One of my favorite moments of the NALIP conference happened on the very last day at the very last luncheon, which was really the last thing I expected. The luncheons were held outside the main restaurant of the resort. They set up a tent overlooking the Pacific and the Laguna hills. If there is one thing I love about this conference is that it’s the one film conference I’ve ever gone to where they feed you—meals are included in the registration price! No one ever does that. I love that they go by that old film crew mantra: you don’t have to pay ’em, but you have to feed ’em. Of course it could also be a another thing: who ever heard of any Latino get together where there isn’t food?
Anyway I was hoping to sit with the other volunteers (check out my last blog to understand why), but that table was completely filled up. I looked around and sat down at a fairly empty table except for three older gentlemen sitting and finishing their meals. For the most part, I ate in silence but I could hear their conversations. The three of them were talking about acting. The first day of the conference was an actor’s fest put on by Back Stage, so every Latino actor in town was here for that, too. All three of these guys— Ramon Hilario, Henry Vega, and Louis Olivios— were busy joking about people they knew on the sets or stuff they auditioned for. They were relatively new to the acting scene. From their attitudes and conversations they were too busy living life to worry about acting until recently only being around it for, at most, the past eight years (at least on film). These guy reminded me—and almost sounded like— those older guys sitting on the stoops back in Brooklyn who drank maybe a little much, always smoked too much and always had some sort of fun and wild tale to tell to anyone who would listen. They were chatting away about acting and auditioning, when one of them mentioned an actor that guested on the TV show Cane. I thought I knew who it was that got the role but I was wrong. Still I told them what I thought and jumped headlong into their conversation. I couldn’t tell you a lot of what was said, but I was laughing most of the time.
As this was the final luncheon of the conference, the heads of the conference were up thanking everyone from the executive directors on down. Of course us volunteers were thanked as “all the volunteers who made the conference happen.” I knew the guy at the mike saying thanks to everyone that he could see, but I wasn’t going to say anything to him. The next thing I know, my name is being screamed out by Henry, Ramon and Louis behind me to the guy on stage. My friend on stage looks over to the table, says my name, and those three guys behind me start cheering and clapping—and I’m pretty sure only those three in the entire tent clapped. But that was the nicest applause I think I’ve ever received in my life. Hands down it was my favorite moment of the conference.