T.V.O.D.TM
November 2002
TVOD.com presents
New York City, America …
and the world.
This IS t.v.o.d.
Friday, November 1 and I am uptown to see Bruce Downsbrough before the night’s performance of the American Boychoir School. We had dinner at the trendy 212 Restaurant and Bar; but the food was quite good. Of course, we started off with a pair of Ketel One martinis before Bruce had penne with sautéed chicken, roasted tomatoes and parmigiano cream sauce and I had the Milanese. Along with a glass of wine each, and cognac and port, the bill came to $110, which was reasonable considering.
Then
it was across the street to the splendid 14th-century, French Gothic-style,
Roman Catholic church of St.
Vincent Ferrer. Eight members of the American
Boychoir are singing George
Frideric Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the NY
Collegium. This
performance
employs a large period instrument band, replete with strings, oboes, trumpets,
trombones and kettledrums. The NY Times wrote:
On Friday evening, English conductor Andrew Parrott, music director of the New York Collegium, opened its season with a scintillating performance of Handel’s great oratorio Israel in Egypt, perhaps its finest large-scale effort. Mr. Parrott also showed shrewd inventiveness in assembling the chorus, sprinkling several sopranos from the American Boychoir among the usual complement of women. “He spake the word, and there came all manner of flies” was the highlight of the plagues, if such a thing is possible, with eerie, diaphanous buzzing from that vibrant chorus.
Saturday, November 2 and Bryan and I have brunch at the Telephone Bar & Grill. They have a wonderful steak sandwich, made with a spicy arugula on pita bread. I go to Cranford; mom had made minestre, and I don’t care for cabbage, so I went to Rusty’s for chicken parmigiana. Oh, and that last link to cabbage? It brings you to a techno party in Leeds.
Sunday,
November 3 and I’m at IHOP
for breakfast with the folks and, back in the city, I spend an hour at
the gym before Bryan suggested sushi. Of course, we go to Mie,
where the fish was as good as usual. Having enjoyed some sake, we
had a drink at Dick’s as well and surprisingly had a very nice evening.
Looking at music, Dave Wohlman suggests:
Monday, November 4 and it was raining slightly; Bryan and I had lunch at the diner, I went to the gym and worked on a group assignment for Tuesday’s management class. Later, a steak and cheese sandwich from Pizzeria Uno, while enjoying So Graham Norton on BBC America and The Lord of the Rings on dvd.
Tuesday,
November 5 is Election Day and I’m at the gym, the dining
hall, and working on my team paper. The class is exciting, and spends
most of its time dealing with the publishing program itself. When
I get back to the apartment, Bryan is at Dick’s and invites me for a drink.
And since I was in the mood for one, I said yes.
“The icon does not simply provoke a memory, but invokes a presence, for the icon is a window into heaven.” Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSG, is a young author, iconographer and priest at St. James in Fordham. His icon of William Reed Huntington brings a new interpretation to the art form. His is also one of the fresh voices of his church, so take a look at his website.
Wednesday,
November 6 and the Republicans have won everywhere. Gym in
the morning, lunch with Bryan, Venus Body Arts in the afternoon.
The guest star on this
week’s episode of Enterprise
is Bruce Davison,
of Longtime Companion, The
Lathe of Heaven and It’s My Party. His personal website
is great.
Then, The West Wing sets up the departure of Rob Lowe and the arrival of Christian Slater, as Lt. Commander Jack Reese, assigned to a White House office. This looks like a love interest for Janel Moloney. From E! Online :
Wondering what it would take for Christian Slater to accept a spot on series television? Two words: Aaron Sorkin. “Aaron called and offered me the role, and it was something I just could not say no to. I just love that show. Love it. Aaron said I’m a good guy, but the way he writes, you just never know. I think I’d prefer to be on the right side.”
Thursday,
November 7 and last night I was in Cranford as my cousin Art and
Dolores came to dinner. Mom made macaroni and we shared a wonderful
bottle of 1998 Chateau de Macard Bordeaux that they brought.
But it was my mother’s comment to Dolores about me (“He’s my best friend”)
that sticks with me.
Otherwise, a normal day before the evening’s class. Afterward, Bryan and I are both hungry and go to Pangea where we split an arugula salad, two spaghetti Bolognese, drinks and even the bill (which is nicely low).
Friday,
November 8 and another normal day. In the evening, Marty
and I are meeting his friends Karen and Beth at the Bull
Run Grill in the Chelsea
Savoy Hotel. Karen writes for soap operas while Beth is an actor.
The food is rather good; I have a dozen fresh Malpeque oysters.
Then it’s off to see drag queen Varla Jean Merman in the parody “The Mailman Always Comes Twice” at the Chelsea Playhouse, 125 West 22nd Street. The theater company mission statement reads:
TWEED
unearths raw, yet sophisticated, socially and sexually subversive talent
and ushers it to the threshold of acceptability (and often beyond) to turn
an irreverent mirror on contemporary culture.
After the play, we all stop for drinks at Porter’s and then say our goodbyes. Gay City News said:
Drag diva extraordinaire Varla Jean Merman headlines TWEED’s latest Fractured Classick, The Mailman Always Comes Twice … As one of the hardest working gals in the business, it seems there’s nothing Varla won’t do for a laugh – potty jokes, sex gags, pratfalls and pantomime – she literally throws herself into her comedy as if her very life depended on it.
Saturday, November 9 and in the evening, I have dinner with my mother and her friends at Crispo on 14th Street. The group has gotten a private room, which isn’t such a good idea as it’s the size of a closet. We’ve been given a special prix fixe menu ($40 per person); of the appetizers, the calamari and clam fritti fails to inspire, while the others (including an arugula salad with ceci beans and roast shallots) don’t even have inspired ingredients.
Out of the six entrée choices, the grilled chicken was ordered by most and was rather tasty with an olive and tomato sauce. Otherwise, again, just not enough interesting variations. The desserts were nice, and the service was attentive, but we all could have eaten at Pangea for better food and less price. However, the NY Post liked it and the Chowhound message board read:
Four-star service it was not, but the wait staff were fine. Seating is a little cramped. Now for the best part. The food was unbelievable and prices were moderate. Dining room is dim but not in a romantic way and quiet enough to talk. Definitely go.
Sunday,
November 10 and I had received the Journals
of Kurt Cobain, along with a picture book of Martin Luther King,
Jr., from my neighbor who works at PenguinPutnam.
I go to Dick’s for a drink; a black beauty with sparkling lips flows in the door. Yes, it’s Simone, who tells fortunes. She reads my palm and accurately surmises my situation. OK, it doesn’t take a genius to see it but she is entertaining. At 9 pm, the Gay Erotic Expo over at Webster Hall. Silly, huh? But it’s fun and around the corner. Then El Mirage.
Monday, November 11 is Veteran’s Day (or Day of Remembrance) and I work on the computer, eat at the dining hall for lunch, and go to the gym. Bryan and I go to K-Mart for socks and McDonald’s for dinner.
“It’s time to realize; it seems I have survived. I’ve done my time … or haven’t I?” Tribe, “Pinwheels”
Tuesday, November 12 and the day is spent doing my paper for class. After class, I go to Pangea and have the peppercorn salad as it’s about to go off menu, and an apple martini. After a quick stop at Dick’s for a cognac, I’m watching Jay Leno.
Conan O’Brien has an extremely funny Robin Williams and the Grateful Dead, I mean The Other Ones. I’m surprised how good they are, doing The Wheel (an old chestnut) in a new and different way.
“Set a course for Earth. Kill everything.” Star Trek: Nemesis
Wednesday,
November 13 and one more month for the movie.
Tom Hardy plays the villain, Shinzon.
I join Bryan for lunch and later we watch
Enterprise.
Producer Rick Berman told Sci-Fi
Wire that
“It ends up being a Prime Directive type of episode. Archer has to decide how much he’s willing to let a pre-warp culture learn and whether he is willing to give his life to keep the fact that he’s from another world a secret. That’s a terrific episode.”
Then
we watch The West Wing. This is the episode where Bartlet
celebrates his re-election victory. And although there’s romance brewing
with most of the couples (particularly Janel Moloney and Christian Slater),
it’s the interplay between
Martin Sheen and Stockard Channing
that creates the most steam. No wonder, since they’re both movie
actors!
At 10 pm, we go to Pangea, split a shrimp skewer appetizer and then a chicken pot pie for Bryan and the linguini with baby clams for me. It’s an extremely pleasant dinner.
Thursday,
November 14 and AP
reports that Jonathan Harris, “the flamboyantly fussy actor who
portrayed the dastardly, cowardly antagonist Dr. Zachary Smith on
Lost
in Space,” has died. Born Jonathan Charasuchin in the Bronx
to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, he was 87. In the
Advocate’s
obituary, Max Pierce
said:
In the 1960s, Jonathan Harris’s portrayal may have come across as the ultimate “evil queen” stereotype. But with the actor’s death, it seems only like we’ve lost a favorite uncle. Expecting to see that Harris was survived by a euphemistic “longtime companion” or partner, imagine my surprise to find out he left behind a wife of 64 years and a son!
Can you think of any other implied gay character on television in the 1960s? The actor used to enjoy answering queries about whether he was British with the quip, “Oh, no, my dear, just affected.”
A friend recalls, “At conventions he was almost always surrounded by doting gay fan-boys – and I use the word ‘boys’ generously; most were past 40 – yet he never evidenced any particular effeminacy or stereotypically gay behavior himself; if anything, he was simply elegant and dapper.”
Friday, November 15 and there’s an early morning email from Roman Zajac; he’s informing us about the suicide of the younger son of Fred Sanchez. I call Roman on the phone; this is the first time I’ve spoken to him and Fran in almost two decades.
In
the evening, things lighten as I meet Marty and we take a cab to McHale’s
on Eighth Avenue and 47th (maybe 48th) Street, where we’re meeting Karen
and Beth. The most interesting feature about this steakhouse is its
windows; they read The Gaiety and are original to the previous bar.
They’re finishing dinner when we get there, and then the four of us walk to the Paramount Hotel, Ian Schrager’s stylish, Art Nouveau hotel designed by Philippe Stark. That’s where he opens his presents from them, all items for martinis, such as tiny miniature green tomatoes (tomolives), pickled okra and asparagus, etc. At 10 pm, we take our leave, and after stopping at Stella’s and the new Eagle, are back to his apartment.
Saturday, November 16 and it is Marty’s birthday. I return to the East Village in the evening; Bryan and I watch Star Trek: First Contact. Because of the Nor’easter, we have a plain pizza from Anna Maria delivered.
Sunday, November 17 and meet Marty at BAM, go to the Brooklyn Tavern, and walk to a party. After, he introduces me to the Angel’s Share, a tiny bar over the St. Mark’s Bookstore. It’s elegant, with a mai tai for me and a mint julep for him. No less than Trendcentral [who are they?] said:
Once you find this tiny Japanese bar (its entrance is an unmarked door located deep inside a popular Japanese restaurant), you’ll feel like a real insider. Top-notch Japanese bartenders mix up concoctions and serve oysters and other exotic snacks. To preserve the intimate atmosphere, groups larger than four people are not allowed.
Monday,
November 18 and over-night, actor James Coburn, whose four-decade
career took him from classic tough-guy roles, to the spy-spoof Flint
series, to an Oscar-winning portrayal of an anguished father in 1998’s
Affliction,
died of a heart attack.
I’m at the dining hall for lunch. At 6 pm, I make my way down to Dick’s to see former colleagues from my last job. By 8 pm, one is gone, the other is going and I go off.
Tuesday, November 19 and Marty is going to Paris for two weeks. He’s given me the keys to his apartment, so I guess that counts as news. The paper is finished just before class starts and so am I; I e-mail it to another member of the group and take the night off.
I had dinner at the dining hall until watching Smallville at 9 pm. I had actually thought that it had been cancelled as one never sees ads for it anymore; that said, it wasn’t very interesting. The WB is all about young adults, and this was like Dawson’s Creek with a horror story.
Wednesday, November 20 and a night of television: the current episode of Enterprise, Law & Order, So Graham Norton (taped in Mexico and rather funny) and The West Wing. Here is Aaron Sorkin on making President Bartlet a former college professor in Entertainment Weekly :
I was interested in writing about a demonization of intellect. It’s peculiarly American: Being tagged as the smartest kid in your class turns into both a sense of arrogance and a sense of weakness – that an ‘egghead’ can’t see us through a world war.
Thursday, November 21 and my class has guest speakers from Condé Nast and Hachette Fillipacchi. Coincidentally, he knows cousin Patty’s husband, Gary. After class, a dozen students meet at the Cedar Tavern. We’re done around midnight; I subway to Marty’s apartment for the first time alone.
Friday, November 22 and I’ve never forgotten the city in which I spent so many years, Boston. Now Forgotten Boston looks at parts of Boston that even the residents have probably forgotten about. You may even know that I lived next to the famed Modern Theatre; the link has descriptions and pictures.
But
the main part of the site is devoted to my current love, New York City.
Designer Kevin Walsh says about
Forgotten
New York:
The past is all around us in New York. This site is your gateway to a New York City that existed long ago – and still exists in a hidden form today. We’ll show you the past in bridges, buildings, signs, and things you pass every day in the street that bear silent witness to the NYC that once was.
Saturday, November 23 and receive a nice email from Marty, who is now in Paris – what a post! I eat at the dining hall and work on the website, until Bryan comes home and we go for drinks at Dick’s.
The
NY
Times called it “a compelling, even exhilarating recital.” Newsday
said, “There is a reason that Daniels has become the first modern celebrity
countertenor. His contralto is muscular, sun-filled and supple, his
technique secure and his delivery unmannered.”
American countertenor David Daniels made his Carnegie Hall recital debut this evening. The hall was packed with Daniels’ diverse fans, including early music buffs and a large gay following (Daniels is one of the few openly gay classical musicians).
Benjamin Britten’s haunting, mock-medieval Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac was a daring choice, with its vaguely pedophilic dialogue between the Jewish patriarch and his submissive son. The enthusiastic audience demanded four encores. One small but distracting flaw in the concert: Daniels’ matte black tail coat didn’t match his shiny black pants.
Our friends in the north (Canada, that is), have a tremendous classical music site, La Scena Musicale, with downloads, webcasts, news and reviews. You can read reviews like the above at “Your Link to Classical Music” which is funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Sunday,
November 24 and phone calls with David Littler and Thom Lane.
Rick Berlin sent this eloquent thought:
It was necessary to discount, he thought, exaggerated speeches masking mediocre affections; as if the soul’s fullness didn’t sometimes overflow into the emptiest of metaphors. For no one, ever, can give the exact measure of his needs, his apprehensions, or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity.
Gustave Flaubert [an aside, written on the original manuscript of Madame Bovary ]
Monday, November 25 and the dining hall for lunch, the gym around 4 pm, and schoolwork. And that’s the way the rest of the evening went. I had dinner again at the dining hall and then worked on the website while Bryan made some food and we watched So Graham Norton.
Tuesday, November 26 and I
don’t wake up until 9 am. I guess I needed that nine hours of sleep!
Still, Bryan and I make it to the gym for an hour before going to the dining
hall for lunch and again for dinner. The dining hall is celebrating
Thanksgiving, so we go over for roast turkey and all (and I mean all) the
fixings. I also receive a warm (and sexy) email from Marty in Paris.
This has definitely developed into something.
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How to sell audio: Your advertising lesson for the day. All three pictures come from consumer electronics ads in this month’s issue of Sound & Vision. All three men are seated, but in various emotional states. Consider that most media equipment is purchased by men. Which is the better approach? I know which one I like!
Wednesday, November 27 and it has begun to snow for the first time this season. Thankfully, it sticks nowhere in the metropolitan area. Yes, there is a new episode of Enterprise, although this one is a little silly. In fact, there were times I found myself cringing while watching Hoshi fading in and out of “molecular existence” or some such.
Bryan tells me that, for the last few weeks, The West Wing has been shot on film. It does have a richness to the picture now; a good episode, with some very funny lines.
Thursday, November 28 and Thanksgiving in Cranford. At this year’s dinner, it was Uncle Emil, who brought his friend Rose, Carol, Nicole and Matthew, and my parents and myself. It was Nicole’s best lasagna yet; she has acquired the cooking talent of her great-grandmother.
And
what does the band Audioslave
have to do with Thanksgiving? Absolutely nothing. After Zack
de la Roche left Rage Against
the Machine, the remaining members teamed up with cutie Chris
Cornell, formally of Soundgarden.
I used to listen to RATF; I know nothing of the latter band. Guitarist
Tom Morello says:
“It’s two genre-defining genres coming together. Righteous, unapologetic rock mixed with Chris’s existential lyrics.”
Maybe you have to hear it.
Friday, November 29 and dinner at the Chelsea Square Diner at 23rd and Ninth Avenue. I had an unusual lobster bisque (with fake crab, I’m sure), a roasted half chicken on very good apple stuffing with large pieces of apple around the bird. Sides were boiled spinach and a very good baked potato. Along with a glass of Robert Mondavi cabarnet, the whole bill was only $17 plus tip.
Saturday, November 30 and up around noon. Why? Because the phone rang at the apartment and it was Marty’s mom! Pure Appalachian accent; how strange to be there and hear her voice. Bryan and I have lunch/dinner at Pangea. We split the calamari and have two pina coladas; then penne with chicken and Portobello mushrooms in a cream sauce, and peppercorn steak salad for me.
Later,
I head over to the new Eagle
for a couple of hours. No one talks to me the whole time, but the
men are hot, the music is techno, and videos are on the screen. What’s
not to like?
I have a slice at Ray’s (not the original, unfortunately) and by 3 am, I’m back at his apartment, sitting on the bed with only the hanging lights ... just thinking. Now that’s an interesting feeling.
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| october 2002 | december 2002 |
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For the fall semester, on Tuesday, I
attend Managing
the Publishing Enterprise, and on Thursday, I attend
Publishing:
Books, Magazines + Multimedia, the introductory course taught by the
director of the program at New York University
for my
Master
of Science in Publishing.