The Jon Blog

Yawn

I don't like it when I have a hard time falling asleep at night.

I especially don't like this when I have stayed up too late in the first place.

It gets compounded when it's going to be one of those mornings where I have to get up earlier than I intended.

Grr.

This is Scary

Paul Krugman in today's Times.

And Krugman doesn't even mention the smear techniques being used in the presidential race.

Fucked Up Spam

This was in my in-box:

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Administration

More on Names

So I was chatting with a black lesbian Starbucks barista yesterday, and we were discussing some of the strange things that people name their children. I brought it up because there's a woman who works at that Starbucks named Lesbia, and I figured a grrl who dates grrls would have something to say about that.

She did.

"Well, that's not really that bad. I know another girl named NiCondoma and one named Clitora, too."

"No way!" I replied.

We decided that there should be someone who is employed by the various hospitals to slap the mommas when they say that's what they want to name their baby.

The woman I was talking with? Her name is Starkima. I said "Your name is at least different."

She replied. "My name is ghetto."

And the bad mood I had been in all afternoon, up to getting my coffee, promptly disappeared.

Identity Crisis

I was just browsing the internet, and came across one of those blog tagboards on someone's site. While checking who had commented, I discovered that someone's email address was "jimsgirlfriend@randomipaddress.com" (we have changed the names to protect the identity of the culprit).

Now here's my question about that. Is this an example of a man trying to be dominant over a woman? Or is she trying to prove her devotion to him through her email address? Which is equally subservient.

The stupid part, though, will be when they break up, and she has to send out emails to everyone she knows.

"Hi, it's me. I've got a new email address so please update your records. It's now: jimsexgirlfriend@whateveripthisis.com"

I meant it to be Toby's ex-girlfriend, but with no punctutuation, it reads even worse...

I dunno, I guess I just think that people need to be themselves, rather than define themselves as someone's something or other. Or is it maybe that since I'm not anybody's something or other that I'm just bein' jealous?

More Bad Luck at the Theatre

Usually, I agree with Ben Brantley. Usually if he likes a show, I really enjoy it.

Tonight, that streak has definitely ended. I saw "Bug." Yes, Bug, the play about which Brantley could say only exceptionall good things, and mentions that it's a love story with a twist, but he didn't want to "give it away."

Here's what he doesn't give away: The play is about a drugged out, paranoid, schizophrenic, violently inclined man. And the woman who falls in love with him and starts to actually believe his delusions. After a viciously graphic murder, a man pulling his own tooth, and a fiery inferno, you're ready to get the hell out of that theatre.

OK, the play was well written, well directed, and well acted. Problem is, it was just fucking creepy. Yes, creepy is different from bad. But this was not my idea of good, either.

Here's what was good. I saw a cute guy in the lobby before the show started, and it turned out that we were both wearing the same style Via Spiga shoes. So I chatted him up a bit, and we talked more at intermission and (drumroll please) went to the Duplex together after the show for a drink.

What's the catch, you may be asking yourself, as well you should. I bet there's something, you're probably saying. And you're right.

No, he's not a paranoid delusional schizophrenic, nor is he (as far as I know) prone to fiery infernos or brutal graphic killing. He's just from out of town. Washington, DC to be precise. Well, at least I got a good-bye kiss out of it. It's a shame, I had a nice time. But you, dear reader, know as well as I that long distance relationships don't go anywhere. Especially for people as relationship inhibited as myself. At least it made the night more pleasant than had I merely seen "Bug."

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

Saw "Sweeney Todd" at New York City Opera this evening. Good Lord.

First of all, not even specifically about this production, I'm starting to get fed up with how many strange edits of this show there are. You almost never see the tooth-pulling scene. And this version cut a large chunk of "Parlour Songs," which I usually get annoyed by - but they even cut the entire scene where Tobias is singing along from the bakehouse, and I really missed that.

Specific performances? Well, hard to say for sure, because the State Theatre is so freakin' cavernous. I can tell you, though, from personal experience, that performances can come across in that theatre (specific mention to Jennifer Welch-Babidge in her recent turn as Lucia di Lammermoor, a role I would really love to hear her sing again), so I'm feeling that Mark Delavan, as Sweeney, and Elaine Paige, as Mrs. Lovett, were not at their best this evening. Paige noticably so -- she forgot lyrics on no less than three occasions, and even "Dum dum dum dum"-ed her way through a section of "A Little Priest." Which lyric did she miss in that number, you ask? "Here's the politician so oily he's served with a doily..."

And a chorus member flubbed a lyric, too. It's supposed to go: "The engine roared, the motor hissed/ And who could see where the road would twist/In Sweeney's ledger the entries matched/ A beadle arrived and a beadle dispatched..." It's clearly an AABB rhyme scheme, in keeping with almost every iteration of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd." Only our chorus boy, on this number, had the motor hissing before his engine roared. Didn't go over so well with my bitchy ears.

Yes, I know this show backwards and forwards. I could probably recite 80% of the lyrics without having the book in front of me. (Please do not quiz me on this at a later time). It's always been one of my favorite musical theater scores. I was in it in college (I was in the chorus, played Fogg, and understudied Sweeney) before I realized that I wasn't put on this earth to be an actor. I have seen many productions of this show, and I know, from personal experience, that the key to a succesful production of "Sweeney Todd" is to have more musical rehearsals than you know what to do with. And it was clear that they had rehearsed some parts better than others -- the chorus, for example, was wonderful on "More Hot Pies" but woefully underrehearsed on "City on Fire."

The quartet (Johanna, Antony, Beadle, Judge) around "Ladies in their Sensitivities" and "Kiss Me" is, perhaps, the most difficult portion of the show musically - particularly in respect to getting the singers and the orchestra together (and balanced!). I have been to more than one final dress rehearsal of "Sweeney Todd" where immediately after the curtain goes down, the conductor yells out that this is the part that needs to be re-rehearsed, and it's invariably done with the four actors standing front and center and the conductor going through the number two or three times. This, apparantly, didn't happen in this production. Then again, the conductor was busy enough keeping up with Ms. Paige when she decided to make up entrances for herself whenever she felt like it. She came in, at one point, a good 2 counts off from the orchestra. He caught up after a couple bars.

As for Sweeney? Mark Delavan was fine in the role, if unexceptional. As an example, I didn't particularly care for his approach to the line, "At last my right arm is complete again!" His delivery was odd -- he had a (long!) pause between "complete" and "again," almost as if the "again" was an afterthought as opposed to the "Thank God it's finally back!" I expect from the line. He never creeped me out the way that Brian Stokes Mitchell did at Kennedy Center two years ago (Compare the two renditions of "Epiphany" -- Stokes freaked me out! He was so intense. And I was watching Delavan through my binoculars (the Africa ones, so you know I had a good view), and I just didn't think it was all there, do you know what I mean?). And Elaine Paige didn't even come close to the brilliant Mrs. Lovett portrayed there by the fabulous Christine Baranski. Hell, even if Paige had remembered her lines, she wouldn't have approached Baranski's performance in the role.

I can only compare the original, of course, from the CD and the video, but still... this was a Sweeney that left a lot to be desired.

So to all of you who I discussed this with before (you know who you are, ye who didn't go to the State Theatre this evening), you didn't miss anything great. But I would have loved to hear your rants!

Damnit, why can't I see a good show? Well, I am going to "Bug" tonight (well, I'm saying tonight about "Sweeney" meaning Wednesday, and tonight about "Bug" being Thursday, as it's technically early Thursday morning, but since I haven't slept, "Sweeney" is still today... you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, well, it's obvious you never pulled an all-nighter in college.), and I'm going to see "Wicked" on Friday. We'll see. And hopefully I will get to have something nice to say about a show sometime soon.

HTML Eye for the Gay Blog

I think it's time for a makeover, in preparation for our one-year anniversary here at The Jon Blog.

Obviously, I could try and pretend to do it myself, but if anyone with great webdesign skills has any fabulous suggestions, well, you know where the comments go!

Even Kids Get the Munchies

Have you heard about this?

The thing I wonder most is, in the second part of the article, it says the teachers "realized it was cocaine." How the fuck did they know? They recognized the taste? Are these really the people we want teaching our kindergarteners?

And on a totally unrelated note, did you notice this article in the Times on crossdressing? The features department seems to have out-done themselves once again...

I Think I Voted for "Princess" One Time Too Many

My inner child is six years old!
How old is your inner child?

Sick in the Head

Someone found my blog by doing a yahoo search as follows:

Finding Nemo sushi soup.

Egads.

In other news, the Met Opera is doing my favorite opera next season: Wagner's "Tannhauser." And the first performance is the day after my birthday. I think I'll see it twice...

Dirge-like Blog Entry

So once again, the Incompetent Attorney has gone dark, leaving us other denizens of cyberspace with one (or eight) less laughs per day. We'll miss you, IA.

And promoting Paul Katcher to the position of sole token straight man. Unless anyone else wants to apply.

In other news, what the fuck is up with my superintendent? Remember how, all through the early part of winter both this year and last (ok, I wasn't blogging then, but I remember...) the heat was never on at the right time? Well, now that it's in the mid 40's, they have the heat on higher than it's been in months. I came home from work last night, and it was over 80 degrees in here. I've had the window AC unit on full blast all night (just on fan, mind you), but it's still not super comfortable.

Why do they insist on wasting this much energy? Well, I guess that's just part of having an NYC apartment. At least I don't have a car, so I don't have to worry about alternate side of the street parking rules.

Speaking of cars, I just booked a rental car for when I go to Ohio to visit my parents a couple weeks from now. Why is it that my mom is so crazy about making sure I get a discount? She'll go out of her way to see that I save $5 or 10. Me? I just want to have a car I know I'm going to enjoy driving. Maybe for them, who both drive BMW's every day, they don't care what kind of rental car they get, as long as it goes and doesn't qualify as a deathtrap. But I don't drive on a regular basis, but I do remember, back from my car-ownership days, that it can be a fun thing. And damned if I'm going to sit in some crappy ugly Ford Taurus of Kia Sephia for three of the 10 days I'll actually spend with a car of my "own" this year. And I don't mind paying $10 extra to get it.

Bad Play! Bad!

Oh my. "My Big Gay Italian Wedding" is the worst play I have seen all year. And probably it is the worst "professional" play I have seen in New York. Granted, it was fun and there was a lot of laughing, but DAMN, this was a bad play. The direction was terrible, it was chaos on stage, the script sucked ass, and the best thing about it was, really, that there were some cute guys on the stage.

And one of the understudies had a great bio in the program:

"Antony Raymond (Swing) would like to say "thanks" to nobody because he earned this role of "understudy" all on his own. This marks Antony's understudy debut. Other credits include Man #1, Person and Guy with Dog."

Seriously, this show is just full of cheese and bad laugh lines and over the top characters. The production values were high school-ish, and it appears to be a sort of ego-trip production where the author (who is also the star). He works on a soap opera. Let's hope he does a better job there than he does in gay off-Broadway theatre.

But I have to confess, I laughed a lot! I did. Not always for the right reasons, but I laughed a lot... Then I came home and got a ticket for a show I hear is really good... "Bug."

No Queens in This Blog Entry

So CNN reports that there's some big to do in North Carolina about a child who took a book out from the school library. Turns out the book is about gay marriage! The Prince meets lots and lots of princes until he meets his own Prince Charming.

What do you think my reaction to this tale would be? Of course, I went to amazon.com right away and bought both the book, called "King & King" and its sequel, "King & King & Family." And a couple other things, too.

But I qualified for super-saver-shipping!

It's Not Easy Being Green

Well, once again it's St. Patrick's Day. And once again, the City, or at least Fifth Avenue, is overrun with a bigoted parade. Yes, I understand that "we" (by which I mean the homosexuals) get our own parade. But our parade is inclusive. Theirs is not.

And it really bothers me that the City would give this much opportunity and allocate this many resources to an organization which is obviously discriminating and has a history of so doing for a long time.

But at least we get our parade in June, and it's sunny and beautiful, but they get theirs today, and it's not even above the freezing mark. Take that, Irish people!

In a sort of related question, I wonder, what with all the kilts and everything, which parade has more people actually wearing underwear...

Oddly Enough...

I really don't have anything particularly interesting to say today, but I still felt that I should contribute something to the blog, so...

There once was a blogger named Jon.
While typing, he stifled a yawn.
He said with a frown
as he glanced around,
This blog will get better anon!

A Lucky Moment

So I usually whine about not getting up on time, about oversleeping, etc...

This morning, my internal clock did me a favor. I have a 7:00 breakfast meeting today. And I just woke up -- 5:45am. And I went to double check what time I had set the alarm.

6:45am. Oops! Good thing I didn't wait for it!

D'Oh!

So the highlight of the trip to Ohio was, of course, my parents' new house. It's going to be fantastic once they're finished removing the tasteless decor which had been installed in it by the previous owners. To give you just an idea of how clueless these people were in the design department: the house has a sun room with giant windows and a (formerly) gorgeous slate floor. They covered the slate with carpet (!), thus ruining the slate floor, and leaving my parents, who appreciate the beauty of a slate floor, to have to pay to have the slate removed and a new floor put in. They did the same thing in a bathroom which had been finished with marble tiles.

The low point of the trip, and the reason behind the "D'oh!" of the title of this blog entry, was what happened this evening. We left the house, and mom reminded me to grab my shopping bags and put them in my rental car. I did. We drove about 45-ish minutes to a restaurant that's about 15 minutes away from the airport (which would be about a 50 minute drive from the house anyhow). Upon exiting the car, I realize I left something which I sort of need in my parents' house.

What could that be, you are probably asking yourself.

My suitcase.

Yup!

Now, I went through the roster of what I had taken on the trip and, thereby, what was in said suitcase. The main contents of the case were simply the (gorgeous) photos of my recent trip to Tanzania. I had in the car my various purchases from the stores I had gone to, as well as the dirty clothes from the day before and my toiletry kit - I had taken these items to the motel where I stayed (I can't stay at my folks' house due to my cat allergy), and just left them in my rental car. So my folks were going to simply send the suitcase on to me. Or maybe just keep it for a bit and I would take it back to NYC next time I go to Ohio.

Until I realized that there was one thing in the suitcase which I really couldn't do without.

The keys to my apartment.

I had put them in a pocket of the suitcase before going through security at LaGuardia on Wednesday morning, and just left them there. After all, I don't need my keys if I'm not at home. But I would definitely need them to get back into my apartment!

Can you believe that my father was able to drive back to the house and get back to the airport with plenty of time for me to get onto the plane?!?!?! The man is amazing. And I am both extraordinarily stupid (at least this once) and extremely lucky.

Why-o Why-o Why-o...

Why am I goin' to Ohio...

Well, my folks live there and they bought a new house, and I got a cheap airfare for my days off from work, so...

See you all Thursday night.

I'm off to the airport, and a rental car, and the land of really big cheap stores.

Sleep, or the Lack Thereof

By all rights, it should be no big deal.

But the 7-ish hours of sleep I got last night was, apparantly, not enough for these old bones.

What makes this all particularly weird is that about 2-ish hours after I went to sleep last night, I had one of those middle of the night wake-up moments. I felt remarkably energetic and fresh and awake and alive.

Why can't I feel like that now that my alarm clock has gone off?

And how will I deal with the fact that I have to get up earlier tomorrow?

Ugh.

In other news, if you like pictures of hot naked men and you're over the age of 18, this is a fun, free site to check out.

A Shitty Beach

OK, I'm on the South Beach Diet. I started on Thursday. I really should buy a scale in case I lose any weight...

Anyhow, today I had:
A sugar-free Jello
A few slices of turkey (lunchmeat-style) and a slice of Swiss with mustard. No bread.
Some celery sticks with peanut butter
A few nuts
Water
A half-glass of Diet Coke.

I'm goin' nuts, here. I have pizza, spaghetti, macaroni, naan, Phat Thai, Gateaux St. Honore, and more carb-y goodness floating through my mind. The Pavlovian salivation is more than I can bear, and there's a great pizza place next door to my apartment building.

Help me...

Help me.........

Yawn...

I hate when I don't get enough sleep...

At least I met a cute guy last night. Maybe I'll even see him again. I did get his card. Yay!

Shingles

Well, the "full" title of this entry is "Fiddling on Roofs A Goy Can Get Shingles" in a bizarre, unpoetic revising of "Playing with Matches a Girl Can Get Burned..."

Yes, it's my "Fiddler on the Roof" review.

OK, first I will say that I don't think it was terrible. But I don't really think it was special. How telling is it that there was no standing ovation? It was an emotional experience for me, seeing the show. I was raised in a Jewish environment, and the songs and stories from "Fiddler" were a key element of my youth. I know every song from that show. Heck, I played "Sunrise, Sunset" on the piano (Hey, I was good, shut up) at my grandparent's 50th Anniversary party. I'm pretty sure it was played at my bar mitzvah reception, and at both my sister's. So the music was a very real connection with the religious part of me (which used to be quite strong, though we don't quite know where it's hiding right now, nor do we care to).

So while I felt an emotional response to many of the songs, and some of the scenes (how heart-wrenching is it when Tevye decides that Chava is dead -- and then when she comes back to bid them a safe trip at the end, as she and Fyedka are also leaving -- and he says "God be with you." I mean... That's intense. But it's intense writing, and I didn't feel like it was Alfred Molina's intensity). But I didn't feel an emotional response to the production. I think the most exciting things to watch were Jerry Robbins' work: the Russian dance, and the Bottle Dance.

The scenes that should have moved us, especially the mini-pogrom at Motel and Tzeitel's wedding? Eh. Not so much.

The set was haunting and evocative but I'm not sure it was the right way to go. That freaky roof was quite distracting and weird, and the orchestra onstage was really a bad choice. It's not the kind of show where you can get away with that. It's really the kind of show where you don't need to be "reminded of the theatricality of it." It's the kind of show where you really want the proscenium to be a window onto this world. So when they take away the proscenium (the production is as close to a "thrust stage" as you can have in the Minskoff) and put the orchestra in the middle of the action like a mariachi band, well, it's hard to see Anatkeva as Anatkeva. And I think that the village is a very important character in "Fiddler," and it is disappointing that this production does not treat her as such.

Another thing that disappointed me was that noone really seemed Jewish to me. The rabbi didn't talk like a rabbi; the "ai dai dai" type Jew-scat in "Rich Man" didn't feel like the mournful intonations of a cantor. It was just... whatever it was. And how come Randy Graff was the only one who knew how to pronounce Chava? The Hebrew ch sound should not have been that difficult for Molina - it's not that different from J like Jimenez in Spanish.

And if you compare what Nancy Opel did to what I can only imagine that Bea Arthur could have done with the role of Yente... oh, don't get me started on another part of it.

Let's just say I was underwhelmed by the show.

I was, however, overwhelmed by the number of outrageusly cute guys my friend and I saw last evening. Both at pre-theatre dinner (at Del Frisco's. Amazing steaks AND gorgeous men in suits. How can you go wrong?) and at the theatre, there were cute guys everywhere. They were, like, popping out of the woodwork. It was quite pleasant. Probably more memorable than a fiddler. Even if he's on a roof.

Did Ya Hear the One About the Transsexual Pro Golfer?

I'm not makin' it up. You go, girl.

Opera and Food

Yay, two of my favorite things.

Fancy dinner.

And the Metropolitan Opera.

I do not know why I like "fancy" food as much as I do (not fancy feast, you cat-obsessing freak), but I do. And I had two rather upscale meals today.

Lunch was at Lever House, and included a lovely appetizer of diver scallops with radish in a nage; a seared tuna salade nicoise, and a devil's food pudding cake with creme fraiche.

Dinner, before the opera, was at Picholine, which is a truly lovely restaurant. I really enjoy dining there, and tonight was no exception. I actually just had two appetizers (a butternut squash soup, with more scallops, followed by parmesan gnocchi with niman ranch pork belly), followed by a lucious helping from their cheese cart. It's amazing the difference between what they have on their cheese cart and what most NYC grocery stores consider a cheese department. Quite the contrast, and if you are lactose-tolerant and on a diet which entitles you to splurge in the dairy from time to time, and you like the interesting subtle variation and nuance of flavor (well, some's not so subtle) that is inherent in real artisanal cheese, treat yourself. The fact that they have a LOVELY wine list didn't hurt, neither.

After consuming an entire bottle of bordeaux, I tipsily jogged over to the Met and made it to my seat in just the right amount of time.

The performance, which was the final essaying of "The Queen of Spades" for the season, was stellar. Excellent singing, and the sets were just totally my style. If I were still designing sets, I would have been thrilled had I been able to design a set such as this one. It was basically a big box, with multiple moving walls, all of which were illustrated in a very painterly style of drawing which actually reminded me of the work of one of the professors at the university I attended (and whose campus I intend to revisit on my upcoming Texas trip). The set was extremely dramatic, and, unlike many of the sets you see in opera, it served the story extremely well. While it was not representational or literal, it framed the story in a highly effective manner, and, combined with the intense, stark lighting, framed the story gorgeously. Then there were the costumes, stark and elaborate at the same time - especially some of the period dresses. One woman had such an elaborate gown (it was over three times the width of her shoulders) she required three gentlemen to assist her when the action required she sit. The chorus & costumes received multiple ovations - well deserved.

Then, of course, there was the singing. What can you say that's bad about Dimitry Hvorostovsky, Placido Domingo, Elena Zaremba or Felicity Palmer? And Adrianne Pieczonka, who I did not really know of before tonight's performance, was also lovely.

It was very ironic to me, watching Domingo, the contrast between the direction of his career vs. that of Luciano Pavarotti's. (Where is Jose Carreras, by the way, if we're tracking the three tenors?)

Pavarotti seems to still be essaying the same old roles - well, notably Cavaradossi, which he's about to give at the Met - which he has done for years. Only he doesn't do them nearly as well. Domingo, by contrast, has evolved as a performer. He's challenged himself to learn new roles - not just singing roles, but a new, dual career, as a conduction as well. He's singing Tchaikovsky and Wagner -- "grown-up" tenor stuff -- while Pavarotti's still strutting through his old war-horses.

I don't totally mean to disparage Pavarotti. He was a great singer. But let me tell you, I heard him sing Cavaradossi at the Met a few seasons ago, and I would have preferred to listen to my old CD I've had for years. (That recording was released in 1990 but I don't remember when it was actually recorded and I don't feel like getting up to go across the room and check, 'cause I'm a lazy fuck.) He cracked, and the age was just so apparant in his voice.

Domingo, while he doesn't sound young anymore, still sounds very healthy vocally. He has power, he has endurance, and he has a wonderful presence. He was quite lovely to watch. And Hvorostovsky is pretty much a hottie... so it was, all in all, a lovely evening at the opera. Not to mention, a lovely day overall.

Drunk People are SOooo Attractive

So I was just walking home after having sushi with a friend (if you're in the city and want good late sushi, go to Fukumatsu on 52nd between 2nd and 3rd), and I happened to see a drunk guy talking on a payphone. Only he had his dick out and was peeing, using the phone "booth" as a urinoir, while hollering at his friend.

Lovely.

Anyhow, I do have some fabulousity planned for the week (if fabulosity wasn't a word before, it is now). Well, aside for Tuesday, which will be spent at work.

Wednesday: The Queen of Spades at the Met.

Thursday: Fiddler on the Roof

Friday: A meeting, a new restaurant, and a club.

Reports and more will be coming throughout the week.

In the meantime, I have a New York City related question for anyone who may know the answer (or is willing to venture an educated or amused guess):

Why, oh why, does every street corner in Manhattan have a Walk/Don't Walk sign -- except for Park Avenue from 57th Street to Grand Central? I always fear that is where I will die.

Oscar Madness

So I didn't get to watch last night, because I was at work (where there was not much work to do, alas). So I kept up with the winners by repeatedly refreshing the winners' list at oscars.com.

But would you believe they had a (fairly major) typo on there? For about 90 seconds or so, they listed the winner for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as Diane Lane in "Unfaithful." At first, I simply was like, oh, wow, Charlize Theron didn't get it? Then I started thinking that Diane Lane wasn't even nominated this year, which is when I realized what had really happened.

That was right about the same time I realized the other thing that had happened: I figured the show would run over a bit, so I set my TiVo to record 15 extra minutes of Oscary goodness, but it was already after 11:45, and neither Best Actor nor Best Picture had been announced. Indeed, by 12 midnight, when I left work, neither of the websites I was checking had announced those two categories. Strange, though, that I was obsessing about it... I actually have only seen one of the movies which was nominated for an award last night.

Which one? Oh please, you knew it had to be "Finding Nemo."

One post-script regarding LOTR: Isn't it sad that we live in a day and age where the movie which wins 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, wasn't even nominated for a SINGLE acting award?