Pizza and crack

Well, Trish and I had a rather saucy Saturday night out this weekend. Even though we did catch a new Broadway play, Impressionism, the real excitement happened after the show let out.

Because we had to drive into the city from NJ that afternoon, we didn’t have a chance to grab anything to eat. So after the play, we stop at John’s Pizzeria in the theatre district. It’s one of my fave “no slice” spots in the city, but every time I’ve tried to take Trish, the line has been crah-zazy long. But not last night, at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night, we are able to walk right in with no wait. As far as the food, excellent as usual - best crust in the city - and that’s coming from someone who leaves the bones in the box.

Anyway, the host seats us in direct view of the restroom door. As we wait for our waitress, I decide to use it. Locked. OK, so it’s occupied. We wait ten minutes. No waitress and still no sign of life from the bathroom. First thought, “Hmmm, maybe I need a key?” Second thought, “Man, does our waitress suck.” Finally, a busboy wanders by and tries the bathroom door. Of course, it’s locked and he starts walking away past our table. Trying to be all helpful and sh*t, I tell him that it’s been locked for a while thinking he’ll offer a key or something. All he says is, “Oh” and walks away. We don’t see him again. Finally, our lazy waitress arrives and takes our order. Then - surprise - the door to the men’s room swings open and a server walks out. Trish gives me a “what-the-f*ck?” look. No joke, he was in there for like, 15 minutes. OK, fine, I’ve been known to take a leisurely sit-down, but I usually reserve my marathon sessions for the privacy of my own apartment and preferably with a stack of magazines, not at work. What-ev’s, I toss it up to some funky stomach virus and move on. A few minutes later another server heads to the restroom. 10 minutes pass and he’s still in there. OK, that’s just too much of a coincidence. When he finally finishes whatever it is he’s doing in there, he jauntily rushes by our table. There is no way his extreme joy, bordering on jittery excitement, could be simple relief from a satisfying dump. As soon as he’s past earshot, Trish leans over and says, “There’s totally a drug stash in that bathroom and all the servers are shooting up in there.” Of course! Come on, a line of workers spending 10-15 minutes at a time in the bathroom, one after the other? What else could it possibly be?

Trish and I immediately put our sting operation into effect. First off, we wait until the end of our meal so that we’re long gone before anyone notices we’ve made off with their crack. Lazy waitress puts down the check and I hand her my credit card. I nonchalantly head to the restroom to search for the illicit goods. Once inside, I finger the space between the mirror and the wall, reach behind and thoroughly search behind the sink and reach inside the paper towel dispenser. Nothing. Hmmm, what would Chuck do? Check the toilet! I carefully lift the toilet cover off the tank as not to bang the porcelain. I look inside - and nothing. I lift the cover over my head and inspect the inside, careful not to let anything nasty drip on me. Hmm, nothing there either. It’s got to be behind the toilet. I crouch down to take a look, but the corner of the toilet tank is covered in brown splash stains. Unfortunately, a bag full of crack, even at street value, is not worth getting my fingers and forearm smeared with sh*t. Those busboys know how to protect their stash. Foiled! I head out and break the news to Trish who doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t stick my hand in poop. Oh well, tonight we’ll just have to get high on life!

But that’s not the end of the evening’s excitement. Because the hell of weekend subway construction is in full swing, Trish and I had a nice long wait at Queensborough Plaza for our transfer. It was around midnight, so we knew we’d have a long wait ahead. If you don’t know the stop, it’s on a raised platform above the street. Since it’s only one stop from the city, the area is literally springing up with new condos, many of which face the subway platform directly. Bored from our wait, we spy one apartment, lights fully ablaze with no curtains and no blinds. Two middle-aged couples are having coffee and conversing in the living room and a younger girl, maybe 17 or 18 is hanging out in her adjoining bedroom. It’s all pretty boring, nothing out of the ordinary --- until the girl starts undressing! Yes, facing the window directly across from a subway platform loaded with bored (not for long) passengers, the girl starts stripping down. It wasn’t like she was putting on a show or anything. It was obvious she was just changing into her PJ’s. But if we had no trouble seeing her every feature - and I mean EVERY feature - how could she not notice fifty people staring at her from a brightly lit subway platform? Buy some curtains people!

Neverending rehearsals

My apartment is a pigsty, I'm carrying heavy duty American Tourist-ers under my eyes and I've got a severe case of brainal leakage. Between my 9-5, rehearsals for two shows and our benefit concert on Friday, I'm just about ready to step over the ledge.

I'm still only about 80% memorized for Friday, which doesn't bode well considering tomorrow is our first and only rehearsal with the pianist (not to mention our first and final run-through). We're basically winging all the blocking. Good times. As a stress reliever, Trish and I saw "Quarantine" last night. It was mindless good fun. And though I wanted to bitch slap the leading lady for her annoying screaming and hysterics, it was still worth ten bucks. I do think the shaky, hand-held, "you are there" gimmick has run its course. But no matter how stupid, I just can't pass up a good zombie flick.

Salome

The Met has certainly decided to takes its place in the R-rated, youtube generation. First, a shirtless, studly Giovanni humping Anna all over the stage last week and now a nasty Salome grinding her behind into a Hasidic Jew. It sure isn’t your grandparent’s Met, that’s for sure. I’d never actually seen a live performance of Salome, although we studied it at Conservatory, until last night. But nothing can prepare you for the antics of a middle-aged soprano (here, beautifully sung and dynamically acted by Finnish soprano, Karita Mattila) obsess “Fatal Attraction”-style over a Holy Man she can’t have. I don’t think I’ve ever, nor will ever, witness an opera singer extend down into a full split or finger herself while singing. Yes, you read that correctly, finger herself. She also dry humps her uncle, goes “full monty” in the dance of the seven veils and literally dives into a vampiric French kiss with the disembodied head of Jochanaan (the audience audibly gasped at that moment).

Shock value aside, Mattila certainly can sing. A huge voice with a seemingly endless range, she seemed to jump from full-throated top to full-chested bottom within the span of a measure. That b*tch was loud. And unlike other dramatic lyrics, her voice never seemed strident or ugly and she maintained a warm roundness of tone throughout the extreme range of her voice. However, the men (with the exception of tenor, Joseph Kaiser) couldn’t match Mattila’s instrument and were often lost in fuller orchestral moments.

The modern day Middle Eastern setting worked for the most part, hinting at the current world political climate. But the staircase to nowhere on stage right seemed wasted and could have been better utilized for staging. The black-robed angels watching the proceedings from the dunes also seemed like an interesting concept that didn’t seem fully fleshed out. But in spite of these few complaints, it was a truly thrilling, surprising and uncomfortable (in a good way) evening at the opera.

Though this is a revival (from 2004), hopefully the Met will continue producing challenging, innovative productions to balance the popular old warhorses in future seasons. It’s definitely made a difference in audience demographics at the productions I’ve attended. Trish and I both noticed groups of young men (who appeared to be - wait for it…straight!) in the audience at the last several productions we attended. Imagine that, straight young men at the opera. What next, a gay football league?

Desir at Spiegelworld

All I can say is that was some crazy sh*t. How to describe it? - an R-rated Cirque Du Soleil on acid and ‘shrooms. Sounds awesome, right? Well, our older brother Gerry is visiting town from down under - at least down under NYC - Austin, TX. Since we hadn’t caught anything at the Spiegeltent and he wanted to see something “he couldn’t see in Texas,” Desir seemed perfect.

The evening off started mysteriously enough. We couldn’t find it. I knew it was down at the Seaport, but the entrance and tent are appropriately hidden down a back alley behind the old Fulton Fish Market. Now when I say tent, I’m not talking Ringling Brothers. It’s a one ring affair with about six rows of chairs all the way around. Everything’s draped in red velvet and stained glass and it instantly made me think of a French whorehouse - not a nasty Las Vegas chicken ranch, but a very expensive, exclusive French boudoir. It was all very rich and sumptuous. And to top it off, there’s a fully stocked bar in the tent. They actually encourage you to buy drinks and take them back to your seats.

The show is equal parts cabaret, circus, burlesque, theatre and acrobatics. Imagine if the US men’s and women’s gymnastic team got drunk, stripped down to their underwear and got jiggy on a trapeze. I mean, there wasn’t any actual nudity, but they didn’t really leave much to the imagination. And did I mention they serve beer?

For me, the highlight was the female Russian acrobats who performed an extremely “intimate” - read lesbo - routine while suspended above the tiny circus ring on a square, steel bar. And by “ring” I mean a circular bed the size of an average dinner table. The novelty here (aside from the sexual innuendo and half-nude bodies) is being able to sit literally fifteen feet from the performers while they dangle above your heads contorting and spinning. And they serve beer.

Trish’s favorite moment was a scene in which a boxer-brief clad hottie laid on a bed surrounded by half-naked (sense a theme here?) buff guys and gals. To Prince’s “Cream,” they sprayed whipped cream all over his body and seductively down their throats. Then the whipped creamed hottie smeared it all over his chest and mounded it over his genitals before one of the gals neatly topped it off with a jewel-studded apple. Definitely not Ringling Bros. And did I mention beer?

Anyway, we had a great time hanging out at Spiegelworld after the show. Spiegelworld is a super-hip, temporary complex of bars, restaurants and outdoor seating areas surrounding the tent and overlooking those crazy manmade waterfalls under the Brooklyn Bridge. So we spent the rest of the evening relaxing by the water, slung back on temporary hammocks, digesting images of naked gymnasts; not a bad way to spend a Monday night. We’ll definitely be back to catch Absinthe, the tents other erotic-flavored show before the season ends in November.

Birthday fun

My dear blogolytes, I have so much to tell you about. It’s been such a busy couple of days for me. Though not earth shatteringly exciting, I did have a very good birthday. Of course, it was nothing compared to Chris’ legendary rooftop surprise birthday party of several years back that was infamously marked by massive alcohol consumption, male strippers and penis ring toss. If you were there, I know you remember it with fond memories and just a whiff of regret. I won’t name names, but you know who you are Lori Leshner! Anyway, the days of Boogie Nights-type debauchery are over for this old warhorse. Instead, Trish and I had a relaxed dinner at a new midtown place called, Nizza. It’s a very affordable small-plate, tapas type joint where you can split about four or five dishes between a couple of people. Quite yummy. Definitely try the fried ravioli.

Next up was Seth’s Broadway 101 at New World Stages. This was a reprise of last year’s Actors’ Fund Benefit. The premise of the concert is that Seth is a “professor” of the Broadway musical and during the 90-minute “class,” he mixes stand-up, childhood stories, video clips and performances by a cast of Broadway singers, dancers, actors and musicians to demonstrate the numerous jobs that go into getting a show up and running (i.e. vocal arranger, swing, orchestrator). It is, of course, a show queen’s wet dream with more in-jokes and insider “winking” than a page of posts on All That Chat. The highlights: Andrea McArdle singing “Tomorrow”, Lillias White's riff-tastic "Don't Rain on my Parade", Jonathon Groff’s “Morning Glow”, clips of Cher singing “I Feel Pretty” (“…such a pretty meh”) and the whole head voice/chest voice tutorial. I’m sure this show will become a regular season offering, so I definitely recommend catching it the next time around. For all you star fuckers, seen at the 7:00 PM showing were Emily Skinner and Barrett Foa, whose aunt (the mother of one of our opera kids) is desperately trying to pair up with me. Not gonna’ happen Carla! I’m sure he’s a nice boy, but he’s totally Broad-WAY and I’m not. He’s also likely a decade younger than I and I do not date anyone who can’t remember Atari or old school TV, that’s before the “M” was added. Now, a hook-up? - that’s a different story. We’ll talk.

I took a day off from the Morg (that’s insider slang for Morgan Stanley) yesterday for my “fake” birthday since my real birthday was actually on Monday. Trish and I decided to spend the day at the Bronx Zoo. And we literally spent the whole day, seven hours, walking through all the exhibits. I know, sounds extreme. But since one of my degrees is a bachelors in biology, I loves me some scientific shit. Anyway, I highly recommend a visit, especially the gorillas in the Congo exhibit and the bug carousel (see fun pics below).

Me and my praying mantis

Trish and her bug

My new bff

After a power nap, Trish and I headed into the city to meet Dan and Chris at Whym, A new restaurant in midtown. The food was uniformly good and the atmosphere nice without being too fancy. If anything, it’s a bit on the chic-fag side, but very comfortable. Chris, of course, disagreed with my assessment until I pointed out the crystal bejeweled hanging lampshades and tight black-teed waiters. For dessert, we headed to Café Mozart where we had the nastiest (in a good way) selection of desserts - the Mozart dessert sampler and a fruit and pound cake chocolate fondue platter. As usual, any celebration involving me always revolves around gluttonous excess in the food department. So other than some splattered chocolate and an extreme case of heartburn, the evening didn’t stray into “Gays Gone Wild” territory.

Facebook

OK, so I was on my facebook profile just now and realize I have all these High Schools listed under "my networks." I totally look like a pedophile! For those of you with straying thoughts, shame on you. You should know by now I prefer an older, experienced gent. Although now that I myself am older, though not much wiser, and sadly, way more experienced, I may have to reconsider my preferences and pass on these experiences to the next generation. My legacy shall live on!

Jay Leno's an Asshole....

Which I would happily excuse were he the least bit funny. I read about the controversy over last week's Ryan Phillippe/Jay Leno interview but hadn't had the energy to go watch it on Youtube. So I finally tried to look up the clip this morning and surprise, surprise! - "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by a third party" according to Youtube. NBC swept that piece of dog sh*t under the carpet pretty damn quick. I did, however, check out the website My Gayest Look, playwright Jeff Whitty's (book writer and Tony Award winner for Avenue Q) cheeky reaction to the incident. The interview is described on the site:

...Leno welcomed...actor Ryan Phillippe, who, early in his career, played a gay character on the daily soap One Life to Live. During the interview, Leno hounded Phillippe, telling him to look into the camera, pretend it was his "gay lover…Billy Bob," who "has just ridden in shirtless from Wyoming" (still milking the Brokeback jokes), and give it his "gayest look."

Phillippe apparently was not amused and threatened to leave the interview. You're my new hero Ryan. My homegirl Kathy Griffin also recounts a horrible Leno interview experience on her pee-in-your-pants-funny reality show, My Life on the D-List. All these stories only re-enforce my opinion that Leno is pretty much an egomaniacal prick. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for racist humour (check out the blog Stuff Asian People Like) IF IT'S FUNNY! Whitty's site asks viewers to send in pictures of their "gayest looks" for Leno - all featuring some form of an extended middle finger. I urge you all to support this site by checking out the HI-larious pics (see two of my favorites below) and writing a letter to NBC if so inclined.

You should know by now not to get the queens angry, Jay! And yes, I can call them "queens" for the same reason blacks can use the n-word. Incidentally, Leno has since made a public statement apologizing for his behavior.

Bloody Good

In a word, bloody. If you are not comfortable watching someone’s throat sliced open and seeing blood spurting from the carotid artery with pulsating life-like accuracy, Sweeney may not be for you. I suggested seeing the movie on Christmas day with the family until my sister, Trish, prudently advised against it, citing mom’s delicate sensibilities. I thought it would be a nice way to spend the holiday with the family, seeing a big movie musical together. She was right, I was way wrong.

Tim Burton has created an incredible adaptation, successfully translating the operatic scope of the stage work to film. I was never jarred out of the moment by the singing nor did the singing ever feel forced or out of place - unlike in Dreamgirls where even I had to hold back some awkward laughter at that first sung dialogue sequence. Future movie musical directors (and current for that matter) take note - you must set up the musical “rules” at the onset in order to acclimatize the audience to the world you are creating. Mr. Condon, you should have known better after the success of Chicago. If the characters don’t sing dialogue until half way through the film, it is startling when all of a sudden they do.

Though typically Burton-esque, the sepia-toned cinematography and depressive gloom is tailor-made for Sweeney. The contrasting “By the Sea” sequence is an enlightened change of pace and much needed relief from the surrounding darkness.

Although I truly miss the booming baritone of a Hearn or Cariou, Depp acquits himself quite nicely and his nuanced acting, perfect for the big screen, makes up for his more pop-inflected vocal interpretation. It took me a bit longer to warm up to Bonham Carter’s Lovett. But once you let yourself stop comparing her to Lansbury or ever LuPone, you start warming up to her more sexily manipulative Lovett. Die-hard Angela fans will never be satisfied, but it is refreshing to see a new take on an iconic performance. My only complaint is that Carter’s light vocals made it very difficult to understand the clever Sondheim lyrics, often swallowed up by the gorgeous orchestrations. Many chat boards complained that Burton and his cohorts drained the comedy from the work, specifically citing "A Little Priest." I disagree, I think most of the comedy played very well and fit in stylistically with the generally more naturalistic acting throughout. Playing specifically for laughs wouldn’t have fit this version - it would have read too wink, wink, elbow, elbow - here’s the punch line, aren’t we funny.



















Borat - I mean, Sacha Baron Cohen - was hilarious, at least for the few moments I was able to pry my eyes from his bulging (prosthetically enhanced) nether regions. Anthony and Joanna were fine, nothing extraordinary. Although I understand the vocal choice for Joanna, it was still a disappointment to hear “Green Finch” sung with the same pale and anemic coloring as the actress portraying her. Anthony fared better vocally, but was a bit too wispy and androgynous for my taste. Conversely, Burton casting Toby as a young boy worked surprisingly well, heightening the relationship between Toby and Lovett. The mother-son dynamic truly humanizes Lovett. The stage Toby is more of a mentally challenged adult and Lovett’s pity reads less sympathetically. I’m willing to bet some theater companies will adopt this convention for the stage.

The musical cuts made complete sense, and only theater fans and Sondheim fanatics will miss hearing these sequences. I admit I missed them, but mainly for the loss to Sondheim neophytes in hearing the brilliant “Kiss Me” quartet and frightening “Ballad of Sweeney Todd.”

On a side note, we arrived half an hour early and the line wrapped around the theater lobby. When we exited, they had barricaded areas for the Sweeney crowds to wait. Seems like a hit - at least in musical-friendly NYC. Just the adrenaline boost we needed to continue Christmas shopping down at Macy's Herald Square, which is open 24 hours until Christmas Day!