Author Patches Into Party Line at Round Table West

She was terrified of two things, she admitted: “Speaking in public and throwing a party and having nobody show up.”

Well, no problem with the party. A few hundred people showed up at the Balboa Bay Club last week to hear first-time author Margo Kaufman-- “1-800-Am-I Nuts? (And Other True Tales of the Nineties)”--speak at the monthly meeting of Round Table West.

As for the public speaking part, problem solved: Kaufman took the stage holding a cellular phone. “I’ve never spoken publicly in my life, but I speak to people on the phone all the time. I’m just going to pretend like I called you,” she deadpanned.

She wrote the 312-page book “because I didn’t know if it was me or society that was going crazy,” she said. “I’ve always wished there was a number I could call when something weird happened--to see if it was me or life. Life has become really peculiar.”

For example: “There was that time I was walking along Venice Beach and tripped on a head of broccoli. Not just a floret, mind you. An entire head. Was it a salad-bar spill?”

And there was the time her Venice neighbor was being harassed by a drunk. “I called 911 and got voice mail . ‘Press one if you are being mugged,’ it said.

“Call this book a collection of sanity checks. Random House loved my title. They said no one has ever heard of me, but the title is catchy.”

One of her favorite chapters is titled “It’s in the Male,” Kaufman said, smiling. “Where can I get a male ego? I want one. Recently, my husband and I were in an elevator and he pushed the button. After a few minutes, I said: ‘Honey, we’re not moving.’ ”

“ ‘Sure we are,’ he said with certainty. I was getting a little claustrophobic, so I pushed the button. The elevator began to ascend. My husband looked at me and said: ‘There must be something wrong with the button.’

“I don’t know one woman who would come to that conclusion!”

Summing up her zany book--which also has chapters titled “Blighted Beach Memoirs,” “No Crater Love,” “Diary of a Mad Puppy Owner” and “Backfire of the Vanities” (the hilarious take on beauty addicts that got her on the “Oprah Winfrey Show”--Kaufman said: “You just can’t get through life without a sense of humor these days.

“The most awful things can be really funny. You have to be able to laugh or gets too depressing.”

*

Golden Baton Gala a ball: “Oh, shoot,” whispered John Crean, who was beginning to squirm at the Golden Baton Gala at the Four Seasons Hotel on Saturday night.

Arts activist Elaine Redfield was on stage praising the generosity of Crean and his wife, Donna, and John’s face was turning pink.

In minutes, the Creans would receive the Golden Baton Award from the Orange County Philharmonic Society. Past recipients have included Redfield, UCI founding chancellor Daniel Aldrich and conductor Zubin Mehta.

“It’s embarrassing,” confided John Crean, founder of Fleetwood Enterprises, the Fortune 500 company that is the world’s largest manufacturer of motor homes, travel trailers and manufactured housing.

Earlier, over a dinner of beef tenderloin, Crean said the many awards the couple receive yearly are “fun, an honor, but an embarrassment.”

“I always feel really dumb when I go up on stage to receive whatever the award is,” he said. (Annually, the couple, who live in Santa Ana Heights, donate half of their income to charity. “We donate to hundreds of charities,” John Crean said.)

Presenting the Golden Baton trophy--a small, graceful sculpture of a hand holding a conductor’s baton--to the Creans, Redfield said: “With much gratitude, the Orange County Philharmonic Society extends their highest honor to this very special couple.”

In turn, the Creans presented Redfield with an envelope. “The winner is . . ., “ she teased, opening it.

“The winner is the Philharmonic Society,” she said, wide-eyed. “This is a check for $25,000!”

During dinner, Donna Crean, who wore a bib necklace of diamonds and heart-shaped emeralds, explained that she hadn’t yet put the couple’s annual check to the society in the mail. “So, I decided to bring it along tonight,” she said.

The party-goers gave the Creans a standing ovation.

“We have a committee of two,” John Crean said, telling the crowd how the couple decide which charities to support. “We each have one vote. This charity is one Donna voted for and I went along with it.”

Donna loves the society’s music outreach to young children, she said. Annually, the society offers free music programs to 300,000 Orange County school children.

“The society offers the children the chance to hear fine music before their parents can prejudice them against it,” she said. “I really like that.”

Bobbitt Williams of Huntington Harbour was chairwoman of the $175-per-person gala, which raised about $55,000.

Committee members included Susan Beechner, Gloria Gellman, Eva Schneider, Jack and Nancy Caldwell, Jean Tandowsky, Missy Prowell, Sharon McNalley, Jane Lawson, Cindy Beyl and John Benecke.