Stone and Parker in front of the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway
My friend David and I saw The Book of Mormon last night. It was every bit as good as I hoped it would be. Better, actually. It’s a remarkable instance of the creators of a show having their cake and eating it, too . . . in a big way. Meaning, the show has elements that are utterly profane and offensive, and yet overall it’s sweet and hopeful. It’s not mean spirited at all, which is surprising, considering the ridiculous religion it’s portraying.
The performances are fantastic. The two leads should share the Tony award . . . in fact, I really hope that’s what happens.
I highly recommend this show to anyone whose planning a trip to New York any time soon.
///
For a brief moment, my delirious enjoyment of the show was derailed. In the second act, there’s a wonderful number called “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, ” depicting the horrors that commonly bedevil (to coin a phrase) worried young Mormons everywhere. Somehow the theme of recurring anxiety triggered my own: Money.
Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells
Yeah, even though I’m in the midst of a wonderfully beefy project, I have no work scheduled when it’s over yet, and I still haven’t gotten over the blind terror of post September 2008 contractor life. It’s not been easy, and I have to continue to work hard to find new opportunities.
The Only Three Things I Worry About
Money
Health
Actually, there isn’t a third thing
Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 245 user reviews.
Soapbox Alert: You Have Entered a No Boredom Zone!
Few things get me madder quicker than “boredom.” I enclose that word in quotation marks because, to be specific, it’s when other people use the word to describe their state of mind that I get pig-biting mad.
Bored? Really?
In my mind, being bored more than once or twice a year is unacceptable. The world is too interesting a place. “Boredom” is born of laziness and lack of imagination.
Baby, I'm bored.
Life is too short, and there are too many cool things to do and discover, for boredom to be a regular occurrence in your life.
Of course, there are a few exceptions.
It is Permissible For You to be Bored if . . .
you are blind and deaf
you actually incarcerated (in a facility which does not contain a lending library)
you are ill or severely injured
you are actually dead
Don’t find yourself on the list above? Then you don’t get to be bored, Sparky.
I am lazy and I have no brain!
Perhaps this is a new concept for you. If so, I am thrilled to report that I can help.
Things to Try if You are Bored
1. Pick up a book.
Books. You remember them? They’re everywhere, thanks to Mr. Gutenberg. And Amazon. I don’t even care what kind of book you read. I’m not a snob. Read Danielle Steele, for all I care. That chick must be able to tell a good story, considering all the units she’s moved. Read Stephen King. Read trash. I don’t care. I’ll bet you don’t even have a library card. Why don’t you? Libraries are great. They let you borrow books for free, it’s crazy. Or for that matter, it doesn’t even have to be a book. Read a magazine. Check out all those fabled “good articles” in Playboy. Or Cosmo. Or National Geographic. Or, hell, Maxim (which, of course, could have the added benefit of learning how to please her in bed three ways at the same time!‼). I don’t care if you’re reading the back of a cereal box. Just read something. And if you can’t find anything you like to read, you’ve got bigger problems than boredom, pal.
2. Do a chore.
One of the main reasons you don’t want to clean your apartment, or work on your taxes, or wash your dog, is that there’s something else you’d rather do. If you’re bored, then, by definition, there’s nothing particular that you feel like doing. Perfect time to clean the underside of your platform bed! [PS I learned this one from my wise grandmother, whose now an even wiser 98 years old.]
3. Get out of your comfort zone.
Maybe you need to try something you don’t usually do. Take a samba class. Watch a sport you don’t think you like. Sleep with someone who’s a different age/race/sex/religion than you usually hook up with. Try a food you don’t think you like. Take a drive to a part of town you never go to.
4. Volunteer.
If you’re not doing anything, you might has well stuff envelopes, right?
5. Play a video game.
Seriously. If you have never tried them, you don’t know what you’re missing. Find a genre of game you like, and boredom will be a thing of the past.
Finally, if you feel seriously bored frequently, it could be a sign that you suffer from clinical depression, in which case you need to seek help.
But if you’re healthy, and reasonably mobile, and aren’t in solitary confinement: I don’t want to hear about how bored you are.
Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 254 user reviews.
I’ve been interested in microloans for some time. Are you familiar with the concept? You make loans in tiny amounts to people across the globe that you’ve never met.
I finally decided to take the plunge. I joined Kiva, an organization I highly recommend (www.kiva.org). The site is well-organized, which makes it easy to zero in on what kind of loan you’d like to make.
My client Sugar in his grocery store in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. He is bringing computer gaming to his community.
I skipped over the boring stuff like farming and manufacturing and went straight to Entertainment. Hey, just because I’m being altruistic doesn’t mean I have to stop being shallow.
After only a couple of minutes of searching I found my guy: Sugar Ayush, a married father of one, wants to raise money to expand one room of his small grocery store to make a PC gaming center. Well, that’s an idea I can get behind! Just because a kid lives in Mongolia shouldn’t mean he can’t get his Gears of War on, right?
At first I was worried, because I was the very first person to loan Sugar a chunk of the amount he was trying to raise. But in just a week, other wise lenders had followed my lead and I was delighted to see that his loan amount had been met! I’m actually quite proud that my name is listed as the first lender right on his page. The smug feeling of righteousness I feel when I think about Sugar’s PC game room is well worth the $25 I lent him to expand his business.
So. The next time you’re in Ulan Bator and you have a hankerin’ for some Halo, go see my client Sugar and tell him Ray sent you.
Other Microloans I Should Make
Help open a bodybuilding gym
Help pay for World of Warcraft subscriptions in a developing country
No Child Left Behind (Without Her Own GameBoy)
Open a Mrs. Fields in a developing country
///
Here are some more photos I’ve taken while in New York.
I lived in this building for the summer of 1983. While living there, my sister and I were at The Witte Museum in San Antonio and we came across a painting that included this building. It made me feel even more important than I normally do.
You'd have to agree that, when it came time to name this church, they pretty much hit the nail on the head.
I’m still learning both my Nikon D90 and Lightroom 3.
Pretty good band in the Times Square subway station.
Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 256 user reviews.
All you have to do to appreciate the wonder of American food is to travel abroad. No, I’m not kidding.
Don’t get me wrong. I adored the food in Italy. Who wouldn’t? The eats in Japan were wondrous. And don’t get me started on Mexico.
Food of the Gods
But. There’s one thing factor that makes food in America consistently fun: The fact that we’re mongrels. Mutts. We’re from everywhere and we’ve interbred like crazy. This leads toall sorts of innovations, not the least of which can be found in our cuisine.
Best. Sandwich. Evar.
Back to Italy. Yep, the pasta Bolognese I ate there was heaven. Ditto the homeade ravioli. However, as perfect these classic dishes were, they was the same in every ristorante that I went to. The recipes had been canonized long ago, polished to a high sheen like pebbles polished in one of those tumblers we had as kids.
Not in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Here were not afraid to toss things together. Things that, at first glance, would seem to not go together at all.
Buffalo chicken meatloaf yay!
Case in point: Barbeque Chicken Pizza. Now a staple in restaurants and pizzerias here, this is a dish that could never have been invente in Europe. No way, no how. Same with fajitas. Buffalo wings. The bread bowl. Potato chips.
And the lunchtime wonder I had yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, I present: Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf. What a great fucking idea. What a great way to freshen up a venerable, but tired, traditional dish. This is something I’m going to try making as soon as I’m back in my kitchen.
Other Notable American-Born Dishes
Smores
Peanut butter
Graham Crackers
Pumpkin pie
Corn bread
Corn Dogs
Toll House Cookies
Cobb Salad
The Reuben
Cookie Dough Ice Cream
Chinese Chicken Salad
Peanut Butter Smores!
Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 231 user reviews.
My hotel, the Courtyard Upper East Side, is nice, but a bit remote. The room is very comfortable, but like most hotel rooms in this town, a bit on the wee side.
Central Park in the Spring is definitely a big check in the PLUS column for America. I had a lovely walk across the Upper East Side, the Park, and then the Upper West Side on the way to Gerard’s.
Gerard lives in this great building on West End Avenue. His 13-floor living room windows face the Hudson River. Between him and the river is a school. “This is great, ” I would always tell him. “That school isn’t going anywhere, so your view will be here forever!”
So naturally a few years ago the damn school added several stories, just enough to sit right smack in front of Gerard’s beautiful view. Oh, the humanity.
Gerard's snow has played in various incarnations around the world since 1981!
Gerard has been my friend since 1988 or so, and it’s always great to see him. Like my late friend Ken, we can talk about movies until we collapse.
“So what else besides The Book of Mormon should I try to see while I’m here?” I knew Gerard would have his finger on the pulse of the New York theater scene. Without hesitation he said, “War Horse.” Funny, I had just seen an article on TED about this show that had these amazing horse puppets. My time in New York was limited, and the show had a lot of buzz on it, so we actually scooted down to Lincoln Center and I nabbed the last remaining good seat for the evening performance.
The show was dazzling. The play basically puts you through World War I, with trench warfare, barbed wire, tanks, and full-size horses. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.
Places I Have Seen Productions of Gerard’s Shows Since 1981
New York, of course
Boston
Los Angeles
Orange County
Honolulu
The guy in brown is one of three performers operating Joey the horse.
Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 282 user reviews.
Jose Quintero, a Panamanian, became known as one of the most important directors of American playwrights like Eugene O’Neil and Tennessee Williams. He also pretty much invented off-Broadway theater when he co-founded The Circle in the Square Theater in New York in 1951. He was largely responsible for the careers of Geraldine Page and Jason Robards, Jr.
He was also a colorful figure, with a lyrical, humanistic sensibility.
The handsome Mr. Quintero. This is pretty close to how I remember him looking in 1978.
For some inexplicable reason, he agreed to teach a series of master classes at North Texas State University in 1978. Or, hell, it might have been early 1979. Actually, I imagine the reason he agreed to do it was the check cleared.
I was lucky enough to be a student at NTSU that year, and while I wasn’t a drama major, I was still exposed to this remarkable man.
On his last evening with us, everyone took him out for an evening of merriment. Near the end of the evening, we went up to a fellow student, who I’ll call, oh, let’s just call him Rick Higginbotham. Rick had mightily impressed Mr. Quintero with his rendition of Cyrano de Bergerac. The old master slipped a piece of paper with a phone number on it into Rick’s hand. “Call me when you’re ready, ” he whispered.
Well. As you can imagine, there was an electrical fire in poor Rick’s brain. This was every actor’s dream. For anyone who is foolish enough to aspire to work in the theater, one of the main obstacles is the simple fact that there doesn’t seem to be a direct and logical path to success, unlike most professions. You move to New York or Los Angeles, get some pictures, take some classes, stumble around town and try to get an audition. It really sucks, and it’s really intimidating.
But here was a famous director handing Rick his very own Golden Ticket! The heavens parted and the angels sang!
A few months later I auditioned for and was accepted to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Perhaps not a Golden Ticket, but a Silver one, at least, or so I thought at the time. My father convinced of the soundness of my plan, I cancelled plans to do my junior year at the university and made my plans to move to New York.
The first apartment I ever lived in was in this building at 86th and Central Park West in 1979.
The idea of moving to New York was scary, of course, but made a little bit less so because Rick Higginbotham announced that he and a friend of his were going with me. Well, fantastic! I’d start school while Rick got started on permitting Jose Quintero to turn him into the next Geraldine Page. Yay!
Of course, even at this point I considered Rick’s game plan a bit shaky. “So. What exactly are you going to do in New York?” I asked him, trying not to sound as dubious as I really felt.
Rick rolled his eyes at my foolish question. “I’m going to work in the theater.”
Yep. That was his whole plan. He was going to get off the plane, call the famous director, and on Monday begin rehearsals for some major Broadway production. As young and stupid as I was, this sounded a bit too much like a house of straw to me, but held my counsel.
We got to New York, found an apartment in this building:
I started school, and it was magical almost from the very first day, it was all almost unbearably exciting.
Rick called Mr. Quintero. Left a message.
I got my stupid, humiliating dance class stuff (a Texas boy, even a closeted gay Texas boy, does not naturally fit comfortably into a dance belt and tights).
Rick called Mr. Quintero again. Left another message.
I began to make friends. I started to enjoy my classes. Even movement class, thanks to the dynamic instructor, Liz Milwe.
Rick called Mr. Quintero again. Left multiple message. (I have no idea what his friend, whose name was Huckabee, was doing during this time.)
Young, stupid, scared, and abandoned by my roommates, I stood on the roof of this building and contemplated my future.
One night after three weeks, Rick and Huckabee sat me down back at the apartment. “This city sucks. We’re leaving.”
Poor Rick. He’d finally figured out what most of us knew but didn’t have the heart to tell him: That the scrap of paper with the phone number was not an actual invitation to come have a brilliant career, but simply a drunken gesture of a horny old man who’d been besotted by the charms of an intense young actor. Mr. Quintero had sobered up. He would not be returning Rick’s calls.
I, of course, freaked out. Being in New York with two friends helped tether me to the real world. Plus, I’d signed a lease! How would I pay the enormous ($600) rent myself? What if I couldn’t find new roommates? I vividly remember standing on the roof of the Brewster and looking south from 86th Street and Central Park West at the glittering, beautiful, yet forbidding city of my dreams. I felt truly alone.
I’m also not proud to report that my thought bubble when Rick told me the news of his departure was smug and self-righteous. “Wow, three weeks, that’s all your dream is worth?, ” I remember thinking.
Rick and Huck went home and I never heard from them, or even about them. Well, I might have heard that Rick became a radio DJ, which sounded like a good idea (he had a terrific voice for radio).
North Texas State University became The University of North Texas in 1988. Jose Quintero died in 1999. And while I have a very impressive Associates Degree of Occupational Studies from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, I have never acquired a Bachelor’s Degree.
Looking back on it, I find I’m quite sympathetic to Rick and the mistake he made. Being young and full of dreams doesn’t do much for your default IQ. Plus I’m one to talk; I had my own mistaken illusions. I thought I was going to a swanky acting school, and while I did have some great teachers there, and make great friends, by the late 1970s the AADA was no longer a school whose reputation helped you get ahead in show business. Not like Julliard or Yale, or even for that matter SMU, which was just down the damn road a bit from where I was in college in the first place.
But at least I had more resilience than Rick, right?. I stayed in school and graduated. I did the struggling actor boogie for years. I moved to Los Angeles and did a commercial and walk-ons on soaps, and the odd play. After that, as everyone knows, my multifacetless career had an utter lack of any impact whatsoever on the world of theater in any way.
So you could argue that Rick was smarter, cutting his losses early and getting on with his life. I hope you have had a good one, Rick, wherever you are.
The last thing I remember Huck saying to me was a breezy, “You’ll be alright.” Which I thought was pretty callous of him at the time. But of course, he was right.
Notable Productions Directed by Jose Quintero
Summer and Smoke (Tennessee Williams) starring Geraldine Page, 1952
The Iceman Cometh (Eugene O’Neill) starring Jason Robards, 1956
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (O’Neill), 1957
Strange Interlude (O’Neill), 1963
Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 169 user reviews.
Very happy to be heading off to New York! It’s such a rare treat to be sent to New York on a project, since there are lots of contractors there who usually get those assignments.
I have had my tickets for The Book of Mormon for months. It’s the new Broadway musical written by one of the Avenue Q guys and the two South Park guys. So looking forward to that. Obviously I hope to have some quality time with friends as well. I need to watch my budget a bit and not just go dropping $125 for every damn show that I want to see in New York.
Broadway Shows I Saw When I Was in New York Last September
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Next to Normal
Brief Encounter
New York will probably be an even more challenging place to stay on a good eating regimen than Cleveland has been. In fact, as far as food goes, as I look at my itinerary for the remainder of the trip, it appears that eating low carb is going to get progressively more difficult. (Picture me attempting to order low-carb in Russia.) I’ll just have to do the best I can on that score.
On the other hand, balancing out the food peril is the fact that the deeper I get into my trip, the more likely it is that I’ll be doing an increasing amount of walking. The weather should be getting better and better, and the sun will be up later and later. Eventually, when I’m in Russia in May, the sun will be up until almost midnight! I imagine I’ll be spending less and less time huddling in my hotel room, like I’ve been doing a lot of in frigid Cleveland.
Spa Cuisine?
However, I’ve been trying to be good about exercise. I’ve been using the gym pretty regularly. I even swam laps on Monday night – and there’s a pool at my New York hotel as well.
The other night I pushed over 300 lbs on the leg press during my workout. Not too bad for an fat old guy.
Everyone knows fitness is my life.
Here’s to hoping that exercise will help stave off the effects of pretzels, bon bons, blini and borscht!
Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 300 user reviews.
Like my 1987 five-week Italy/Switzerland/France trip, my current twelve-week extravaganza is requiring LOTs of planning.
The strategy is further complicated by the fact that the trip has a dual nature: Mostly work, but some play. This greatly affects planning, since the Client pays for the former, me the latter.
It’s like putting a huge sculpture together with an extensive Lego set.
It's on its way!
The Client portion is all in the bag:
Client Trip Elements In Place
Flight from LAX to Cleveland
Hotel(s) in Cleveland
Flight to New York
Hotel in New York
Flight from New York to Brussels
Brussels Hotel
Munich Hotel
Flight from Munich to Moscow
Moscow Hotel
Flight from Helsinki to LAX
Russian Visa secured (in process)
The visa for Russia was a surprising amount of work, but my portion is done. I’m just waiting for my passport with the thrilling official Russian visa stamp affixed to it to arrive in the next few days.
But there’s a great deal of work required for my portion of the trip:
Personal Elements of Trip in Place
Round Trip Train from Brussels to Paris (reserved, paid for)
Hotel in Paris (reserved, paid for with Marriott rewards points!)
Flight from Brussels to Vilnius (reserved, paid for with frequent flyer miles)
Flight from Vilnius to Berlin (reserved, paid for with frequent flyer miles)
Hotel in Vilnius (cousin is making reservation)
Hotel in Berlin (reserved . . . this is going to be the single most expensive piece of the personal portion of the trip)
Train from Moscow to St. Petersburg (reserved, paid for)
Hotel in St. Petersburg (reserved, probably going to be paid for with Marriott rewards points)
Hotel in Helsinki (reserved, paid for)
Personal Elements of Trip Still to be Done
Train from Berlin to Munich
Transportation from St. Petersburg to Tallinn (Ferry preferred, bus or train possible)
Hotel in Tallinn
Ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki
I hope to see an old acting buddy in Helsinki!Baltic ferry lines
So I feel like I’m coming right along. I’d take care of more things in the Still to be Done list except I’m really stuck until I get another paycheck. I have to outlay the cost of the hotel in New York and expense it, so I have to keep my credit card nice and open for that. The only part I’m slightyly anxious about is the St. Petersburg to Tallinn segment, but I’m sure it’ll be all right.
Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 169 user reviews.
One of the most fun things about any trip is the planning.At least for anal retentives like me, I guess.
I remember my second trip to Europe in 1989.I was to spend a month in Italy before meeting friends in Paris.I had a wonderful time mapping out my trip, checking train schedules, and carefully making hotel reservations in my halting tourist Italian.It was to be my second trip to Italy.In 1987 I had the good fortune to go to Pisa, Florence, Venice, and Milan.Amazing trip, but pretty easy, planning-wise.Not so with the 1987 journey.
The beautiful and mysterious hill town of Assisi.
Here were the stops on my second trip:
1987 Europe Trip Destinations
Rome
Tivoli
Naples
Pompeii
Perugia
Siena
Rimini
Assisi
Ravenna
Bologna
Ferrara
Verona
Sirmione (Lago ie Garda)
Stresa (Lago Maggiore)
Cervinia
Zermat (Switzerland)
Lausanne
Geneva
Dijon
Paris
I had a pretty horrible claustrophobia episode while climbing to the top of this damn thing, the tallest brick tower in the world.
It was a GREAT trip.Rome knocked me out.For a history buff, Rome is heaven.You can see the various layers of its vast history all around you.Memorable moment:Seeing Who Framed Roger Rabbit in Italian at an open-air cinema in Trastavere.
My day trip to Tivoli was memorable because of The Villa d’Este, a spectacular hillside estate with water gardens that cascade down the hill.
In Siena I climbed the tallest brick tower in the world.In Assisi I saw the altar where St. Francis preached to the birds.In Rimini I attended the Mr. Olympia World Bodybuilding Championships.
In Verona I soaked up Romeo and Juliet lore and experienced my first earthquake.I saw both sides of the Matterhorn, the Italian side (Cervinia) and the Swiss side (Zermat).Saw a pretty good production of Evita in Geneva.Met my friends Laura and Ceci for a week in Paris.
Except for one missed train connection in Italy, which resulted in the one and only time I have ever hitchhiked in my life, my vast planning paid off handsomely.Everything worked.
I realize that planning a trip extensively doesn’t seem very sexy to many people.“Where’s the spontenaeity?” they ask.Well, spontenaiety is great if you are rich and have unlimited time.But if you’re not, and you wait until the last minute to book things, you can get shut out, shut down, and wiped out.
Tomorrow:Planning progress for this trip!
[Note: I have many great photos from the second trip to Italy, but alas, I don’t have access to them while I am on the road. I’ll put some up when I get home.]
In Rimini I got to see the Mr. Olympia competition in 1989.
Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 159 user reviews.
On Day 7 I was pretty mean to poor Cleveland. Today I’ll be a little bit nicer.
Of course there are many terrific things about Cleveland.
Cleveland has one of the better local newspapers in the country, the Plain Dealer. The paper’s current headquarters is one of my favorite new-ish buildings in the country, at 1801 Superior Avenue East. [PHOTO] It has lots of other appealing architecture as well.
My photo doesn't do justice to this beautiful building.
It also has a fantastic film festival, which was not only happening while I was in town, it happened five blocks from my hotel! It’s the 35th year of the festival, and they screened movies from all over the world. I was able to see four of them: Undertow, Insidious, Rubber, and Connected (hey, all one-word titles … it’s a theme!).
I’ll say this about the 35th Annual Cleveland International Film Festival: It was the best run such event I have ever attended. I’m used to film festivals being run by a bunch of arrogant know-nothing volunteers with screenings that are oversold and wildly off schedule. They run a very tight ship at the CIFF. I hope I get to attend it in the future.
Of course, Cleveland is heaven if you’re a sport fan. Like baseball? You can see the Indians at Progressive Field and cheer on the way cute porno-named Grady Sizemore. How about basketball? There’s the Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena. Football? The Browns at Browns stadium. Not to mention arena football heroes the Cleveland Gladiators, also at Quicken Loans. The busy QL Arena is also home to Cleveland’s hockey team, the Lake Erie Monsters. That’s not even mentioning the pile of local college teams.
Cleveland is, of course, also home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s situated in downtown right on Lake Erie.
If you’re more the artsy type (you know the type of person I mean), you won’t want to miss Playhouse Square, the largest performing arts center outside of New York. It has seven theaters and over 1000 events per year.
I like this snappy apartment building in Cleveland.
Of course Cleveland also has the majestic Lake Erie!
Majestic Lake Erie behind the boring Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Not to mention it’s the home of my very favorite client.
Places That Are Less Appealing Than Cleveland
Rockford, Illinois
Waco, Texas
Barstow, California
Binghampton, New York
Lake Charles, Louisiana
The Entire State of Indiana
Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 196 user reviews.
