reading me since 1998.

“I wish I would’ve stayed at Brandeis. I would’ve turned out a lot better. I had the grades. I was intelligent in that way. But I was very immature at 19 and I wanted to go to Florida.”

Read On



Heather Pink Interview IV

Luke Ford says:

Luke: “How did you meet up with Andrew Parker?”

Heather: “I woke up the morning after new years and I was in bed with him.

“A friend of mine had a party in Tribeca. I didn’t want to go back up town. I had an apartment in the city but I lived in Florida. So I slept over. So I guess he came in later and got in the other side of the bed. It was a large bed.

“So I roll over in bed the next morning and he’s there. He says, ‘I’m hung over. Let’s get a bloody mary.’

“That happened. Two weeks go by. It was my birthday. I was going to come up for the weekend. He threw a party for me. Somehow I ended up moving in.”

“It was the only high-profile coupleness that I was ever in. I’ve been with high profile people since then but I never really wanted to be a public couple again because people are pulling for the relationship not to work out.

Read On



Heather Pink Interview II

Luke Ford says:

For the past 18 months, Heather has been dating New York nightclub owner, film producer and real estate investor Noel Ashman.

Heather works as an event promoter and Manhattan socialite.

Wednesday afternoon, we talk by phone about her life after college.

Heather, who lives in Manhattan: “I took a job working for a politician in Palm Beach County. I got fired because his wife didn’t like me. I had just gotten an apartment. I had spent all this money. I had bills. I was looking through the paper. This was before there were a lot of jobs on the internet. There was an ad for dancers, make $500 or $5,000 a week. I figured I would take that job until something else came up.

“The next thing I knew, I was traveling. I was in it for years. I was working at the Gold Club in Atlanta.

“I didn’t stay there long. I wasn’t jaded by life enough to do that. The dances there were $10 and they charged you $300 a night to work there.

Read On



Monday, May 24, 2010

The Good Therapist

Luke Ford says:

I’ve had therapists come into my life and I’ve had them go out of my life.

Looking back, I think my every therapist has been excellent.

Here’s what I’ve appreciated in them:

* They’ve made it easy to connect with them. I’ve never felt like I had to put up fences or pretenses. They’ve never preached at me. They’ve never pronounced damning judgment.

* When they’re late, they’re appropriately apologetic. Timeliness is very important to me. Tardiness is theft.

* They ease me out of my story while never fighting my need to talk.

Read On



Psychology Vs. Torah

Luke Ford says:

Orthodox rabbi Marc B. Shapiro blogs April 15, 2010:

As I review the entire corpus of Judaic literature in my head, I can’t find much about trauma. I wonder if trauma is goyisha thinking (outside of Torah and hence has no validity)?

I remember moving to the United States at age 11 and suddenly people started saying I was insecure.

I was just as insecure when I lived in Australia, but when I moved to California in 1977 I was suddenly surrounded by people immersed in psychological thinking.

And then weren’t as many abos around.

When my father was kicked out of the Seventh-Day Adventist ministry in 1980, I was 14. Many of my peers speculated that this would traumatize me. I immediately accepted this. I thought, I’m traumatized and I’m miserable and I hate the church. I proceeded to have a miserable ninth grade. I got a 1.2 (D average) GPA in my first semester. I thought of myself as a victim.

I’m fascinated by the discussion about sexual abuse and trauma here.

Read On