Memorial Day = meat

Well, I’m back to the grind today after a successful weekend of holiday partying. And by successful, I mean ingesting the equivalent of my body weight in grilled pig and cow products. My one disappointment? - being unable to show a lonely fleet week sailor my special brand of NYC hospitality. Oh well, there’s always next year. Actually, I think the fleet’s still in town until tomorrow morning so that leaves me a couple of hours. I do enjoy a challenge.

Anyway, thanks to Peter & Ray and Damienne & Steve for inviting me to their respective rooftop barbecues and to my homeboy, God, for supplying such lovely weather. I can’t even believe I actually know people who have rooftop apartments, let alone who like me enough to invite me to their parties and let me meet their friends. Hello newly found self-esteem!

P&R’s party Saturday night was such a delight because there was nary an actor or performer in sight (ooh, that rhymes). It was such a relief not to have to answer the dreaded and annoying, “Are you doing anything right now?” I was actually able to hold full conversations without once mentioning an audition or callback or having to explain why Bernie Telsey hates me or why Audra is so fierce. And the food! Leave it to the gays to convert the lowly barbecue into a culinary extravaganza. Although I’m still not quite convinced about the watermelon and mint sprinkled with English salt.

The usual suspects were spotted at D&S’s rooftop on Monday. A party there is always welcome because you know the regulars will show up and you can just be your stupid self. I’ve known these characters since I moved into the city over a decade ago hanging out at the now defunct Le Beaujolais Restaurant - which is, coincidentally, the location of one of my worst alcoholic binges. I will always be indebted to Chris Johnson for cleaning up the puddles of puke on the restaurant floor where I laid clutching a silver champagne bucket, while Damienne (who owned the restaurant at the time) and the gang sat at the bar laughing at my misfortune. Ah, the memories. Anyway, the party actually did get more interesting, since the cast of The Lion King showed up because Steve happens to work at the Minskoff. How many people can say they got to taste Mochi’s lumpia? Alas, we weren’t able to get her to give us the skinny on the final episode of Step It Up and Dance. So I guess we’ll just have to watch the episode like everyone else this week. FYI - 30 years old? Really? If you say so, sweetie.

Chris and Betsy have promised to send me pics from the weekend’s festivities to post here, so you’ll see ‘em when I get ‘em.

Hmmm, what else? Oh, Trish and I caught the new Indiana Jones. It was thoroughly entertaining, if not extraordinary, and Shia was actually not as annoying as I thought he would be. Great special effects and interesting storyline, but Harrison sure is getting old. Aren’t we all? You’ll always be Han Solo to me.

LOC’s Young Artist production of Pirates of Penzance goes into tech week tomorrow. Should be extremely, extremely scary considering we’ve had maybe half a dozen rehearsals and we haven’t really run anything more than once. Pray for us.