Here Lies Love - Imelda's MTV moment

Public Theatre

Saturday, July 6 @ 5pm

First off, I have to congratulate my homegirl, Jaygee, for tearing it up as Imelda Marcos at today’s performance of Here Lies Love.  I met Jaygee back in 2001 at the now defunct Seaside Music Theater in Daytona Beach, FL, where she shot and killed me nightly in their production of Miss Saigon.  Ah, the memories.

Smacking the shit out of Jaygee in Miss Saigon.

Following the recent NYC trend of immersive/environmental stagings (Sleep No More, Great Comet of 1812, Murder Ballad et al), the Public transforms one of their theatres into a dance club where moveable stages and platforms surround the standing audience.  The actors move among, around and above the audience/party-goers, as they dramatize the milestones in the Filipino first lady’s life.  And of course, with a score by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, it’s all set to a thumping dance beat.

It’s all pretty trippy.  You’re led up stairs to the performance venue as the hall fills with hazy smoke.  You emerge into a cavernous, neon lit room where elector-dance music is blaring and ushers in orange jumpsuits dance and guide you to fill in the space.

With the wild lighting, driving bass and techno drum beats, hypnotic music, hip hop choreography, quick cutting scenes and video projections, it feels like a Willy Wonky-type acid trip through Imelda Marcos’ scrapbook.  It’s a sensory overload that is thrilling for the first hour or so, but does get a tad tiresome as you feel your calf muscles start tightening up from standing.  But it's worth that extra effort to reach the emotionally satisfying last 10 minutes of this intermissionless show.

We've obviously made-up.  After the show at the Public.

I usually hate any type of audience interaction/participation (see my review of Hair) since I really feel like I’m paying you to entertain me and not the other way around.  But I didn’t really mind it here since the participation seems so intrinsic to the staging of the show.  

One of my personal show highlights didn’t even happen on stage, but in the audience.  At one point in the evening, the show’s DJ leads the audience in a great Filipino cultural tradition – the line dance.   An older gentlemen refused to participate and stood right up front with his arms firmly crossed, scowling at the rest of the audience who happily danced along.  Gramps was not having it.

There were also a couple of folks who succumbed to the heat.  Hey, Public Theatre, if you’re gonna’ sardine can an audience into a big ole box and force them to dance around, at least crank up the AC!

But let me get back to the crazy, eclectic audienct.  Aside from grumpy old guy, there were gay club kids, several middle-aged bear types, lots of hipsters and many drunk, white, twenty-something posers who probably read on gawker that this was the “hot new thing” but had no actual interest in the show (as demonstrated by their constant need to check their smartphones).  Oh, and Asians.  Lots of Asians.

I heard some complaints that the show is light on content and heavy on flash, but I think that's the point.  The subject matter dictates the form.  And in this case, art imitates life.

Staycation 2013 NYC part deux

Friday, July 5 (click here for part une)

Unlike the rest of civilized society, my office decided to open for business the Friday after July 4.  I sat in my empty office and watched the clock tick by as my phone and inbox sat silent for five hours.  The powers that be at least had the sense to let us leave after lunch.

Tonight, the boys and girls split up for separate date nights.  I took Juan for a belated birthday dinner to michelin-starred Aldea for their nine-course Brazilian tasting menu.  Coincidentally, Trish and I noshed here earlier in the summer during our Memorial Day staycation.  If you're an adventurous eater and appreciate gorgeous plating, you can't go wrong for the $95 price tag.

Three hours later, Juan and I stumbled out of Aldea in an Iberian food coma.  Time to burn some calories by renting citibikes.  After some issues with the credit card kiosk - nothing a few good kicks and a slew of obscenities couldn't fix - we were peddling back downtown to the hotel.  What's that saying?  You never forget how to ride a bike...bullshit.  I was weaving back and forth on First Avenue like a drunk drag queen in platform stilettos.

The girls chose a date spot in Little Italy, walking distance from the hotel.  Val's sporting her new pixie cut.  While I was twiddling my thumbs in the office earlier in the day, Juan, Val and Trish were getting all Housewives-of-Orange-County at the salon with haircuts, massages and mani-pedis.  Bitches!

Trish is showing off her fancy dessert.  She and Val were generous enough to bring back a bag of Italian goodies for Juan and I to try.  So what if we had just finished a 9-course dinner, there's always room for a cannoli.

Saturday, July 6

Still woozy from last night's food orgy, Juan and I decided on an early morning bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Since we purchased 24-hour citibike memberships the night before, we still had several hours of rental time available to us when we got up this morning.

I'm finally getting my "bike legs" back after nearly a decade of living bikeless in the city.  On a side note, notice the unintentional cross branding.

In theory, a bike trek across the Brooklyn Bridge seems like a pleasant enough way to spend a morning.  In practice, it sucks balls.  With the mercury already nearing 90 degrees and the humidity crushing my out of shape lungs, we made it about two-thirds of the way to the first tower before I felt the pangs of an impending heart attack.  We decided to stop and take a breather while enjoying the downtown Manhattan skyline.

Here's my artsy-fartsy overhead shot.

I take one more minute to catch my breath before heading back to dry land.

Here's Juan.

After working up our appetites crossing (at least partially) the Brooklyn Bridge, Juan and I dropped off our bikes and headed back to the hotel to pick up the ladies.  Next stop, Petit Abeille for waffles and mimosas.  Directly across the street from the restaurant we spotted this freakish array of superheros and marine life hanging out in front of the Balloon Saloon.  In NYC there is literally a specialty store for everything.

After brunch, we bid Juan and Val a fond adieu.  Juan, unfortunately, has a church job so he and Val had to cut their weekend short.  Trish and I, however, decided to keep the hotel room an extra day and extend our Chinatown staycation.

After a power nap, Trish and I were hankering for some Vietnamese food.  Based on yelp reviews, we headed to Bo Ky, which was just around the corner from our hotel.  I'm not gonna' lie, the place seemed a little ghetto and the cleanliness level was, well, just a notch above outdoor truckstop picnic table, but damn, the food tasted good.  You know it's authentic when you can't spot a single white face in the joint.

I'm enjoying a bowl of yummy pho and an appetizer portion (yes, appetizer portion) of their fried spring rolls.

Trish opted for a heaping plate of marinated steak.  Amazing how a delicious chunk of cow can make you forget all about that sticky spot on the table top.  Shout out to our waitress, a crazy old Asian grandma, who helped allay our initial wariness and made us feel like we were having lunch in her dining room.

After dinner Trish and I headed a few blocks uptown to the Public Theatre where my gorgeous and talented friend, Jaygee, is appearing in David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's environmentally-staged rock musical, Here Lies Love, based on the tumultuous life of Filipino first lady, Imelda Marcos.

Me with the delightful Jaygee after her rockin' performance as Imelda Marcos.  She's the swing and understudy for Imelda so when I heard she would be going on this weekend, I bought my ticket pronto.  (Read my review)

Trish and I were exhausted from the day's flurry of activity and non-stop noshing, so we decided to take advantage of our last evening at the hotel by watching TV and lounging in our PJ's.

Sunday, July 7

Our staycation is nearly over, but not before one last stop for soup dumplings.  We checked our bags in the hotel lobby and headed to Shanghai Gourmet.

11am on a Sunday morning in Chinatown - nothing like having an empty restaurant all to yourself.  These babies arrived just in time to sate a raging dumpling craving.  Soup dumplings are exactly what they sound like, tasty little bundles of scalding hot broth and pork wrapped in a slightly sweet dough.  Heaven.

As a final farewell to the lower east side, Trish and I ventured slightly northward to the Essex Street Market where we leisurely strolled passed the many arstisonal vendors.  Still bloated from our earlier dumpling adventure, we left empty handed and merely made mental notes for our next visit.

One cannot venture to the lower east side and not make a pilgrimage to the Doughnut Plant.  So on our way back to the hotel from Essex Street, we made a little detour and visited their original location.  And after ordering a half dozen luscious, diabetes-inducing beauties for the walk home, we opted to wash it all down with a "healthy" drink option - fresh watermelon juice! 

Staycation 2013 NYC

With the Pineda family squirreling away every extra penny for Juan and Val's adoption fund, we decided to forgo our usual July Fourth trip to DC's swanky Omni Shoreham.  I'll surely miss luxuriating in the outdoor pool while an attentive staff plies me with frozen libations.  Oh well, if I want a little niece or nephew that I can dress in inappropriate message tees, I'm going to have to make a few sacrifices.

Instead, we decided on a last minute staycation in the city - a decision that left us with very few lodging options.  Sure, there were plenty of $1,000 a night rooms in five star hotels, but blowing a month's rent on one night seemed just a tad unreasonable.  And though I love Juan and Val, I wasn't about to spoon with either one of them in a tiny cot in some nasty fleabag hotel.

Lucky for us, Trish was able to work her internet magic and found a very reasonably-priced boutique hotel in Chinatown with unusually high yelp and tripadvisor ratings.  We decided to spin the hotel roulette wheel and take a chance on the Hotel Mulberry.

Wednesday, July 3

Technically, my apartment in Astoria is less than 10 miles from the hotel.  But I've always been an uptown kinda' guy, having never lived below 42nd Street.  So a long weekend in Chinatown seemed just as foreign to me as a trek to the exotic Orient.

Due to the impending holiday I only had to work a half day at the office.  So after lunch I headed back to my apartment to stuff an old backpack with shorts and t-shirts for the expected 90-plus degree weather.  Juan, Trish and Val drove up from Jersey right after camp and met me in Astoria where we boarded the N train for the 30-minute ride downtown.  After entertaining some elderly tourists from Pittsburgh (on their way to Eataly) with our sparkling wit and clever sex-in-the-city banter, we got off at Canal Street and found ourselves in the midst of a torrential downpour.

Nevertheless, we sucked it up and trudged through the murky brown water now running through the streets and between my open-toed sandals, all the while telling myself, "This is not human waste running up through the sewer, it's just dirt."  The stench, of course, seemed to betray the truth of my mantra.

Damp, sticky and sweating, we eventually found our way to the Hotel Mulberry.  I'm obviously enthralled by our hotel room's dramatic dusk view of downtown Manhattan with the Freedom Tower shining in the distance.  Below, a soccer field afforded us equally breathtaking views of sweaty, shirtless jocks kickin' it during daylight hours.

Inspired by a fellow subway rider, we photographed this colorful mosaic inside the subway stop closest to our hotel.  What a difference a "C" makes. 

For our first night on staycation I made a reservation at Bacaro, a cozy Italian joint on the eastern edge of Chinatown.  It's apparently one of Padma Lakshmi's favorite restaurants in NYC.  With its downstairs seating, exposed stone walls and maze of tunnels and private dining rooms, the restaurant gives off a fun, medieval-dungeon-meets-hipster vibe.  Our semi-private room lit with dripping candles felt straight out of the Crusades, sans the metal shackles - though there did appear to be blood stains on the walls.

After a few bottles of wine and some dozen delicious small plates (Bacaro specializes in tasting plates), we started to loosen up and really dig the dungeon-chic vibe.  We entertained visions of Hugh Jackman a la Jean Valjean belting out "Who Am I" while chained to our wooden slab table.

We decided to skip dessert at Bacaro so that we could fill my lactose intolerant bowels with exotic Asian flavors from the famous Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.  Hmmm, red bean?  Or maybe the almond cookie or taro?  My mouth watering, we approached the shop only to find it...closed!  Wah wah.  We instead hit the dessert shop next door, Mango Mango for some shakes and halo halo-like sundeas.

Thursday, July 4

Instead of sleeping in, the men folk decided to venture forth from the comfort of our climate-controlled room to scavenge up a patriotic breakfast of Asian delicacies. But with NYC experiencing heat and humidity rivaling the Amazon rain forests, Juan and I only made it about a block before turning back.  But not before stopping at Mei Li Wah for roast pork buns and congee and Simply Bakery for a month's worth of baked goods.  Happy Birthday, America!

All decked out in our red, white and blue (notice my use of horizontal striping to accentuate my muffin top), we headed down to South Street Seaport's SmorgasBar, the NYC min-outpost of Brooklyn's sprawling SmorgasBurg, for dinner.  Per usual, we ate until we could barely walk - lobster rolls from Red Hook Lobster Pound, oysters from Brooklyn Oyster Party, grilled cheese sandwiches from Milk Truck and pizza from Pizza Moto.  Oh, and beer.  Lots of beer.

Due to my inebriated state, we were forced to take a cab back to the hotel.  There was no way I was going to make the 20 minute walk back to the hotel.  I could barely stand (notice me leaning heavily on Val in the above picture).

We spent the rest of the evening hydrating and watching A Capital Fourth from our beds.  Dear God, what has happened to Barry Manilow's face?!  And who decided it was a good idea to let the über white Darren Criss sing "Shout" (with an all black gospel chorus backing him up, no less)?!  The show's saving grace?  The always suave Neil Diamond belting out, what else, "Coming to America."  

Staycation continues...