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Tuesday, October 1 and a walk around St. Mark’s Place (it’s a perfect day), with the exception of the gym at 11 am; it’s nice to be working out again..

The fifth season of So Graham Norton has him in a new, more elaborate set but it’s the same old Graham.  He sure has fun with his guests; two episodes this evening feature Andie McDowell and Alan Cumming.  A Scot, he’s dressed in a modern leather kilt and has had a few drinks which makes him absolutely endearing.  He recently finished a long run on Broadway in Cabaret and his star has risen accordingly.  As a side note, if you are interested in off-off-Broadway, please visit the website of OOBR (The Off-Off-Broadway Review).

Wednesday, October 2 and I need a steak, so mom and I go to Charlie Brown’s.  On television, it’s a new Enterprise (“Minefield”); a synopsis says:

The Enterprise encounters a minefield and one attaches itself.  Malcolm Reed (Dominic Keating) goes out to disarm it, ends up trapped and Archer tries to rescue him.  Expect injured crewman filling up sickbay.  An intense episode that will hold fans on the edge of their seats.  The first episode written by former X-Files writer John Shiban.

Dominic Keating adds:

We trace the line of more conventional drama, although in science fiction.  It’s more about human frailty and the human condition than science fiction technology.  If anything sets it apart, it’s that.

Then, The West Wing; later, producer Aaron Sorkin is the guest on the Charlie Rose show and talks unapologetically about his drug use.  [Listen to it on Bloomberg.]

Thursday, October 3 and Bryan and I have lunch at the diner.  At our class, the guest speaker is the art director for Perennial books, after which I go to Pangea and have a pina colada and peppercorn steak salad.  This season on Law & Order, Dianne Wiest has been replaced as DA by Senator Fred Dalton Thompson (R–Tennessee).  Recently, TIME asked him why he took the role:

The legal theme is something that has always been interesting to me.  It’s a show with a lot of class.  I try to stay with things that I feel a little bit of comfort with or grew up with.  I guess I will never be offered a part as a ballet teacher, and if I am, I hope I have the good sense not to take it.

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”  Galileo Galilei

Friday, October 4 and it’s off to Cranford.  If I had been in the city, I might have been at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Unbelievably, I, the world’s largest Philip Glass fan, missed his new opera, Galileo Galilei, directed by Mary Zimmerman with the Eos Orchestra.

Galileo Galilei is adapted from the letters of the scientist whose support of Copernicus led to a lifetime conviction of heresy.  The story unfolds backwards in time, reaching its end with Galileo – as an infant – watching an opera composed by his father.

Wynne Delacoma, the classical music critic for The Chicago Sun-Times said:

Stunning in its starry-eyed vision, the persistent pulse of Philip Glass’ lyrical, repetitive music echoes the throb of ideas inside the great thinker’s mind as well as the relentless motion of the universe whose secrets so obsessed him.  The imagery leaves us gasping at its originality, simplicity and sheer beauty.

The opera’s atmosphere is joyfully optimistic rather than bitter.  Whether “Galileo” finds a place in the operatic firmament remains to be seen.  But the sun and Earth that Glass and Zimmerman have conjured are magical places, indeed.

Saturday, October 5 and have lunch at Pangea (a sublime rigatoni special with gorgonzola cheese and spinach, as well as a pina colada).  Bryan is listening to Beirut Nights, an Internet radio station.  Their webmaster, Sami J says:

This is Lebanese On Line Radio, playing a wide variety of music from Eurodance, Techno and Trance, to Mediterranean romantic music, Arabic, French, Rai, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Greek, but also Serbian, Polish and Russian.  And you will surely remember those beautiful sensational Beirut Nights.

Our listeners are from all socio-economical classes and religions and backgrounds and ages.  But, the vast majority are non-Americans living in USA and Canada who miss Eurodance Music.  Our non-Lebanese audience is more then welcome and they would find themselves at home.

Sunday, October 6 and we have brunch together at the Telephone Bar & Grill.  Anyway, while there we hear music that sounds like a cross between Irish folk and Indian tabla.  Hmmm.  It’s the Feathermerchants, from New York City, it seems!  Amazing how many types of music scenes there are in the Big Apple.  I go off to the gym at 3 pm and later go to dinner at Pangea (Moroccan chicken and a glass of Cotes de Ventoux).

Monday, October 7 and I receive a call on the cell phone.  It’s Brother Cleve; he’s in town and asks me to join him for drinks at Marion’s Continental Restaurant later on.  He’s working with the Pontani Sisters and they’re doing a brief showcase that evening.  From their website:

Longtime figures in New York City cabaret and pioneers in the Burlesque Revolution, they wow audiences everywhere with nostalgic Cotton Club era dance numbers.  Their costumes and headdresses – larger than life and dripping with shine – recall MGM Technicolor musicals and, of course, Ziegfeld’s Follies.

When I get there, he’s sitting at the bar.  After a suburban and a blue martini, we take a seat in the dining room where I have the ziti rustica and Bob has a chicken dish.  Since they don’t have bananas foster for dessert (Jayne Mansfield’s wig caught on fire from it there), we have bananas with three sorbets.

Tuesday, October 8 and it’s another role playing night at class; plus, I am reading Michael Korda’s Another Life.  Dinner at Pangea (peppercorn steak salad and glass of wine).

“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you.” – Fredrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.

Michael Rawdon, a programmer at Apple, is into Star Trek, Jethro Tull and The West Wing.  Give his journal a try.

Wednesday, October 9 and I watch a new episode of Enterprise, which is directed by Roxann Dawson (B’Lanna Torres of Voyager); it is entertaining but not exemplary, and then The West Wing, which is of course exemplary but not a major episode.

Once the show began, however, I put a tape in and left to meet Dangerboy at the Slipper Room. The Pontani Sisters are doing a whole show, but the other acts are so bad (including drag king Murray Hill) that we leave for another drink at 2A.

Back home, I watch Avril Lavigne perform Sk8tr Boi on Jay Leno.  And boy is the band cute!  Jamie Lee Curtis and Puppetry of the Penis are the other guests.

Thursday, October 10 and 24 years since I began my first radio show, yes, T.V.O.D.  I will spend the night in Cranford.  But just before I leave, the phone rings.  It’s Bridget Mason, calling from her new home in Wales!  We actually talk for a couple of hours.

You thought that the idea of grappa was intriguing, but the ones you tried tasted like dirty socks?  Perhaps you might ease your way into it by trying an aromatic grappa.  Recently, I had a glass of Mandorla, an almond-flavored grappa from Bortolo Nardini (Distilleria a Vapore) in Bassano, Italy (founded in 1779).  Now, if you don’t like almond flavoring in your alcohol, there are many other variations.

Friday, October 11 and dinner at Pangea (arugula salad, spaghetti Bolognese and an apple crumb dessert with Lillet).  I’m lazy and watch Richard III with Sir Ian McKellen in the title role, and featuring Annette Bening, Robert Downey, Jr., Nigel Hawthorne, and Dame Maggie Smith.  About the design of the film, Sir Ian said

Shakespeare is real life.  It should be a rule: never do Shakespeare in the period in which is set.  This production is more subtle and entertaining than simply setting the story in the 1930s.  You don’t even see a telephone in this movie.  It’s an imagine of 1930, the iconography of fascism and such.

Saturday, October 12 and I open a bottle of 1999 Trimbach Gewurztraminer, which isn’t very good, especially considering the cost ($15).  A good Gewurtztraminer (pronounced either as descending syllables or with a strong meen at the end) should be much crisper and taste of apples.

I go to Pangea for a quick dinner of vegetarian meatballs and peppercorn steak salad, with a Cinzano and a caipirinha.  Scanning the cable, I discover “Spy Game” with Charlotte Rampling, Brad Pitt and Robert Redford.  I was captivated and now recommend it to you.  And did I mention Charlotte Rampling?

Sunday, October 13 and I’m at St. Bartholomew’s for the 11 am service.  The rector, Bill Tully (William McD. to you), preaches a balanced sermon on Iraq; Mary Haddad is the celebrant.  Then it’s off to Venus Modern Body Arts and dinner alone at Siam Lemon Leaf.  I have some very tasty curry puffs followed by the crispy duck salad that I always have.

Shinzon:  “Our eyes afflict our lives don’t they?  In the mirror, see yourself.”
Captain Picard:  “I’m a mirror for you as well.”
Shinzon:  “Don’t be so vain.”

It’s two months away from the release of Nemesis, the latest edition of the Star Trek movie franchise and the final one for the crew of Next Generation.  [Get the working script while you can.]

Monday, October 14 and Columbus Day (a/k/a Indigenous Peoples Day).
 

Saw Jeff and Jane on Monday night at a converted bowling alley.  There were about 45 - 50 people in attendance, and they sounded tight and musical. They played 11 songs ending with Gertrude Stein.

Abadan really rocked like a good Velvet Underground song; most of the tunes were from our time.  Jeff has mastered the guitar and Jane looks like a long legged blonde Goddess of Art on stage.  Talented and ageless.  Jeff is sporting a grey Brian Jones mane and looks sleeker than ever.  You would have enjoyed.

Tuesday, October 15 and I’m awaiting the arrival of Mark Flynn; we are going out for drinks.  Our first stop (after showing him the apartment and making him sit for the obligatory couch picture), is Life Cafe on Avenue B and 10th Street.

We have margaritas, split nachos, and he has a burrito while I have penne with roasted eggplant, vegetables and mozzarella cheese.  We go next door to Drinkland, a very clean, modern bar with the obligatory techno music, to Liquids, where Mark has friends, and home before 2 am.

Wednesday, October 16 and it’s a real Nor’easter out there.  I watch the week’s episode of Enterprise, The West Wing (directed this week by gay director Paris Barclay), and Law & Order.

The Enterprise episode, written by the producers, features Vaughn Armstrong as a Kreetassan (he also plays Admiral Forrest) and has elements of a sexual comedy between Captain Archer and T’Pol.  John Billingsley (Dr. Phlox) recently spoke of his character in relation to the others on Enterprise :

They know what my quirks are, but I’m generally conceived as having an IQ in the 700s, able to solve any problem, emotionally available yet at the same time somewhat detached in a cool, eastern intellectual kind of way.  Reed’s a bit of a tight-ass; Trip’s got a ‘trip wire’; the captain’s struggling with the obligations that he feels; Hoshi’s a little frightened, etc.

Thursday, October 17 and class at 6 pm.  After class, it’s time for Pangea, where I see Ronnie at the bar.  I invite her to sit with me so she helps me with my blackened filet of sole with roasted vegetables and cous cous.

The Episcopal News Service (ENS) reported that:  Retired New York bishop Richard F. Grein has been cleared  of allegations that he violated the canons and his ordination vows in the process of replacing the Rev. Janet Broderick Kraft as vicar of Grace Church in New York with “a close personal friend” and former assistant in the bishop’s office, the Rev. Anne Richards.

Kraft’s father is actor James Broderick,  her mother, Patricia Broderick, is a painter and screenwriter, and her brother is actor Matthew Broderick.  She is now rector of Grace Van Vorst Church in Jersey City, in the Diocese of New Jersey.

Friday, October 18 and at 9 pm, I take the bus down to 76 Clinton Street; I’m meeting Marty and his friend Dr. Bob at Alias, the new hot restaurant.  A nouvelle bistro in the middle of the Lower East Side, it’s an oasis of civility with white tablecloths and an American menu.

I have the trout with cheese-stuffed baked potatoes; Marty has the “chicken-fried” Portobello mushrooms (he’s from the south after all) and Dr. Bob has the hangar steak, which looks wonderful.  We enjoy the meal with a nice bottle of Shiraz from Australia.  Along with a small pickle tray (the chef makes them), the bill came to just over a hundred dollars.

Saturday, October 19 and the Rt. Rev. Joe Morris Doss, former Bishop of New Jersey, wrote us this wonderful news about his wife:

Good news.  There are no indications of any cancer in her body.  We don’t know quite how to feel.  Great.  But then, I couldn’t sleep either the night before or last night.  She especially can’t help but continually look for NEXT.  (Perhaps some of you remember the Jacques Brel song.)  She finds herself looking out and trying to see what it is that she has to do or endure or prepare for next.  It will probably take a couple of days to realize that next is normality.  We cannot express our much we value your support in prayers and messages and spirit.  It has all been communicated, we got it.  Thank you.

Sunday, October 20 and IHOP with the folks at 9 am.  Back in the city, Marty and I go to La Luncheonette on Tenth Avenue for dinner.  This is a cozy French restaurant; on Sunday nights they have a singer, Nicole Renaud, who sounds like the music from a David Lynch movie, and dresses the part as well!

We have a bottle of Cotes du Rhone Sauvignon Blanc along with four appetizers, to make a complete meal.  The four dishes are scallops in a wine reduction, braised leeks and lentils, sautéed chanterelles, and puff pastry with goat’s cheese.  Such a romantic place!

Monday, October 21 and lunch at the dining hall, the gym around 4 pm, and the dining hall for dinner.  I lie in bed and watch the movie version of “Bagdad Café” with Jack Palance.  It’s quite moving.  In 1988, Roger Ebert gave it 3 and a half stars and said

There would seem to be no place in today’s entertainment industry for movies about fat German ladies and homesick truck stops, and yet “Bagdad Cafe” sets us free from the production line of Hollywood’s brain-damaged “high concepts” and walks its own strange and lovely path.  I should add that Percy Adlon, the director, maintains a certain bleak undercurrent of despair, of crying babies and unpaid bills and young people who have come to the ends of their ropes.

He is saying something in this movie about Europe and America, about the old and the new, about the edge of the desert as the edge of the American Dream.  I am not sure exactly what it is, but that is comforting; if a director could assemble these strange characters and then know for sure what they were doing in the same movie together, he would be too confident to find the humor in their situation.  The charm of “Bagdad Cafe” is that every character and every moment is unanticipated, obscurely motivated, of uncertain meaning and vibrating with life.

Tuesday, October 22 and the gym around 11 am, and from there to midtown and lunch at the diner.  I’m back in the afternoon to work on my paper for class.  We get our group assignment back and I can’t complain as it’s a B/B+ (he gives combo grades).  After class, I go down to Dick’s to have a drink and wind up talking to a gay guy and his straight girlfriend, drinking about four martinis (including an apple, a caramel and a negroni).

Living on my hallway is an aspiring artist and good soul, Scott Burton.  He exhibits in galleries in New York but you can see his work on his website.

Wednesday, October 23 and lunch at the dining hall and the gym at 4 pm.  On the way back, I find that a new hamburger joint, the Blue 9 Burger, has opened up on Third Avenue, on our corner.  We’ve been waiting for just such a place for years!  And burgers is what they serve; hamburger, cheeseburger, and a double cheeseburger.  They also have French fries that they make on the premises, shakes and sodas.  And that’s it.

So the verdict?  The price is decent (burger and fries for under $5), but there should be a touch more variety.  The only option was onions, and that was just a raw slab, not fried.  Plus, they come with lettuce and tomato, which isn’t bad, but with Russian dressing!  Now that should be said upfront.  And the burger itself is thin but not bad tasting.  Considering I was customer number twelve, we’ll give them another try.

Thursday, October 24 and breakfast in the dining hall.  I go to the gym around 3 pm, dinner at the dining hall, and the train to Cranford around 7 pm.

“Turn me over.  I’m done on this side.”  Saint Lawrence to his tormentors

Friday, October 25 and in Dad’s new Chevy Tahoe for my trip to Boston.  Music includes old cassette mix tapes and the Michael Praetorius Mass for Christmas Morning.  I stop at Hammonasset State Beach outside of New London and watch the waves; then through Providence and to Boston.

While driving, I listen to WFNX, Boston’s alternative rock station and the place where I spent every afternoon for many years in the 1980s, as their radio announcer.  Now, there are a bunch of frat boys doing afternoon drive, and it embarrassed me.  Just cheap boob jokes and not the greatest music.

I arrive in Boston and go to the Golden Temple for a fabulous mai tai, vegetable tempura and pork dumplings.  By the way, the secret ingredients of a mai tai are Orange Curacao and orgeat (or orzata).

Jeff and Alli invite me to the Violent Femmes show at Avalon.  And boy am I glad I went!  The Violent Femmes are one of America’s treasures, and a great live band.  As we enter, I hear Gordon Gano sing the chorus line of one of their songs.  It says, “I held her in my arms, and she wasn’t you.”  I think the whole audience burst out in tears.  But they were also funny, singing happy birthday to drummer Victor DeLorenzo, covering “Smoke on the Water” and batting their hits (like Gone Daddy Gone, Blister In the Sun, and Add It Up) right into Fenway Park.

There wasn’t much in the way of stage appearance, except for Brian Ritchie, the bassist, who was wearing a black leather kilt, shiny, electric green Doc Marten’s, orange plastic pointy eyeglasses from the 1950s, a sleeveless t-shirt that read “Manchester, New Hampshire” and a great tattoo.  He was a real powerhouse.

Violent Femmes trivia?  DeLorenzo is the founding drummer who left in 1993 to be replaced by Guy Hoffman.  I do not know why he was playing this evening.  Also, the manager of the band is Jamie Kitman, who also manages They Might Be Giants and is the son of Marvin Kitman.  He is also a writer for Automobile magazine.

Also at Avalon, I see Demetrius, who has been bartending there for twenty years, and Tim McKenna, who has probably been stage-managing that long!  Also, Kim Airs, from Grand Opening, and music critic Brett Milano.

After the show, many of us go to the Village Smokehouse in Brookline for varieties of barbecue.  There are plates of pork ribs ($17), beef ribs ($15), chicken (½ for $13) and shrimp ($13) and, oh, sides that no one looks at.  I’m at a meeting of the Mongol invaders!

Saturday, October 26 and while in Boston, I am staying at the new home of Jeff Berlin and his wife, Robyne Tanner.  It’s a Victorian built in 1890 and one of the nicest homes I’ve seen amongst my friends.  There will be work to do on it, but it’s already livable.

But my first order of business is a wedding present for Jeff and Alli, a pair of bottles of wine, one red and one white.  So who do I turn to for advice?  The one and only Howie Rubin of Bauer Wines and Spirits on Newbury Street.  He chooses a nice pair for $50 each, from a “hot” California winery.

I take Robyne for lunch at Turner’s Seafood Grill & Market, where I have a velvety lobster bisque followed by linguine in white clam sauce.  Robyne has the amazingly fresh lobster roll and a salad.

After lunch we take an afternoon drive around Tufts, where we both graduated.  Unfortunately, the rain has not abated since morning, so our trip is strictly within the confines of the car.  It’s amazing to find that 14 Dow Street, my home in latter school years, still hasn’t been painted after all these years!

Now, the wedding reception of Jeff Marshall and Alli Wong.  As their invitation said:

We are having a party to celebrate our wedding in Maui, good times and good friends.  With hectic lives and busy schedules, life doesn’t leave much room for as much socializing, as we would all like.  Anyway, we hope you saved the weekend and can come party where it all began 16 years ago at 13 Lansdowne Street – Spit / Axis.  Yes, we met through mutual friends while I worked at Spit – a long time ago.

I am one of the first guests, arriving at the same time as John Graham, the infamous J.G., and his very pregnant wife (they’re expecting a girl within the month).  Being early, we have a drink at Atlas, another bar stuck into the facades of Lansdowne Street.
 

Alli + TV; Bill + Alice with Alli; Cleve + Thom; Paula + Dana

At the party were Brother Cleve and the Lady Diane, Alice and Bill Abbate, Thom Lane, Paula and Dana Wharton, Jay Potts (from Cobalt 60) and Benjamin Graffam (formerly in Mother).  The catering was incredible and they’ve done a nice job with 13 Up, or whatever they’re calling it nowadays.

Downstairs at Spit, I mean Axis, there was an early all-ages hardcore show, otherwise I was surprised at the evening’s clientele, mostly Eurotrash Asians, black b-boys and white Eminem look-alikes.  And the music was straight hip-hop, not even alternative.  Speaking of Spit, it opened on January 25 and 26, 1980.  I actually have a calendar date that says I’m spinning “for Oedi.”  So my job wasn’t even confirmed then!

Sunday, October 27 and Robyne and I both get up, separately, around 9 am (Eastern Standard Time) and have brunch.  I take a drive around Boston, passing my old condo and listening to the music of Smetana, before going to see Thom Lane.  He is still living in the house he grew up in, which he inherited after his mother’s passing many years ago.  It’s great seeing him.

I get back to Melrose to find that Jeff Berlin has come back from his camping trip and ready to go to Figs for dinner in Charlestown.  Figs was started by the owners of Olives but receives mixed reviews.  We start off with a bottle of Australian cabernet (not bad, not the greatest) along with bruschetta for them and a sublime bruschetta of artichokes, white beans, polenta and garlic for me.  For an entrée, I went with a homemade pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe.  They had a pizza, half with pulled chicken and the other with jerk chicken.  And the crust was straight from Wolfgang Puck, so light and thin!  And though barely 9 pm, we call it a night, went back to the house, had a bottle of cabernet, and watched a movie before crashing at 11 pm.

Monday, October 28 and said my good-byes to Robyne and Jeff before heading off for my own home.  But before I leave Boston, I have to tell you of the most dramatic new addition to its skyline, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge.  It is the most beautiful addition to Boston since I originally landed there in 1971.  Bravo.  I took a leisurely drive back, arriving in Cranford and took the bus back to the city.  And it’s Bryan’s famous lasagna for dinner.

Tuesday, October 29 and nothing special about class this evening, except Steve Cohen spends a few minutes with me looking at my resume and cover letter.  [read my c.v.]  Speaking of work, a friend was quoted in the NY Times Business section:

Garrett Lanzy, a software engineer for IBM, said that the upheaval and layoffs at his company and across corporate America had undermined employee loyalty.  Mr. Lanzy, 40, who works in Rochester, MN, said, “People tell themselves, ‘If this is happening, then there’s a good chance it will happen to me in the future, so there’s no reason for me to put in a whole lot extra.’”

Back at the apartment just in time for a sleet storm; I figured Marty would cancel, but he’s already at Dick’s.  We were going to see a cabaret singer at the Starlight, but after a few drinks decide to go directly to the apartment.

Wednesday, October 30 and join Bryan for lunch at the diner and dinner at the dining hall.  Then a lazy evening watching television.  First is Enterprise (“an epic tale in the style of an old Western” and filmed in a rock quarry in Ventura County CA) and last is Law & Order.

On The West Wing, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) finally meets GOP foe Robert Ritchie (James Brolin) in a campaign debate that also brings back cantankerous State Department veteran Albie Duncan (Hal Holbrook).

Thursday, October 31 is Halloween, and Alli Wong is in town for a party; she has driven down with Shari and her husband, Dave Jacobson; Alli still doesn’t have her costume, so it’s off to Halloween ... yes, a store devoted to the holiday.

My Thursday night class has a guest speaker, Bruce Mason, who is Director of Publicity for Miramax Books.  Started by Tina Brown as part of her deal with Harvey Weinstein, it survived her departure and recently published the new Rudy Giuliani book.  After class, Ellie and I go for drinks in the West Village as she wants to see the costumes for the annual parade.

Our first stop is Marie’s Crisis, one of the few piano bars left in the city and quite festive.  Not knowing many bars in the area, other than gay ones, I drag her into Boots & Saddles and then the world-famous Julius, where we split one of the best cheeseburgers served in the city.