The Jon Blog

I Know One Show I'm Going to See In London

Woohoo!.

I Told You to Buy Tickets!

The Normal Heart to close after June 29 performance.

Sigh...

And it's such a better show than Frozen which I saw Tuesday evening. Not that I didn't think Frozen to be an interesting play; it just didn't come anywhere near being as moving of a theatrical experience as The Normal Heart was.

Such is life in the world of the theatre. Oh well...

Wha-Wha-What??? Me??? Part Deux

So of course you remember that the guy called me last week?

So anyhow, I was at work yesterday, and I opened the envelope which I knew contained my ticket for "Frozen" this evening. Only there were two tickets!

So guess who I called... and guess who said yes!

So I'll let you know how it goes. And I promise that I won't start every line in the next blog entry with the word "So."

So there.

I Didn't Go.

I didn't go to Pride. Even though the parade started on Fifth Avenue, dangerously close to where I work. I decided to sleep in and just show up for my shift.

When I got to the hotel, and heard the whistles and the crowd noises, I felt a little bit guilty about not going and seeing all the cute guys, but then I remembered that I've always felt a little strange about Pride. I mean, sure, it's always been so much fun. But at the same time, I wonder what the intention of Pride is, and if it has anything in common with what it should be.

What I mean is, Pride is a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, 35 years ago. And in one of the many articles I read about various Pride festivals this weekend, I learned that in Berlin, they called the celebrations this weekend "Christopher Street Day." Isn't that sort of cooler than "Heritage of Pride"? And isn't it ironic that the basic message that we use doesn't mesh with the one used by the media? We can't call it the "Gay Pride Parade" because then the Lesbians or the Transgenders or the Bisexuals or the Who-knows-whats might feel left out. And I'm not trying to say anything negative about anyone, but didn't every single news outlet refer to the parade as the "Gay Pride Parade?" Either they're not understanding us, or we need to rethink exactly how we're delivering our message.

But wait, are we delivering a message? How is a parade with a float from Rentboy.com a message other than "Fags like sex!"? Granted, I wasn't there this year to see if the rentboys were representing, but I've sort of cringed every time I've noticed them in the past.

Of course, the last time I was there, I thought about how cool it was that Hillary was marching with us. Was she there this year? Hope so.

Even at the biggest gay pride I ever went to, the 1993 March on Washington, so much of the weekend seemed more about having fun and getting laid than it was about getting the message across that we are here, and we are normal (albeit horny) people who deserve equal (not special) rights.

I'm not trying to say that Pride is not a wonderful thing. It is; it's great that there are so many people who are proud enough to come out to Fifth Avenue and say, "I'm here and I'm (insert whatever "alternative sexual terminology word thingy" here) and I'm proud of that!" It is.

And how great is it that the New York Times would actually run an article on the parade that features a photo of a "normal" looking family with two moms as they are exchanging wedding vows, rather than the photos of leather daddies or 8 foot high drag queens. Of course, they simply referred to it as the gay pride parade.

And I wasn't there. And I pretty much wish I had been.

Wha-Wha-Wha??? Me?

So a guy who I talked to at the Townhouse (a cute one, not the "bad news" one) called me today. A guy called me. This could be huge, folks.

The Crowded White Way

OK, I don't have the whole list here with me; it's at work. But it seems to me that this fall is gearing up to be a very busy Broadway season. See, one of the things I do at work at the hotel is to compile a list of the current and upcoming Broadway shows so that we can fax it to interested parties (ie, our hotel guests). I don't ever recall having this many shows on the list of "Coming Soon." I think there are more shows than theatres. It'll be interesting to see who makes it and who doesn't.

Anyhow, on a more exciting note, I had some seriously pornographic dreams last night. Yay!

Drunken Goodness

Even when you don't go home with the guy and someone else tells you "Damn, guy, avoid him like the plague. He's bad news," it still feels kinda good to be mackin' on someone in a gay bar.

Even if the gay bar in question is only the Townhouse.

And even in the event that you are drunk.

It's still kinda cool to feel up a cute-ish guy's ass. Fun, fun, fun. I should do it more often.

Brilliance

Have you seen the cover of this week's New Yorker?

It's brilliant, ironic, and iconic all at the same time.

Yes, they've solved the Andrew Jackson/Ronald Reagan Debate with a new proposal for the $10 bill: Ray Charles.

Fabulous.

Egads

The sun is coming up and I haven't been to sleep yet! But since I don't have to be at work until 3:00, this means I can safely sleep til about 1:15pm so I'll get almost 8 hours anyhow.

Thought for today: It's quite the humbling moment to be buying an engagement present for your baby sister when you haven't been on a date in 18 months.

Torch Song

I saw the Olympic Torch on Fifth Avenue today. Very cool moment.

And a cool aside: I took this photo on my Clie!

Why?

There are many, many things that I know I will never understand. Such as why there is anyone who thinks that George W. Bush should be reelected (or why he should have been elected in the first place).

But what today's query will address is the issue of advertisements for prescription medication.

First of all, I just want to say that I hate that ad for "Zelnorm" where you have to look at all the women's stomachs with the magic marker writing on them. While they talk about their bowels. I just don't want to know. And quite honestly, this is a conversation that should be had in the privacy of an office with your personal physician. Oh, or is it supposed to be more of an ad to go see your doc because you had one too many stomach aches?

But what's worse are these ads for medications where they don't even tell you what it's for. There was one I saw the other night, and I don't remember the name of the medicine, but it was all these smiling happy shots of women and children; I assume the women were playing the roles of the mothers rather than of creepily smily kidnappers, but I can't be sure. And I have no clue what the medicine would be for. Not dying? Smiling more? Having more babies? Flu? It could be anything.

I mean, if the pharmaceutical companies want to spend money on TV, why not do PSA-type ads where they educate people about diseases we need to know more about? End it with a kind word about a "Trip to your doctor," not about a free dose or a $50 gift certificate.

And am I the only person who thinks that there should be a ban on ads for Erectile Dysfunction? Seriously, again, these are prescription medications, and this is the kind of thing people should be discussing with their doctor, not with me or Matt Lauer. (Plus, how can the words "erectile dysfunction" and "Matt Lauer" be in the same sentence anyhow?)

Or the billboard ads in gay neighborhoods for HIV/AIDS medicines? I mean, again, you think some homo is going to ask his doc for a med just because he saw it on the side of a bus-stop?

Speaking of meds for HIV/AIDS, I heard a terrible urban legend/old wives' tale kind of thing. Since pharmecutical companies stand to make a lot more money with Viral Management meds than they do with curing AIDS/HIV, that's why there's not a bigger "push for a cure" on behalf of the pharmeceutical giants. (And, speaking of presidents and pharmeceutical companies, did you notice in the NYTimes' article about the funding of the upcoming Republican Convention that Pfizer gave millions for the event?)

I think that the pharmeceutical companies are trying to scare the public. And I think that it's ridiculous how impressionable (read, stupid) the public is to fall for all this shit. At least I'm not. And remember, Dude, I'm using a Dell...

Eek! Twice in One Day!

Two rather freaky moments today.

Moment # 1: I was on the phone with Time Warner trying to figure out a glitch with my cable service. "Unplug the modem," she advised me.

"Yo#(**&$*@(%*xu@(*" I hollered.

"Are you ok?"

"I've just been shocked." And indeed I had; a rather serious shock from the plug straight up my left arm. Unpleasant to say the least.

And Moment # 2: this evening, I'm sitting at the computer, and there's a cord that goes from the floor up to the printer which is on a shelf up above.

Well, guess what happens? A MOUSE starts rapelling down the cable. Needless to say, I shrieked, not unlike a "tween" who's just seen a shirtless Justin Timberlake.

So not a great day.

And I'm particularly less than thrilled to see that the mice are back.

Conservative Straight People Understand Marriage Better than We Do

Rush Limbaugh Divorcing for the Third Time.

And they say that letting homos marry will weaken the "institution."

Hell, if J-Lo, Britney and Rush can do it, why not Dan Savage or Michelangelo Signorile or me? Well, we know why not me, but that's only due to a lack of viable candidates...

The Itsy Bitsy Mitzi...

So last night was a rather odd trip to Lincoln Center. Why? The center itself was quite crowded, due to the Midsummer Night's Swing concert/dancing taking place in the plaza. And there were a bunch of girls conducting a survey. "Which show are you seeing? What part of town are you from? Where did you have dinner?"

Then I went to the Beaumont/Newhouse building, ye olde home of LCT, where, since there was no show performing in the big theatre, there were velvet ropes to direct everyone downstairs. They weren't far enough from the stairs, though, and it was hard to get around the slow-moving old people.

The lobby was rather full of activity, though: there's a scaffold set up on the north side of the lobby and there were nubile young girls doing the Jane Krakowski style long sheet of silk dancing. There was also a set taped out on the floor, and once or twice, I heard Nathan Lane hollering in the auditorium.

Then on the way downstairs, it got even more surreal. There was an old, old man in a seersucker suit. I was suprirsed; I didn't realize anyone wore seersucker anymore. Then I saw another odd suit, too, on a woman (!) coming in from the parking area. Her suit was offwhite with blue pinstripes, in a very masculine cut, but she had a big flouncy straw hat on. Oh, the seersucker guy had a hat on, too.

So I finally made it into the Lobby of the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, but it felt a bit more like the Mitzi Newhouse Retirement Community aside from one cute gay couple. I did feel that I was on the younger side of the audience... by far!

Anyhow, the show was amazing. Barbara Cook is so talented and her voice is still lovely, although there are a few reminders through the evening of what she cannot do any more (I don't mean that as a slam!). I really love her, and I felt so lucky to get to see and hear her do what she did - especially when she presented a couple of the songs as scenes; almost recreating the stage role for a moment or two, rather than just being in the cabaret-ish atmosphere she had created.

One major gripe: there was quite a lighting design (and it was lovely!) but there were no credits for any of the technical folk in the Playbill.

One other comment: the bass player was REALLY cute. Anyone know him and want to give him my phone number???

I'm Sure That's Not What They Meant

"John Tartaglia (top) and Christopher Sieber (bottom)"

Thus reads the photo caption on this article from Playbill. I'm only sad that it probably doesn't mean what I think wish it meant...

Ray On My Mind

RIP, Mr. Charles.

He was a great singer and a wonderful role model. How wonderful it was to not only hear him, but to be reminded that being disabled doesn't have to be a disability.

Reality TV Gets Melodramatic

Rocco's Latest.

Not that I write about (or ever watch) reality TV, but as someone who's fairly involved with the food and restaurant business, I still can't believe this shit. The backers thought the restaurant would be a success? And even when they had the opening drama of trying to get the restaurant to open on time?

If they had been smart, they would have known that a hot chef does not good television make.

What they should have known, and I know from conversations with people who have done it, and not from watching the show, is that you don't open a restaurant on a deadline. You get everything as ready as you can and then when you think you can set an opening date, you make that your soft opening... meaning that you get some test diners in to make sure your kitchen is ready, that your staff is ready. Sort of like previews for a Broadway show, except that you don't have to announce the start date so far in advance, and critics can come whenever the hell they want.

If anyone is suing anyone in the Rocco's debacle, they should all be suing NBC for putting unrealistic constraints and pressures on how to operate a business. Hell, I don't know anyone in their right mind who'd want to go to a restaurant after its dirty laundry has aired on national TV. I, for one, would be worried that I'd be seen there.

And the lesson we should have all learned is that TV is better when it's not real. Give me writers and actors ANY day.

That is all.

Taboo

The other day at work, I was chatting with a co-worker. I told her that I am consistenly amazed by the fact that there is such a strong taboo against public discussion of sex.

Why is it that Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" has caused every live TV show now to have a 5 second tape delay? (This is how we got onto the topic - discussing the tape delay of the Tony Awards) Why is Eminem's ass being edited out of the MTV Movie Awards?

And yet violence, which is worse because it hurts people, is something that's talked about all the time. It makes the news.

Imagine if sex made the news at the same level that violence currently does.

"Hairy fat guy hires prostitute."

"Suburban wife has lesbian experience."

"Census shows that 896,302,000,000,000,000,000 orgasms were had last year in the United States. Film at 11."

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

The French translation is:
Hand wash in cool water with gentle soap.
Line dry.
Do Not bleach.
Do not machine dry.
Do not iron.
Do not dry clean.
We are sorry that our president has been an idiot.
We didn't vote for him.

Something To Say

OK, so I've been avoiding the blog for the past couple days.

Not sure why. But whatever. I'm here, and I wanted to just say that I think that Jesse McKinley's article in today's Times about the Tony Race is really rather a waste of time and cyberspace (or ink and paper, depending on how you look at things).

He has two successive paragraphs which both begin with variations of "the race is a little closer."

I am just so sick of the Tony handicapping - and even with the races. I mean, who cares anymore? And I think it's really sad that the design awards are relegated to the "show before the show." I mean, we're talking about four awards here. Let the folks get to be recognized.

And speaking of recognizing people, please tell me I'm not the only one who finds it rather odd, a conflict of interest, and rather past "tacky" that Hugh Jackman is both nominated (and a likely winner in a dog of a musical) and the host for the evening?

And while I haven't seen many of the straight plays this season, it seems odd to me that in the piles and piles of huge acting accolades, that the bulk of the awards appear to be about to fall into the lap of "The P. Diddy Show.""A Raisin in the Sun." Even though I'm a big Audra fan, I still think it rather odd... I mean, she already has three and there are other women out there doing amazing stuff this season, from all I hear.

Anyhow, it was not all that great of a season, aside from the joys of "Avenue Q," so I guess it shouldn't be all that joyous to sum it up.

And I have to get to work, so I don't have that much more time to do more summing...