Hanging with Mr. Conner

I'll make no pretenses about it. I'm writing this post to blatantly brag about my star-studded Wednesday night. I attended the premiere screening of HBO's newest film "You Don't Know Jack", a chilling story of the country's most famous and infamous physician, Dr. Jack Kevorkian. The film, which screened at the Ziegfeld Theater to an invite-only crowd of about 400, stars Al Pacino, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, to name drop a few.

They were all there, feet away from me: a tiny, aging, bushy-haired but unmistakably cool Al Pacino with a hot 20-something draped on his arm, Susan Sarandon on crutches with a cast around her ankle and John Goodman sweating through the back of his button down and grabbing a soda at the concession stand muttering (to my guest) "I gotta get out of this mess."

The movie was good- intense and surprising, sad and thoughtful. I didn't realize Kevorkian had helped more than 150 people kill themselves. Some of them were as young as 30 years old. The movie features actual footage of his diseased, disabled, mentally and terminally ill patients begging for death.

Still, he's not portrayed as a villain, which is all I really remember him as. It focuses on his adamant belief that assisted suicide was an act of mercy and a way to honor a dying person's last wishes with dignity. During the movie, I kept changing my mind about him. Sometimes I agreed. Other times it all frustrated me.

The Kevorkian drama went down in the mid to late nighties, although I don't remember the hype at all like I do OJ's (which my fourth grade teacher watched obsessively on a television hidden under her desk instead of actually teaching class for weeks).

Kevorkian was even in the audience, sitting a few rows ahead of Pacino. It was pretty eerie when he stood up to a hearty applause. He's in his eighties now after spending seven years in jail.

Just another only in New York night I can't help but brag about.