Saturday, April 1 and there’s no jokes thank goodness; although this year’s major prank seems to be convincing people that the millennium leap year required a two hour time change for Daylight Savings Time tonight.

We’re up relatively early to go to Woodbury Common [note: not the one in Devon County, England] with Michelle Petersen.  Bryan gets a purple chenille scarf and a pair of $350 JP Tod boots for $50 (it was the last pair) while Michelle gets three bags worth of goodies.

Sunday, April 2 … sushi/sashimi at Mie and VH1 with Behind the Music spotlighting the band Oasis; the nascent Anglophile in me likes the band without really caring much for their music (ok, ok, I can't get Wonderwall out of my head for the last two weeks - shut up!).

Monday, April 3, I make a decent pasta dish from some leftover spicy sausage, baby spinach leaves, plum tomatoes and onions in a olive oil and garlic sauce.  I also added a bit of tomato paste, olive paste and store-bought sauce to flavor.  Both of us agree that it’s quite good.

Tuesday, April 4, a gray day has everyone feeling lazy although I do make a quick pasta dinner.  I hear this amazing song, almost a techno/trance sound – it’s Serge Gainsborough and Brigitte Bardot!  Bryan zips out for Ben & Jerry’s World's Best Vanilla Ice Cream (really) – they claim it’s the world’s best but it doesn’t even come close to the original Breyer’s (although it is Kosher).

Wednesday, April 5, it’s a cold and dreary day.  Dinner at India Village, two doors away from Pangea.  It’s beer and wine only; I start off with assorted appetizers, the banana fritter of which was just incredible.  Then it’s dansak curry (lentils, sweet flour and hot spices) with lamb along with paratha (a crispy, layered bread fried in butter), lemon pickle (hot and sour), raita (yogurt with cucumber) and a lassi sweet (a yogurt shake flavored with rose water) to drink.  And I must say it’s all good; the ingredients aren’t smothered in sauces and those that are are light, particularly the condiments.  For dessert, it’s ras malai (milk balls in syrup, pistachios and almonds); the total bill is $38 and well worth it.

Thursday, April 6, Bryan and I meet at the Gay & Lesbian World Travel Expo.  This isa small trade show; none of the travel agencies show up and it’s mainly tour group operators and small city gay organizations.  So after an hour, we were off to Splash.  For dinner it's sushi at Mie.  Bryan does a slight change from sashimi to chirashi (basically sashimi over vinegar rice) which he truly enjoys – a new default!

Friday, April 7, I track down Paul Barclay, former owner of the Comedy Connection in Boston; I used to be his publicist before becoming manager of Catch A Rising Star in Cambridge and then moving to Laguna Beach in 1993.  I find now that he owns a billiard hall, The Rack.

I pick up B at work at 5 after picking up tickets for Keeping the Faith with Edward Norton (who also produced and directed), Jenna Elfman and Ben Stiller.  Childhood friends, one grows up to be a priest, one a rabbi and one a high-powered tech executive (guess who’s who!).  Bryan’s review first – he liked the movie but found no chemistry between the three leads; I found the movie particularly appealing (even disregarding the chemistry) because of all the theological in-jokes and subtle philosophical asides.  And the supporting cast was amazing: Ann Bancroft as the rabbi’s mother, Eli Wallach as the chief rabbi of the temple and Milos Forman (yes, the international director) in a very rare film role; plus a fine assortment of character actors.  Little light touches abounded and the script had a fine moral base.  I give it 4 out of five stars; Bryan 3½ because of the chemistry (note – any film that I don’t cry at loses one star automatically – and yes, of course I cried during this).

Saturday, April 8, a truly fantastic morning; it reminds me of a warm, humid morning in Milan, Italy.  The rest of the day continues to be perfect.  For dinner it's San Loco on Second Avenue for burritos; it must be authentic Mexican because Bryan likes it and I find it boring and bland.

Sunday, April 9, I’m up at 9 am to a snowy day.  Bryan had predicted it yesterday but who could believe that it would happen!  From Milan to Moscow in a day.  It certainly is beautiful though and makes for a relaxing day.

While reading Rolling Stone, I notice that Tool frontman James Maynard Keenan is now singing with a new band, A Perfect Circle.  As somewhat of a fan of the band’s music (Dangerboy and I actually went to see them about four years ago), I’ll be interested in seeing what his new music is about.  Keenan says in RS that it’s more melodic and accessible so that should be interesting.  PS, the official site seems to be run by their management company but it's very weird; check it out.

Monday, April 10, and Antiques Roadshow (Leslie Keno from Sotheby’s is my favorite appraiser).  Some of you may remember seeing Moondog standing on a corner of Fifth Avenue in midtown dressed in Viking garb and reciting poetry.  Born Louis Hardin in 1916, he passed on in September 1999 after releasing a comeback album, Sax Pax for a Sax on Atlantic.  I've also included a link to one of his last interviews.

Tuesday, April 11, and I will say that I’m getting better at putting things together; breakfast is three scrambled eggs with beer instead of milk (an old Tony Russo trick to make them fluffier) and then lunch is a stir-fried rice and vegetable salad that I re-fry with some sautéed spinach from Zito’s on Sunday night and various olives from Fresco’s.  Quite good, I must say.

We spend most off the evening watching Must See TV (particularly good episodes of Third Rock from the Sun sending up Martha Stewart and Will & Grace sending up Antiques Roadshow).

Wednesday, April 12, on WQXR, I recognized the mellifluous strains of Aaron Copland’s ‘Rodeo’ –  his centennial birthday is November 14 of this year.  Just as recognizable are the orchestral stylings of Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic.  (As a side note, last night’s Frasier repeat showed by Frasier and Niles Crane agreeing on the superiority of Mr. Bernstein, whom I used to see at his Young People’s Concerts when I was a teenager.)

And, yes, you know what’s coming, don’t you? Aaron Copland, “the father of American music” (Ned Rorem), and Bernstein – both gay and both responsible for the greatness of American music.  Now, I might give a slight nod to Appalacian Spring but any of the trio are more than acceptable when conducted by Maestro Bernstein.  I would as soon listen to Bernstein and Copland than eat – talk about spiritual food!  And did I mention – they’re both GAY!

Thursday, April 13, it’s dinner at Mie; we never knew this, but Mr. Suzuki, the sushi chef, is actually the owner.  The maitre’d with the cute bowties is just that!  And we had thought him the owner!  But as he said about Mr. Suzuki, “he has the fish!”  I guess that says it all.  We had inquired about the t-shirts that the waiters wear and to our great delight, Mr. Suzuki gives us two complimentary ones!  Well, now we are regulars.

Friday, April 14, another day, another Korean restaurant; although Bryan and I were happy at the last place we ate at, we try another of the numerous restaurants on the street.  This time it’s Dae Dong at 17 West 32nd Street; it’s a little larger than the last place and maybe a touch fancier but the prices are exactly the same.  And as usual, I have the bul go ki box and Bryan has the bi bim bop; both are delicious but extra points go to the various condiments that always accompany Korean meals and these are a touch above the other.  Quite nice, and once again the total is a couple pennies less than a sawbuck (including tax and two cokes but not the tip).

After lunch, Bryan wants to buy some of the spicy red sauce that seasons the bi bim bop so we bop into Han Arum Super Market a couple of doors down.  And although everything is in Korean, the prices are clearly American so we do a little shopping – fun!

Saturday, April 15, normally tax day but because it’s the weekend we get an extra 48 hours – not that I’ve even started to look at them!  We go to the Guggenheim to catch the Nam June Paik exhibition.  Paik is a ‘pioneer of video art’ which only means that much of the work doesn’t quite hold up as art as much as history, and like Peter Max the recent stuff ain’t so hot.  But we have a nice time together, having lunch in the café before hitting the exhibit.  Bryan points out that the Gugg needs these monumental, yet artistically-impaired shows to keep up attendance.  A pact with the devil to be sure, but that’s the world of museums these days.

Sunday, April 16, Palm Sunday and I’m up before 7 am pondering the meaning of Easter Week.  My plan was to attend the 11 am service at St. Bartholomew’s on Park Avenue but once I got up there I couldn’t find a parking space anywhere.  Perhaps I am being sent alone to wander as a pilgrim; and so it goes (yes, you caught the Slaughterhouse-5 reference, didn’t you?).

By 2 pm, Bryan and I are out of the house as the gray day has turned sunny and almost 75 degrees!  So we walk to his boss Michelle’s apartment.  It’s longer than we expected, especially as we walk through Chinatown and Tribeca on the way, and we do not have the discussion I expected.  We arrive at Michelle’s and spend the next five hours working and eating.  Her son, Matt is there as well and we all have a pleasant time.

Monday, April 17 and we brave the cold, chilly weather and go to MaryAnn’s.  By 9 pm, we have a choice of ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ or ‘American President’ and it’s the uplifting propaganda of Michael Douglas and Annette Bening that carry the day.  Afterward, we have a vibrant discussion about the merits of such a movie since it’s obviously a faintly veiled reference to Bill Clinton (much like the current tv hit ‘West Wing’ which stars AP’s second banana Martin Sheen as the president and which obviously has the same left-wing, liberal agenda, much to my delight!).  The discussion ends the way it normally does, with me expressing my pride at having Bill Clinton as my President (get your own website if you disagree, you’ll only get the stick from me).

Tuesday, April 18, I walk up Fifth Avenue to St. Thomas Church.  Today's noontime service is a beautiful, quiet service followed by the Sacrament of Holy Unction (laying on of hands).  During Holy Week, the Gentlemen of the Choir are singing tracts from Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585), The Lamentations of Jeremiah.  This day it's 'Plorans ploravit in nocte' ...

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among
all her lovers she hath none to comfort her:  all her friends have
dealt tracherously with her, they are become her enemies.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord they God.

I was solo and went back to India Village.  Once again, the owner was charming, helping to select among the cuisines offered.  From the assorted appetizers ($5 and again, the banana fritters amazed) and then on to their tandoori special ($15 of assorted meats and shrimp).  Along with varied additional condiments, spinach and a mixed rice, dessert and wine the bill was a well-spent $50 (with lots left over for Friday lunch).

Thursday, April 20, lunch with father before picking up Bryan and driving to Michelle’s where he finishes putting up the pictures while I sit in the car listening to a great interview with Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubaten.  I must find his new album, Silence is Sexy, when it arrives on Mute in June.

Good Friday, April 21, I prepare the house for our guests from Bologna and making plans to stay at cousin Carol’s for the weekend.  A little after 10 pm, our boys from Bologna, Marco and Tommaso, arrive.  After a short meet and greet we take them to Pangea and Dick’s to introduce them to our ‘families’ and get them situated.

Saturday, April 22, Bryan takes them for a walk around Union Square, before we drop them off to sightsee on their own.  It takes us about two and a half hours to drive to my cousin’s.  Carol and Uncle Emil are just about to leave with Nicole when we get there as she is confirming a friend of hers, so after we get unpacked Bryan and I grab dinner at the local Bertucci’s.  We’re quite surprised by the quality of this franchise Italian (they even serve Luna di Luna pinot grigio).

Easter Sunday, April 23 and our plan was to catch the 10 am service at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Huntington (on the green in the center of town); the building says it’s been there since 1740.  But when we get there (after picking up some very good pies and bread at the local bakery), we find that they only use the building for the 8 am service; the 10 is held in their new (and rather boring) hall across the street.  Low liturgy, weak theology and a pop psychologist’s sermon combined with very talkative children make for a somewhat less than satisfying service.

By 1 pm, we’re at Carol’s having cheese and pepperoni, and Easter eggs for those that like those horrible things.  Since my brother and his friend MaryAnn are running late, we don’t eat until 3:30 but the food is uniformly good, if not to my personal menu.  Indeed, my greatest disappointment is the absence of any pasta whatsoever; Nicole makes a very good replacement for Aunt Annie’s lasagna but has been working too hard this week to have the time to do it.  So it’s a very American Easter menu, much to Bryan’s delight.

First off, he gets two types of ham (one a spiral), along with his favorite vegetable, broccoli (yes, George Bush and I do agree on some things), mushrooms and potatoes lyonaisse.  At least there’s the Easter pie that Carol makes for her father (it’s an egg, meat and candied fruit concoction that is very, very tasty).

And I must make mention of the wine as we have two of Luna di Luna’s – the red in the red bottle and the white in the blue bottle.  And my opinion of the red wine is the same as last – very, very good!  By 6 pm, we’re pretty much done eating; Mario and MaryAnn leave and the rest of us play Sorry!  I hadn’t played it since I was eight years old and found out it takes longer than I remember; still, it’s fun (if a bit aggressive on the part of the winners, Carol and Nicole!).

Bryan calls his family from my cell phone and his niece Angel Johnson remembers that I’m ‘Sneaky Pete’ and the bunny hole I created for her and Little Bryan when we visited over Thanksgiving.  I love those kids!  We’ll see his whole family for their family reunion in July.

After looking at old pictures (some dating back to the Depression), and a visit from Nicole’s friend Melissa, Bryan takes his leave of us for bed and Uncle Emil, Carol and her friend John, and I watch ‘Michael’ with John Travolta.  I’d never seen it and quite enjoyed it.

Monday, April 24, I catch up on family gossip with Carol and Uncle Emil.  Our plan is to slowly make our way home, stopping at whatever antiques and thrift stores we found.  Well, we didn’t find much but we did stop at Sherwood Island which has a gay section of the beach during summer; it gave us the opportunity to see if the Cedar Brook Cafe, the gay bar on Route 1 in Westport, were still there which it was.

So we continued down Route 1, stopping in a few, but generally uninteresting, stores stopping for Wendy’s and then on to United Wrecking in Stamford CT.  United has gone somewhat downhill in the last few years it seems; there were far too many reproductions and not enough real ‘wreckage’ but it was fun anyway.

The boys from Bologna were already home and we proceeded with our plans for dinner together.  Since Korean food does not abound in Bologna, we took them to our favorite in the East Village, Dok Suni.  We had a bottle of Korean vodka and appetizers, Bryan and Marco both had the bi bim bop (Bryan without meat and cold, Marco with and hot), bulgoki for me and a spicy calamari dish for Tommaso.  This particular evening, the spice factor was definitely turned up but that was fine by me if a little tough on our Italian friends (northern cuisine being much less hot than southern).

Tuesday, April 25 and in the evening we head out to Cranford where we’ll be staying with my brother.  But before we get to his house, we stop at the Riverside Inn for a couple of drinks, mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers.  Why the Riverside, one of the oldest dives in Cranford?  Well, not only has it been my brother’s watering hole for many years, it was actually the place where I came out to him in September of 1985, on the eve of a family trip to Italy.  So it has some history, as it were.

Historical Note:  Did you know that Cranford stands for 'Crane's Ford' ???   Yes, George Washington forded the Rahway River here (it's about two feet deep, not really a river) when the Crane's owned this area.  And yes, the town next to it is Westfield because the fields were, well, to the west of the town!

Wednesday, April 26 and dinner with Jim and Jamie.  Jim Lenney has been the organist and choirmaster of Trinity Church in Cranford for many years, as well as an important music teacher for generations of Cranford youth.  Now he is also a professor at Kean College nearby.  Their home is a splendid French mansard-roofed house on the Rahway River; Bryan spends much time admiring their extensive array of tulips including rare black ones.  Of course, we also enjoy many martinis with our appetizers before settling down to a dinner a spit-roasted chicken and asparagus.  While enjoying our wine, we also discuss opera and the state of the parish.

Thursday, April 27 and breakfast at the Cooper Diner (it was a regular eatery of the late Quentin Crisp).  I pick up Bryan as he has my birthday presents with him.  Back at the apartment, I open up a mini coffee maker (actually for making froth but I think it will be a good one-cup), a very cool bowl for sugar cubes and, even though I knew about it in advance, the cordless Logitech keyboard I’m using right now.  I love it!

The boys from Italy get a hotel room at the Gramercy Park Hotel over our objections but they feel they have dispossessed us enough.  On the way to dinner, the cell phone rings and it’s my friend Bob Horne from college.  Very cool; he’s been living in Westchester with Jenny and his three children (or is it two and one on the way?).  He’s beginning a new job in brand management, I believe.  Quite exciting!

Chelsea for dinner at Food Bar.  Zagat’s says that they should take the name ‘food’ from the place but we found it quite good.  First, it’s a very, very gay place; there were 4 women there and all were lesbians.  But that was the idea; to show the boys a gay restaurant.   Along with Campari and sodas, we had Vietnamese spring rolls and shrimp cocktail for appetizers and then wine with our entrees of vegetarian lasagna for Bryan, a pork osso buco over risotto for Tommaso,  lamb for Marco and steak for me.  All in all, a very good meal and nicely served.

Friday, April 28, I’m 47 years old.  After driving to Cranford and packing up my Waterford collection (btw, David Littler and I have a mutual pact that whichever one of us goes first gets the other's Waterford as we both have the same Lismore pattern!).

I also hear from Jeff Marshall and Alli Wong; they arrive from Boston and are staying at the Soho Grand Hotel, a quite nice birthday present from Alli to Jeff as it’s his 37th birthday on May 1.  In addition, Bill and Alice Abbate are coming down with their two children.

We meet them along with Scott 'Dangerboy' Reich at Gonzalez y Gonzalez at Broadway and Houston.  Yes, it’s the loud, yuppie Mexican joint with the huge neon sombrero over the front which induces epilepsy if you happen to have the table in the window.  And it’s absolutely the wrong place for, well, everything.  The service is beyond pitiful (that seems to never change no matter how nice their attitude) and ridiculously slow.  It takes almost half an hour before food and drinks show up and then the food looks much better than it tastes.  But I must say that Bill’s children are quite well behaved although they do have do leave around 9 before the end of dinner.

By the exact time of my birthday (11:24 pm), I’m under the covers sharing Jay Leno’s birthday with him – he’s 50 while I’m 47 now.  Interestingly, blink-182 are performing and the lead singer seems to be in awe of Jay once they’re on the couch.

Saturday, April 29, we head over to Soho Steak (on Thompson Street near Spring) to meet Jeff and Alli and Scott.  Along with two bottles of red wine, we have fine appetizers of steak tartare and potato leek soup.  Then it’s on to filet mignon for everyone but Jeff (who’s not thrilled with his sirloin) and skate for Bryan (hey, he should have had steak but it wasn’t too bad).  The whole dinner took 90 minutes, including dessert (neither the apple tart or crème brulee were anything to write home about) – total cost only $230, not including tip, which was reasonable.

Then a nightcap at XR on Houston Street; I had the opportunity to tell my Eric Burden interview story to the disc jockey who was seated next to our booth so that was fun.  Then a long loopy walk to the Soho Grand.  Of course, just after we leave, Jeff calls to say we’ve just missed Dana Carvey in the elevator (but no Monica Lewinsky, known to drink there also).

Sunday, April 30, I attend the 10:30 am worship service at St. Mark’s in the Bowery.  As noted before, this is somewhat low church with a very relaxed attitude towards standing (there’s no kneeling at all due to the folding chair setup) and liturgy.  All language is inclusive of course, but I would have appreciated some musical cues as most of the laity’s responses are sung.  Nonetheless, it’s an enjoyable service and I have the chance to meet someone from General Seminary, the senior warden and the interim rector among others.

And so ends April.  I am privileged to serve you.