Walking

"Do gay men take lots of walks?" Harper asks in Tony Kushner's amazing "Angels in America."

This play was required reading for all incoming students my first year at NYU. We discussed it in depth during the first few days of orientation, as well as in class. We were also offered $10 orchestra seats to go see the production. Well, I was blown away. I was not familiar with theatre like this and for the first time in my life I realized that theatre could do something more than just entertain.

But back to the question on the table: Do gay men take lots of walks? Yes, Harper, they do. At least, gay men in the closet. Or, at the very least, this gay man in the closet.

I was electrified by New York and was certainly one of the many who couldn't sleep in this city. There seems to be an overwhelming feeling of desire that permeates the air of this city. Everyone wants something or someone. And I too was caught up in it. Mostly, I wanted to let the gay out but I didn't know how. So I took lots of walks. At night.

I was terrified to do anything but I wanted to be around gay men. The only way I knew how to do this was to leave my dorm and walk west on 10th Street. West past University Place and the drunken underaged NYUers. West past 5th Ave and my favorite view of the World Trade Center past the Washington Square Arch. West past 6th Ave and the beautiful brownstones, one that to this day, has a stuffed gorilla in the window with a big bone in it's mouth. West and then south on Greenwich past the big iron gates of the public library, half a block to Christopher Street.

Christopher Street, to this young boy, was gay. There was no way around it. It felt gay. The street right below this intersection is, in fact, Gay Street. This is where gay men went, I believed. I wasn't wrong. As soon as I hit Christopher my pace slowed but my head went down. I couldn't look these gay men in the eye. What if they saw that I wanted to be one of them? That I was one of them? What would I do if they talked to me? So I walked slowly, head down, letting myself feel what was around me.

The top of Christopher Street is fairly quiet and residential. There are a few bars and a few upscale stores. But then I would reach the huge intersection of Christopher, West 4th and 7th Ave. This is where the city was truly alive. I would walk past the screaming and laughing patrons of Stonewall, where I knew something important happened but I didn't know the details. I walked past the little park in the intersection and its white statues of gay men and women hanging out and being gay. I walked past the Duplex and the sounds of someone singing showtunes at a piano.

Crossing 7th Ave without looking up is next to impossible. I passed men in leather pants and vests with bushy moustaches and goatees. I wasn't that kind of gay man. I walked by drag queens who would hoot and holler at me and call me "chicken." Is it that obvious I'm afraid, I wondered. Not yet knowing that "chicken" has different connotations in the gay world. I walked by the many stores selling sex toys, videos, magazines and other assorted items of an erotic, exotic sexual nature. Did one need all of these things to be gay? Crossing Bleecker Street was like entering Oz. All of a sudden it was all gay, all the time. The atmosphere changed dramatically. Here, every other store was a bar. Men walked hand-in-hand. Music came pouring out of every open doorway. The sidewalk smelled like booze. And I was terrified.

One night I was just about at the Lucille Lortel theatre when a car honked and I unwittingly looked over. An older man, probably in his 50s or 60s, was driving a beat up, tan Lincoln. He had a thick beard, glasses and a blazer on. He could have been any one of my professors. He was driving very slowly, matching my gait. We made eye contact and he winked and began to pull his car over. I quickened my step and turned the corner onto Hudson and lost myself in the crowd. Again I was terrified, but also fascinated and exhilarated. Was I attractive to gay men?

One of the other exciting aspects of being in this part of town was being so close to the river. Feeling the wind on my face made me really aware of the fact that this was an island. But I had a long way to go before I settled it.

Crazy

I was 17 when I first got to the island.
It was, at the very least, incredibly overwhelming.

I took the train from 30th Street Station to Penn Station by myself. I was going to be here for a week working with NYU's OUTREACH Program, a community service organization. I figured I could continue the community service work I had participated in while in high school as well as make some friends.

As the train left Philly I had tears in my eyes. I kissed Mom and Dad goodbye. They'd be up the following Saturday with my things.

The train ride was short. As NYC came in to sight I stopped playing whatever was in my CD player (most likely Indigo Girls "Rites of Passage) and put in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song and Dance" starring Bernadette Peters. I knew every word by heart and had often acted out the entire show in my tiny, row-home bedroom in South Philly. The opening lyrics were more than appropriate:

"I can't quite believe it,
I'm actually here,
The one place on earth I want to be.
New York is just short of perfection they say.
The one thing it lacks is me.

It's all so amazing,
The size and the noise.
Why it's still alive at 5am.
And that drive in the eyes of New Yorkers (the original line is "New York girls" but I had to change it)
Oh I'd like to be one of them."

So as NYC rushed toward me, I listened to this music and I cried.

When the train finally pulled in, I grabbed my bag and went in search of a taxi. Everything was overwhelming. I had never been here before on my own. It seemed as if every direction I walked in was exactly against the flow of everyone else. I didn't understand the signage and I ended up in a dark passage between Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. I threw myself on to...some street and found a taxi.

As the taxi rushed from Penn Station down to 10th and Broadway I tried to take in everything I could. Remember: 34th Street is Macy's. Remember: 14th Street is packed with people and cheap looking dollar stores. Avoid at all costs. And so on. Actually, I think for the first few days my list consisted of places that I was scared of and vowed never to return to; 14th Street and St. Mark's Place being my number one destinations.

This anxiety quickly passed. It had to mostly because of the nature of the OUTREACH Program. I spent a day working for God's Love We Deliver in Harlem. We spent the morning preparing and packaging the food and the afternoon delivering it. I found that afternoon to be completely eye opening. I saw neighborhoods that I still, after 15 years, have never returned to. Luckily we were being driven. I naively expected everyone we delivered food to to be filled with thanks, respect and politeness. I knew these were AIDS patients and needed this food. No. Most of the people barely looked up as I dropped off the food. Some of the apartments were overrun with personal items and smelled like piss and rot. Some were neat and particular. All were distinct.

Another day was spent working at a Senior Center in Greenwich Village. This was a joy. I couldn't help but think of my grandparents. They wanted to engage all of us in talk about where were from, what we were studying and how we decided on NYU. At the end of the day they wanted us to sing with them. We converged in the rec room and someone wheeled out a piano. We sang showtunes and standards. Then there was a huge request for a song called "Twisted" that I only knew from Bette Midler's sophomore album:

"My analyst told me that I was right out of me head.
The way he described he said,
You'd be better off dead than alive.
I didn't listen to his jive.
I knew all along, he was all wrong
And I knew that he thought I was crazy.
But you know I'm not. Oh no."

And I wasn't crazy. I had made the right decision coming here.

We got lost in the crazy, nonsensical streets of the West Village on our way back to campus. We stopped and asked a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers for directions. She moved the huge spray from her face and, voila! ROSIE O'DONNELL. She graciously pointed us in the right direction and welcome us to New York. We stood in awe as we watched her ascend a steep set of steps to a brownstone and disappear inside.

This island was mine.

Uniforms continued

My brother, being a high school student now, goes off with my father in search of a suit jacket. No longer restricted to the uniform of St. Theresa and the Bleeding Sisters of Chastity he can get something more stylish, more trendy. He also gets to pick the clothes out himself, with Mom’s final approval of course. He trails behind the slim salesman and my father with his newfound high school swagger. As my mother and I mount the stairs, my hand turning white from gripping the faux brass banister so tightly, he turns and catches my eye. Quickly looking around to make sure that no one is looking he winks and then flips me the middle finger. He is so cool. He’ll probably find a Z. Cavaricci jacket. My eyes well up with tears. I stop on the middle of the staircase and try to control myself. Choking back sobs and rubbing my eyes furiously to stop the tears from falling I tell myself that Indiana Jones would never cry, not even if his girlfriend died. My mother, on the second floor by now, turns and looks down at me.

--Let’s go. We don’t have all day.

I nod and once again look at my brother who is laughing hysterically now as the salesman slips a handsome tweed jacket that perfectly hugs my brother’s slim adolescent frame over his shoulders. My father, oblivious to my emotional state at the moment, is heatedly discussing the pros and cons of buying an all-white sedan in the city. I take a deep breath and continue up the stairs.

To the casual observer the second floor of Silverberg’s in the same as the first. Suit jackets hang along the walls and on racks along the floor. But as we head to the back corner of the room I try to prepare myself for what is about to happen. A sweaty, fat man sits on a stool in front of a mirror, smoking a cigarette. In shirt sleeves, a half undone tie and gray slacks that more than hug his ample frame, he looks like a poor man’s Santa Clause – gone to the dark side. He looks up as he hears my mother and I approaching. He gives us a defeated smile, takes a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and wipes the sweat off his forehead. Sitting and smoking takes a lot out of a guy. He stubs his cigarette out in the ashcan next to him and then begins the arduous process of raising himself off of the stool. How the little stool is able to hold his weight is a mystery to my unscientific brain. I hear it creaking and cracking as he sways from side to side trying to find his center of gravity under all that heft. If stools could sweat this one would be drenched. This exertion only causes the salesman to drip even harder. His breathing becomes short and heavy and, in an instant, he reaches out his stubby, hairy, sweaty arm. I watch in horror as my mother unconsciously reaches her own petite arm to grab him and with a show of strength that I would have though impossible she heaves him up onto his feet. Unfortunately, neither the man nor the stool expected this to happen. The stool topples over to its side, miraculously unscathed and seeming to enjoy the rest. The fat salesman tries to find his breath and his legs while staring at my mother bewilderedly. Her show of strength is pure adrenaline. She wants this over and done with. Finally, the man pulls himself together.

--How can I help you?
--Yes, I need to get my son here a uniform for St. Theresa and the Sisters of the Stigmata.
--Right. We can do that. As he says this he begins to take the long measuring tape from around his still sweaty neck with his big, sweaty sausage link fingers. This man produces more water than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life. He starts to walk toward me, all the while huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf. The sweat is once again glistening on his forehead and I can see beads of it forming on his too hairy chest underneath his unbuttoned collar. I look around for some sort of escape route but my mother, knowing better, has miraculously appeared behind me to stop me from bolting.

--Let’s see what we have here, the salesman says as he wraps the tape around my chest. We are now eye to eye. I can smell his cigarette breath as every sharp intake of air hits my face as he kneels on the floor in front of me. The combination of his sweat and cigarettes is making me nauseous. I feel myself begin to swoon so I try to distract myself. The only place I can look though is directly at him. His skin is yellowing and long lines have formed on his face creating a map that leads to his eyes and his mouth. As his hands reach around to measure my waist I can see a look in eyes permanently trapped somewhere between insanity and indifference. Maybe they are not so far away from each other. The corners of his mouth hold crumbs of something or other in the creases and his teeth are yellowed beyond repair. In a second I flash forward thirty years and see my future right in front of me. I become this fat, unhappy man kneeling on the floor of Silverberg’s measuring some fat, ungrateful kid for his grade school uniform. All of my dreams reduced to cigarettes, pizza and chocolate and a job that pays the rent. I come back to myself and start to cry. I can’t hold the tears back this time. They burst forward like water out of a dam and I can hear my mother, as if from a long way off, asking what is wrong. How can I explain that I just saw my future and it scared the shit out of me? I try to find some words but the only sound that comes out is a choked sob. I cry even harder. The salesman drops the tape and pulls away as quickly as he can almost falling backwards as if my tears sting his bulging, polluted skin.
--I didn’t do anything, lady, he cries out desperately to my mom while struggling to get onto his feet. He stumbles and begins to tip forward in my direction. Through watery eyes I can see a look of panic cross his face and I imagine his body landing on top of me, smothering me underneath mounds of wet, smelly flesh. I cry more. Some force of God lets him recover his balance preventing his fall.

--I know you didn’t. He’s very sensitive. She says this with a certain amount of exasperation and uncertainty. Sometimes he just cries and we have no idea why. This is followed by a short, constricted laugh.

My mother revealing this particular, undefinable weakness of my character to a complete stranger sets me off again. She shoots a quick glance my way and then puts a hand on the salesman’s shoulder to put him at ease. How can she touch him? He has sweat his way clean through his shirt and I can see the hair on his back straining to break free of the light cotton, polyester white fabric.

--Now while he finds some way to control himself, I assume you got al the proper measurements so you can go pull out a few uniforms.

The salesman looks uncertainly between my mother and me. My eyes are red and swollen, snot drips out from my nose. My mother is calm and collected, clutching her purse in her right hand and smoothing the hem of her skirt with the left. The choice is obvious, he walks off with my mother. I can hear them talking as they leave the wounded animal to heal itself.

--He’s a big boy, ma’am, but it’s early enough in the season that I should still have some jackets available in—

I hold my breath and wait for the word that I’ve been dreading since the moment we got in the car to come here.

--husky sizes.

The tears come again.

When I think I have myself properly pulled together I take a deep breath and prepare to go try on my “husky” sized jacket. I turn around and find my brother standing directly in front of me, a box of Lotto’s clutched under his right arm. I try to smile casually and walk around him but he blocks my way.
--Crying again?
--No. I snivel.
--You cry too much. You cry more than any girl I’ve ever met.
I look at him as if he was the priest at Christmas Day Mass uttering the most profound guidance of God himself. I’ve never had anyone talk to me like that before in my entire life. I have spent my entire life looking for a sign, a gesture, a word from my brother, anything that would assure me we were friends. This is it.
--Yeah? I ask.
--Yeah, he says not unkindly. Stop it.
He throws his Lotto box at me.
--Dad says come down and he’ll get you a pair too. Where’s Mom?
He grabs my head and gives me a noogie while pulling me down the aisle. I laugh and begin telling him about the fat salesman and how he almost fell on top of me, leaving out the cause of the situation. We follow the smell of cigarette smoke and find my mother standing impatiently next to the salesman. She looks bored and restless and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought she wanted a cigarette herself, any sort of distraction. She darts daggers at me and if I hadn’t just had a nervous breakdown she would most definitely be putting me in my place. However when she sees my smiling, laughing face her entire body softens and she reaches out her arms encircling me in warmth and safety.
--You OK, boo? She asks sweetly.
I nod and give her a peck on the cheek.
--Can we just hurry up? I ask.
She smiles and the salesman starts lumbering toward me clutching the husky-sized jacket in his fat, sweaty hands, a newly-lit cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. My body tenses and my mother, noticing this, reaches out and pulls the jacket out of his pudgy grip.
--Here, I’ll do it.
As she slips the jacket up my arms I see my brother standing behind the fat man, puffing out his cheeks, smoking an imaginary cigarette and pretending to fall over. I bite my tongue this time trying to hold back the laughter but I can’t help it. Soon my brother and I are in hysterics and my mother, having caught sight of my brother’s antics, is soon laughing as well. The three of us are convulsing with pleasure as the fat salesman stands bewildered in the middle of the three of us with smoke pouring out of his nose.

Uniforms

I was not a pre-teen fashion plate.

The end of summer brought on yet another sick feeling in my stomach because it meant back-to-school shopping. I went to a co-ed Catholic school called St. Theresa and the Sisters of Perpetual Chastity (or something like that). It sounds more like an eighties punk rock band than a fine religious learning environment. Actually, it was neither.

We were all required to wear uniforms. The girls wore maroon jumpers with white button down, sailor-collared shirts underneath, maroon knee socks and sensibly unfashionable black loafers. You could tell how old and/or slutty a girl was by how far above her knee she dared to put the hem of her jumper. Knee high was regulation. The school emblem, which was St. Theresa standing in front of a bleeding heart, was sewn securely over the left breast – or what would one day be a breast, again depending on the girl. No piercings, jewelry or accessories of any kind were allowed, not even watches.

The boys’ uniforms were similar in tastelessness and design: gray wool slacks, a maroon blazer (with emblem sewn over our heart), a black or maroon tie of regulated length and width, sensible black loafers and black socks. We were like the children of the damned only less fashionable and Arian looking. Our Italian and Irish blood pumped feverishly through our growing bodies with steely determination. Only there was no outlet. However, our fiery temperaments, deeply ingrained in our genes, meant we could kick the shit out of those blue-eyed, blonde haired freaks. Well, I couldn’t but most of the girls in my class could have.

There were only one or two stored in the city that catered to the uniforms of the Catholic schools. And there was only one where I, in particular, could shop. It was called Silverberg’s Men’s Clothing and Apparel: All Tailoring Done on Premise. I thought that was the full name, and it still sends a shiver down my spine to hear it. Silverberg’s was a huge red brick building that stood menacingly in the middle of a city block. The mannequins in the windows sported all the latest fashions from parochial schools around the city, as well as other the more popular look sweeping my neighborhood at the time: Z. Cavaricci. Anybody who was Anybody had Z. Cavarricci pants, jeans, shirts, whatever. They were a more stylish version of MC Hammer’s parachute pants. High-waisted, with all different kinds of buckles, snaps and zippers in that particular area, you often needed to give yourself an extra half an hour to get ready to go out to make sure everything was buckled, snapped and zipped correctly. (I remember how my mother used to go crazy doing the laundry having to check every zip-up pocket in the pants to make sure there was no loose change or anything left about.) These pants, Cavaricci’s came in pleated or un-pleated slacks and jeans, were constructed so to hug the waist, then flair out at the hips and thighs, eventually tapering down in a gentle slope to the ankle. If you were built like me, you looked rather like a pear.

The other fashion craze sweeping my neighborhood at the time, and available at Silverberg’s, was Lotto sneakers. Lotto was the first company to take full advantage of the velcro fad. Not only did their sneakers velcro open and closed, no, they also had a Lotto symbol on the side (which looked very similar to the number sign) which would velcro on and off. The cool thing about this was that when you bought a pair of these Lotto’s you also received extra, different colored Lotto side velcro patches. You could therefore match almost every outfit in your limited pre-teen/teenage wardrobe. If you were “funky” you could even mix and match. It really did not get cooler than that. People were known to change the colors of their Lotto’s ten times a day. The epitome of cool meant walking down the street in your Z. Cavaricci jeans with your new Lotto sneakers.

My trips to Silverberg’s in late August never involved buying Lotto’s or Cavaricci’s. And as I stood looking longingly at the fierce mannequins in the window my stomach was raging and churning inside of me because I knew what was in store. My mother would grab my hand and pull me through the front doors all of a sudden the picture of an efficient, determined modern woman. She was all business in these situations perhaps because she disliked them almost as much as me. Once inside the store my heart would sink even lower. It never changed. The smell of moth balls and sweat hung in the air. Although sleekly redesigned sometime in the seventies Silverberg’s still felt like it belonged to another time. Amber light was hidden somewhere in the ceilings and cast ghostly shadows against the red brick walls. The fluorescent lights in the center of the room never seemed to be working all at once. The first floor was one huge room filled with suits, jackets and slacks of all colors and sizes. These garments hung along the walls as well as on standing racks which formed aisles throughout the floor. At any other time I would have been running and diving through these racks pretending I was Indiana Jones being chased by evil Nazis trying to take the ark of the covenant away from me. Not today.

A tall, slim man stylishly dressed in a timeless gray suit comes over to help us. His slicked back hair does not conceal the fact that he is prematurely gray and balding. My mother immediately steps up to greet him.

--Hello. We need a few things: a suit jacket, a few ties and some dress socks for my older boy. She indicates my brother. And for my other son—where did he go?

I was shivering and sweating not two feet away trying to hide behind a grossly, unhuman looking mannequin and wishing I could disappear. If I were closer to the wall I would try and pull out each brick, one at a time, looking for a secret door that would take me out of there into the sewers where I would battle through puddles of slime and rats until I came up in some distant foreign land. Indiana Jones would have found one. Or he would have used his whip to knock the mannequins over thus barring the path of attacking salesmen, their greasy hair falling in their face. Knocking over racks of suits to further impede their progress he would reach the front doors of the store, a sly smile forming on his face. Hitting the street he would whirl around, pull out his gun and shoot the neon sign screaming Silverberg’s that hung over the entryway. It would fall just in time to pin the suits underneath its weight, letting off sparks that would eventually cause the entire building to burn down.

I could only shiver, sweat and hide.

My mother, without even looking, reaches out her arm and found my shoulder, pulling me out from behind the mannequin. She smiles politely through gritted teeth and a tense jaw at the salesman.
--My other son will need to go…upstairs.
The salesman looks me up and down, nods and smiles knowingly at my mother.
--I understand.

Yeah, I understand too.

Master Class

In the winter of 1997 I was preparing to graduate NYU.  In order to receive my diploma in May I needed to complete an oral exam/thesis with a panel of faculty from the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies.

The Gallatin School allows its students to take classes in almost all of the other divisions and branches of NYU.  The final oral exam is one in which you present a thesis topic and then defend it with a series of books you've read throughout your time in the program.  I was fascinated by this final endeavor and approached it with great relish.  I loved to read and so I assumed it would be an easy task to pick 20 or so titles to defend my thesis.  The problem was, what was my thesis?

After three and a half years at NYU I felt as if I was just starting to get on my feet.  I had only recently discovered the art of directing and knew that this was something I was good at and wanted to do for the rest of my life.  Well, I knew I was good at it.  Directing encompassed all of my interpretative and analytic skills while allowing me creative freedom.  As an actor, I had always been outside of myself, judging my performance but never really living it.  As a director, this Brechtian remove proved to be an advantage!

But I was about to graduate and what was I going to do with this new found knowledge...skill... art?

Luckily, I happened upon the Broadway production of Master Class, written by Terrence McNally, directed by Leonard Foglia and starring Patti LuPone.  I knew nothing about opera at the time.  (My knowledge of the art is still horribly lacking).  I knew little of McNally, aside from having seen "Love! Valour! Compassion!" with my parents.  But I knew all about La LuPone.  I had seen her in "Anything Goes".  I had watched every episode of "Life Goes On" and I had every beat of "Evita" memorized.  So I couldn't miss her return to Broadway as Maria Callas -- whomever that was.

The production blew me away.  Not just because of the script, or the direction, or LuPone.  No, it was the combination of the ingredients speaking to me at that time, in that place, as an artist. Yes, it was about Maria Callas but more than that it was about pursuing a life in the theatre.  In the arts.  It was speaking to me.  "Master Class" had given me a voice.

"You must know what you want to do in life, you must decide.  For we cannot do everything."

I memorized and presented that entire final monologue at my oral presentation.  I can remember very little of it now.  But it's true.  You must know.  You must decide.  I had to hold on to that at the time.  I still hold on to it now but perhaps too closely.  Or maybe it's just that what I thought I knew I wanted to do isn't really what I should be doing.  You know?  Good.  Cause I sure as hell don't.  But I'm figuring it out.

Forever ingrained in my mind is the image of Patti LuPone as Maria Callas standing center stage, reliving one of Callas' triumphs at La Scala.  The harsh Juilliard classroom walls slowly began to melt away into the box seats of La Scala.  Slowly the music rose as LuPone explained each and every trill, every moment of that evening.  The other actors on stage disappeared and the lights got lower, more intense.  The music continued to rise as did LuPone's voice.  It was sheer ecstasy.  A perfect marriage of performer, part and directing.  The lights came up and I was in tears.  I had found my voice.

Unfortunately, I seem to have dropped that voice somewhere on this crowded island.  If you find it huddled in a corner or begging for change on the subway do me a favor and return it.

Hello, Pippin!

So the other night I pulled out my dvd of "Pippin."  About once a year I feel the need to commune with the man looking for some sort of direction in his life.  The Loved One wasn't home when I started watching it and, when he did arrive, looked at me like I had four heads for watching it.  That's ok.  I love it.  He loves Madonna.

I was first introduced to "Pippin" by my high school AP English teacher in junior year.  I was home over some break with chicken pox.  The first few marks started to make an appearance and I wasn't feeling well.  I pointed them out to my mom who immediately knew what they were but my dad, convinced I was faking, said they were pimples.  Let it be known, that I was a fan of playing sick for years because I didn't like school all that much -- except for English class and play practice (which we adults now call "rehearsal").  I especially didn't like school if I hadn't translated our daily 25 lines of Virgil's Aeneid or The Frogs by whatever Greek guythat was (brek-ek-ek-ek-koax koax) and later turned into an awfully dull Stephen Sondheim musical at Lincoln Center.

The chicken pox came at a most unfortunate time because I was about to start practice for our spring production of "Hello, Dolly!"  Yes, even though I went to an all boy's private high school the genius behind our drama club decided to do a show in which a female was the lead.  I had fought hard for the role of Vandergelder.  Unfortunately, although I tipped the scale at a whopping 200lbs, I had a baby face and a nice temper.  I had yet to touch the anger dwelling too-deep under the surface.   So I was cast in the ensemble and as understudy to Ambrose Kemper, the painter.  I was understudy because the boy playing the role (Skippy Something-or-other) was on a family vacation for break and I was to fill in during that time.  Glamorous.  Meanwhile my best friend, as always, was cast in the lead.

So I'm at home covered in pox and missing my one big chance to prove how good I am.  High school teacher recommends I watch "Pippin", among many other things.  So I do.  And I fall in love.  Having seen the Debbie Allen revival of "Sweet Charity" this is not my first introduction to Bob Fosse's work.  But it's the first time I get it.  My hormones were going crazy and the pure sexuality of the production was eye-opening.  And I felt an immediate connection to the boy who didn't know where to find a home.  It didn't hurt that I also had a crush on William Katt who ran around half-naked most of the time.  So I sat on the couch watching the video over and over again.  When it wasn't playing I was wondering what kind of fun my friends were having at practice and what I was missing.  Would I ever be able to catch up and fit in?  What if the choreography for "It Takes a Woman" was especially complicated?  These thoughts kept me up at night.

Finally, after about two weeks, I was well-enough to return.  And guess what?  I was bumped up to PLAYING the role of Ambrose Kemper.  Me and Tommy Tune, twins.  Yes, it seems that Skippy's lack of dedication to the Cape and Sword was too trying on our director and he needed someone more dependable.  Well, roles have been won on much less.  And now, Fosse choreography duly memorized, I was certain I would be an asset to this production.

I was.  I was fantastic.  And I got to wear a pink suit.  Because Ambrose was an artist.

New Year/New You

New who?  New me.

Well, it's not quite that simple.

I haven't been writing much lately because I haven't been working and that's really the ideal place for me to write.  I find when I'm home I'm so busy doing things I enjoy that the need to write isn't quite so strong.  I should probably find that problematic.  However, truth to tell, there are a thousand things for me to accomplish on a daily basis around the house and pretty much nothing to accomplish at work.  Which, yes, is totally frustrating.

The holidays are officially over and we had a swell New Year's Eve party with lots of friends and even more booze.

On Friday night Jan. 2nd, after therapy (and that was fun after almost 2 weeks away, let me tell you) The Loved One and I went to see Liza's at the Palace.  This trip was two-fold: one, The Loved One asked and two: my friend, Jim Caruso, was in it.  I know Jim from year's ago.  I was working on Cabaret as the Associate Director and he was good friends with Joely Fisher who I had put into the show on tour.  Jim, Fish and I used to hang out and cause trouble quite a bit.  And now here he was making his Bway debut!  He is an old friend of Liza's and runs a weekly show here in NYC called JIm Caruso's Cast Party, to which -admittedly - I have never been.  But I'd go see him on Bway!

I saw Liza's last show at the Palace a few years ago, Minnelli on Minnelli.  It was...fine.  Liza wasn't in the greatest shape and the choreography mostly consisted of chorus boys rolling her around on a wheeled-chair most of the time.  The stories were fun but the songs, dancing and patter were lackluster.  So I wasn't chomping at the bit to see her again.

Things started out very badly.  In an effort to preserve funds in this, our great depression, I purchased cheap seats on-line.  Cheap being the last row of the mezzanine and still too expensive.  Between the balcony overhang and the rustling of patrons and the talking of ushers directly behind us, we could hardly hear the show.  Poor Loved One had some tall guy stationed in front of him, leaning forward, with his arms perched on his knees the better to hold his opera glasses with.  Annoying.  During the first act, Liza looked amazing but we had a hard time hearing her, especially during any uptempo number.  The director in me was wishing for a through-line in regards to the storytelling.  But there wasn't one.  It seemed like, "I wanna sing this song here..."  So she did.  A funny moment occurred when she said to the audience, "Remember how I used to sit in the second act?"  People laughed.  She walked stage left to the proscenium and pulled out a director's chair, "Well now I sit here."  She sat and gave us a lovely rendition of "Maybe This Time" from Cabaret.  It was the first point in the evening where I understood every word and she sounded incredible.  The second time was the act closing: "Cabaret."

The lights came up.  I was unimpressed.  And where in the hell was Jim?  The lady next to me turned and said, "Hello, stranger.  I don't know you but can you tell me why that last number was the first I understood?"  I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.  Then I turned to The Loved One and said, "Let's move down some," as there were empty seats scattered around the sides of the mezz.  So we did.

The second act started and it was a totally different show!  Liza opened with "And the World Goes Round" making me think she is perhaps the premier interpreter of Kander and Ebb.  And then she got to the meat of the show, a reinterpretation of her godmother's, Kay Thompson, act.  And there, finally, was Jim!

Our seats were now in the seventh row of the mezz.  Liza was closer.  The sound was better.  There was no fidgeting among audience members, no opera glass users, no obstructions.  And Liza looked and sounded amazing!  It was a completely different show.  Also, Liza seemed to be having more fun.  In essence, the problem with the first act is there is no focus.  The second act springs to life because there's a story to tell and people to help Liza tell it.  It made me wish the first act was about her career or the songs that influenced her growing up or something...

We left elated and it was well worth the discounted ticket price.  And now, along with nine other shows, Liza closed yesterday.  More to go as the month goes on.  I keep wondering how my job is not at risk.  And if it is, the sooner let go, the better.

Saturday we saw Revolutionary Road.  I was expecting a movie as painful and devastating as Bergman's Scenes From a Marriage but it wasn't quite there.  DiCaprio surprised me.  Winslet is always amazing to watch but I was unsure of what she was doing at times here.  Mendes did a nice job and I wonder what his obsession with American suburbia is about.

I did my best to stay off the island during my time off from work and only came in on Friday for therapy and Liza.  Being back today is not a welcome experience.  I miss the warmth and safety of our little, cottage-like abode and the dog sitting next to me on the couch as we while away the hours in cooking, cleaning, reading, movies, whatever.