About a year and a half ago I had a odd gig. A woman was having a birthday party and she wanted someone to come to the Party and do some readings. No particular theme- just some readings. And if the person doing the readings could arrive at the party while it was already in progress and mingle a bit and then read all the better.
Now usaully I run from these gigs at top speed (god knows I've done my fair share of these "trained chimp" gigs) But she's a lovely lady and a big Supporter of the Northport Community Theater so I agreed. (oh... and the pay was quite generous.)
The gig went very well- I put together a selection Of Tennessee Williams letters, Some Thornton Wilder,and of course... Shakespeare. The audience was a smart Lively bunch and we had some great conversation after the presentation. (one of the old gents at the party also made me a very robust scotch and soda- he had decided that scotch had to be my drink.I didn't have the heart to tell him that chocolate milk is my drink. So when I returned to rehearsal after the party it was very ....loose)
Anyway, I went to the party in the guise of "Mr. Broadway!" ,a character I had created a few years back for a cabaret show "curated" by a wonderful singer/actor/impresario Frank Russo."Mr Broadway!" is your classic ,know nothing-know it all. I have since discovered that some guy has trademarked the title "Mr. Broadway" so you'll notice I added the all important exclamation mark so that "Mr Broadway"tm and "Mr. Broadway!"will never be confused.
ANYWAY...as I was cleaning up a bit the other day I found my notes for "Mr. Broadway!"'s opening remarks at the party. they made me laugh.
here they are:
Wherever there are three or more people gathered together-I'll be there!
Wherever people celebrate good times with good friends-I'll be there!
Wherever there is the sound of laughter and the spirit of joy in the air- I'll be there!
Wherever there is free food and/or liquor-I'll be there!
For I am MR BROADWAY!
Yes,Mr Broadway! noted wit, buff, raconteur, gourmet, gourmand, bon vivant, lothario, part time stock clerk at the Rite Aid near Columbus Circle.
Mr.Broadway! Filled with an insatiable lust for life! A joie de vivre! a je ne se qua!
Mr.Broadway! Filled with the brisket from the Carnegie Deli!...late lunch.
Ah the sights and the sounds of the Great White Way! There's a broken heart for every light burning bright along that Glittering Gulch! And Mr.Broadway! is responsible for more than his fair share of broken hearts! (at this point of the party I hinted at some torrid nights spent with the birthday girl)
So many memories of nights spent on that Naughty Thoroughfare. I remember the first night I met Tennesse Williams at Sardis! What an unforgettable evening. The food, the wine! A star studded evening, I'm sure he never forgot it either. I confused him with Tennesse Ernie Ford and forced him to sing "16 Tons" 3 times in a row before Arthur Miller knocked me to the floor and told me to stop making goo-goo eyes at Marilyn.
--- at that point we moved into the readings.
a nice evening- even though i was the "trained chimp" a well paid chimp.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
tell him your plans
well it has been quite a while since i've spent some time here at the ol' blog. i cheated a bit last night and posted some video. i did that because i discovered i could and that its really pretty simple, which is perfect for me.
when i started this in november, my idea was to jot down some eccentric little ruminations on the petty day to day nonsense that dominates my life. an excuse to sit for a few minutes a couple of nights a week and just write. a few minutes at night, get into the rhythm of writing again and who knows
that was my plan.
right from the first post i was balking at the permanent nature of the beast.an idea that's kicking around in your head gets a pass. but once it's printed it gets scrutiny. of course deep down what i was really leery about was the unspoken demand that a blog be personal, that it reveal. i'll admit it. i am surface boy (not circus boy, that was mickey dolenz) i'm happy to deal with the world in an intellectual way, with a certain distance, a certain reserve. the blog demands that reserve become reveal.
on feb 7 at 8 am , after 3 weeks in the hospital fighting pneumonia and infection my dad passed away, those three weeks were the longest of my life. time came to a standstill. the outside world faded away.
for three weeks my world was the couch in the playroom, the couch in the icu waiting room and the chair at my dads bedside. the sound i dreaded most was the phone. at all hours of the day or night.
especially at 2am feb 7.
i will now resume writing this blog. i will resume examining the odds and ends. and every so often i will write about the change(s) that started that morning.
how do you make god laugh? tell him your plans
when i started this in november, my idea was to jot down some eccentric little ruminations on the petty day to day nonsense that dominates my life. an excuse to sit for a few minutes a couple of nights a week and just write. a few minutes at night, get into the rhythm of writing again and who knows
that was my plan.
right from the first post i was balking at the permanent nature of the beast.an idea that's kicking around in your head gets a pass. but once it's printed it gets scrutiny. of course deep down what i was really leery about was the unspoken demand that a blog be personal, that it reveal. i'll admit it. i am surface boy (not circus boy, that was mickey dolenz) i'm happy to deal with the world in an intellectual way, with a certain distance, a certain reserve. the blog demands that reserve become reveal.
on feb 7 at 8 am , after 3 weeks in the hospital fighting pneumonia and infection my dad passed away, those three weeks were the longest of my life. time came to a standstill. the outside world faded away.
for three weeks my world was the couch in the playroom, the couch in the icu waiting room and the chair at my dads bedside. the sound i dreaded most was the phone. at all hours of the day or night.
especially at 2am feb 7.
i will now resume writing this blog. i will resume examining the odds and ends. and every so often i will write about the change(s) that started that morning.
how do you make god laugh? tell him your plans
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
paradise redux
let's continue with the john prine show.
i promised some celebrity cameos, here's the first- before i went in to the show i decided i better get some tissues and cough drops ( i was two days into a nasty cold) so i walked down the street and stocked up on same. so now i'm walking back and i pass the entrance to the director's guild of america and who is walking out the door? marty scorsese! there he is! teeny tiny little guy looking quite dapper in his camel hair top coat. talking to some pals and walking to a car waiting to pick him up. so i ran over and said "marty! i just bought the new york , new york 30th anniversary dvd- i love that movie! people really need to rediscover that film!".........no. i didn't do that, i just looked at him and in my head said "oooo marty" and kept walking
a number of years ago i was walking down 5th ave. and i saw the director robert benton, so i started following him and after a few blocks i thought "what the hell am i doing?" and walked away. but for about 4 minutes benton had a stalker.
back to carnegie hall: prine opens with the song "spanish pipedream" the chorus of which asks the listener to throw away your tv , newspaper, move to the country, eat peaches and find jesus on your own. it is met with roars of approval.
after that he deadpans a great line , "i guess you found the place alright" **
and the night continued on with lots of wonderful music, great stories and odd little moments, during two different songs he ad libbed a line or two and got lost and needed to vamp a bit until he found his way back. much to the audience's delight.
One of the duets he did with iris dement was a song he wrote for a movie he was in directed by billy bob thornton. the song is in spite of ourselves and he expressed his amusement (and bemusement) that people come up to him and tell him that this was there wedding song. perhaps i should point out that iris' opening lines in the song are "he ain't been laid in a month of sundays/ i caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies"
his songs sound simple and matter of fact but he has a great ability to mix the epic and the everyday with the weird and it all works. when you get a chance listen to the song "the missing years" which is the story of where jesus was for the 18 years before he turned 30. in a 4 minute song jesus is born and lives in rome, london, invents the beatles, plays with the stones, gets married, talks to god and on and on. amazing stuff
now for the inside the show celebrity- mikey! from american chopper, one of my favorite shows, love it. but let me say this, mikey is a dick! it breaks my heart to say it, but there it is. he and three or four other people show up a half an hour into the show and the whole time he's talking and getting up and down and changing his seat and basically being a nuisance. and of course the curse of celebrity (especially tv celebrity) is that not only are you a dick but you are "mikey, that guy from that motorcycle show, dick" needless to say he and crew left early as well. but it wasn't over because he came back 5 minutes later to try and find the john prine souvenir fly swatter that he lost. after a few minutes of down on all fours searching , he found it.
(the other thought that went thru my head was "mikey couldn't get any better seats than these crappy one's i'm sittin' in?" fame ain't it a bitch.
** a reference to the old joke- how do you get to carnegie hall?
i promised some celebrity cameos, here's the first- before i went in to the show i decided i better get some tissues and cough drops ( i was two days into a nasty cold) so i walked down the street and stocked up on same. so now i'm walking back and i pass the entrance to the director's guild of america and who is walking out the door? marty scorsese! there he is! teeny tiny little guy looking quite dapper in his camel hair top coat. talking to some pals and walking to a car waiting to pick him up. so i ran over and said "marty! i just bought the new york , new york 30th anniversary dvd- i love that movie! people really need to rediscover that film!".........no. i didn't do that, i just looked at him and in my head said "oooo marty" and kept walking
a number of years ago i was walking down 5th ave. and i saw the director robert benton, so i started following him and after a few blocks i thought "what the hell am i doing?" and walked away. but for about 4 minutes benton had a stalker.
back to carnegie hall: prine opens with the song "spanish pipedream" the chorus of which asks the listener to throw away your tv , newspaper, move to the country, eat peaches and find jesus on your own. it is met with roars of approval.
after that he deadpans a great line , "i guess you found the place alright" **
and the night continued on with lots of wonderful music, great stories and odd little moments, during two different songs he ad libbed a line or two and got lost and needed to vamp a bit until he found his way back. much to the audience's delight.
One of the duets he did with iris dement was a song he wrote for a movie he was in directed by billy bob thornton. the song is in spite of ourselves and he expressed his amusement (and bemusement) that people come up to him and tell him that this was there wedding song. perhaps i should point out that iris' opening lines in the song are "he ain't been laid in a month of sundays/ i caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies"
his songs sound simple and matter of fact but he has a great ability to mix the epic and the everyday with the weird and it all works. when you get a chance listen to the song "the missing years" which is the story of where jesus was for the 18 years before he turned 30. in a 4 minute song jesus is born and lives in rome, london, invents the beatles, plays with the stones, gets married, talks to god and on and on. amazing stuff
now for the inside the show celebrity- mikey! from american chopper, one of my favorite shows, love it. but let me say this, mikey is a dick! it breaks my heart to say it, but there it is. he and three or four other people show up a half an hour into the show and the whole time he's talking and getting up and down and changing his seat and basically being a nuisance. and of course the curse of celebrity (especially tv celebrity) is that not only are you a dick but you are "mikey, that guy from that motorcycle show, dick" needless to say he and crew left early as well. but it wasn't over because he came back 5 minutes later to try and find the john prine souvenir fly swatter that he lost. after a few minutes of down on all fours searching , he found it.
(the other thought that went thru my head was "mikey couldn't get any better seats than these crappy one's i'm sittin' in?" fame ain't it a bitch.
** a reference to the old joke- how do you get to carnegie hall?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
paradise
last saturday night i went into manhattan to see the great john prine. wonderful show- he played for three hours! three hours! to put this is perspective it is john on vocals and guitar, ------guitar solos and harmony vocals, and --------bass. and on this night the country singer songwriter iris dement came out and sang 4 or 5 duets with john.
now prine is a wonderful singer but steve perry he ain't. he has a great conversational singing voice, at one point during the night he commented that he can sing in two keys and the song he had started wasn't in either of them. he also battled throat cancer a few years back which obviously affected his voice. to my mind though he's a much better singer today than he was when he started but, by the end of the night his voice was starting to show the strain.
I saw him in albany two summers ago and he had an opening act so his set was a mere two hours long and his voice was strong throughout.
saturdays show was at carnegie hall and it had been a few years (and more than a few pounds) since i had been there. i was in the balcony, which in fancy concert hall talk means five stories up. by stairs. which means that as you continue your climb, the stairways are strewn with the bodies of the old and out of shape. the only thing keeping you moving up is vanity"please don't let me be one of those guys"
then when i arrive at the balcony i essentially have to walk down an entire flight to reach my seat.at carnegie hall, like at the older broadway houses, leg room and seat room are non existent. thank god i had an aisle! i had to chase some old hippie out of my seat. he tried to persuade me that he should sit there because he got there first. i don't remember what i said but judging by his expression and the speed with which he moved i suspect i was a bit abrupt.
( a slight digression: i spent a few days in woodstock this past spring and decided that it is a thin line that separates an old hippie from a nasty street bum. I say this with no judgement or animosity-just a keen sense of observation)
i will continue this tomorrow perhaps- there are some celebrities that will make cameo appearances, both inside and outside the show!
let me finish by saying if you are not familiar with john prine you should give him a listen. I suggest you check out his first album ,john prine, although his voice is very different the songwriting is inspirational. listen and be amazed (and humbled) that sam stone, hello in there, paradise, and angel from montgomery are all on one record.
now prine is a wonderful singer but steve perry he ain't. he has a great conversational singing voice, at one point during the night he commented that he can sing in two keys and the song he had started wasn't in either of them. he also battled throat cancer a few years back which obviously affected his voice. to my mind though he's a much better singer today than he was when he started but, by the end of the night his voice was starting to show the strain.
I saw him in albany two summers ago and he had an opening act so his set was a mere two hours long and his voice was strong throughout.
saturdays show was at carnegie hall and it had been a few years (and more than a few pounds) since i had been there. i was in the balcony, which in fancy concert hall talk means five stories up. by stairs. which means that as you continue your climb, the stairways are strewn with the bodies of the old and out of shape. the only thing keeping you moving up is vanity"please don't let me be one of those guys"
then when i arrive at the balcony i essentially have to walk down an entire flight to reach my seat.at carnegie hall, like at the older broadway houses, leg room and seat room are non existent. thank god i had an aisle! i had to chase some old hippie out of my seat. he tried to persuade me that he should sit there because he got there first. i don't remember what i said but judging by his expression and the speed with which he moved i suspect i was a bit abrupt.
( a slight digression: i spent a few days in woodstock this past spring and decided that it is a thin line that separates an old hippie from a nasty street bum. I say this with no judgement or animosity-just a keen sense of observation)
i will continue this tomorrow perhaps- there are some celebrities that will make cameo appearances, both inside and outside the show!
let me finish by saying if you are not familiar with john prine you should give him a listen. I suggest you check out his first album ,john prine, although his voice is very different the songwriting is inspirational. listen and be amazed (and humbled) that sam stone, hello in there, paradise, and angel from montgomery are all on one record.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)