One New York Life

I had probably five or six really good buddies in high school. Two of them I was supposed join at RPI but wound up going to Siena for purely financial reasons. RPI offered me a half-ride of their $28k/year (at the time) tuition; Siena offered me a third-ride of their $14k/year (at the time) tuition. The two colleges are only separated by about ten miles but, as anyone who’s gone to college knows, high school buddies start being last priority. One of the two moved directly to NYC in 2000 after graduation. I got here in 2005. As you may imagine, a 30-year-old African American who’s been in NYC for a decade (including during the Giuliani-gestappo clean-up) has slightly divergent interests and experience from a 30-year-old white guy who’s only been here for five years and arrived entirely AFTER the bulk of Manhattan morphed in to Wonderland. We don’t meet up nearly enough. Every time we do it’s memorable. After two weeks of trying to coordinate, we finally settled on last weekend. The place we chose was the second location of a place he’s visited in Brooklyn and a place I’ve been trying to visit for a while. These were all posted to the Twitter feed.

At the Waterfront Ale House. I think Daniel Bryan from NXT is my bartender

The Waterfront is located nowhere near the waterfront and it’s a bit away from my normal locations. I’ve happened past it a couple of times and noticed it for the ironic name and spiffy corner location. I’ve walked past both locations a few times and filed it as “someplace to check out” but never quite got there. My bartender looked like this guy. Points already.

Interesting menu at this place. Ostritch [sic] sandwich; shark taco; mussel curry. Color me intrigued

I had heard rumors both of these places had a rotating selection of wild game dishes, so I wasn’t disappointed to see the chalk-board behind the bar listing three different options. I wasn’t brave enough to go for the ostrich burger (yet) and we wanted to split an appetizer. I ended up getting a chorizo quesadilla (awesome). For the main course we decided we wanted to split two entrees so we’d have a chance to try more. We eventually settled on the shark tacos and the Texas dip sandwich. The shark taco was… not what I expected. I mean, I expected it to taste like a fish taco — which it did — but it was much, MUCH less dense than a regular fish taco. I wasn’t a huge fan of the breading as it tasted slightly underseasoned but the remoulade-type sauce on the taco was incredibly good. File shark under “lighter fish that I need to try again.” The Texas dip sandwich was a different take on the French dip. The roast beef was replaced by smoked brisket (awesome) and the jus replaced by a barbecue dipping sauce (better than awesome). The place is also known for their homemade hot sauce and, if the barbecue sauce is any indication, I can see why. The dipping sauce, considering the waffle fries that came with both dishes, didn’t stand a chance.

It’s also six bucks for a bottle of homemade hot sauce aged for 2 yrs in bourbon barrels. 18 taps with one homebrew. One cask. Good stuff

Because I didn’t feel like carrying it around with me all night, I didn’t purchase either either the bourbon aged hot sauce or “Sam’s Famous Hot Sauce”. The website, sadly, doesn’t make any reference to this hot sauce market, which is sad. I’m also not sure who Sam is, but according to the website he’s still rocking a Prodigy.net e-mail address. That’s web-gangsta, right there.

Homebrew is “Sam’s Serious Pilsner” contract brewed via Rammstein [sic] in NJ. Not served in pils glass [but instead a] ridged pint glass. Hoppy, refreshing pils

The brewer is actually High Point Brewing in Butler, NJ — the brewers of Ramstein beer. I haven’t sampled any High Point offerings, but by their name, logo, and labeling it looks like they’re trying to be fake German-style beers. The pilsner was tasty, probably one of the better local bar beers I’ve tried.

Cash only. Could get ugly.

It didn’t get nearly as ugly as I expected; four rounds (beer for me, beer/liquor for the buddy), one appetizer, two entrees was just under $80.

NYC bar, Mets in a 0-0 barnburner, and not on any tv? also no NBA Playoffs. Sometimes annoying Manhattan snob bars suck

To be totally fair here, I didn’t ask the bartender to change any of the three televisions. One TV eventually did get turned to the NBA playoffs, the second was on CBS News, and the third was bar advertisements including upcoming local bands and various live things going to their twitter feed.

Oh they’re on Twitter at @waterfront — thanks, random livetweet hd screen.

In my defense: it’s a Mets’ game… I shouldn’t have to ask them to put it on if they have a TV on sports. The Mets’ game eventually got turned on in the 11th inning and, since they did technically air a full Mets’ game that day, I guess I can’t be too hard on them.

Dude next to me at the bar ordered a Zinfandel at a beer bar. Is it possible to have negative respect for someone you don’t know?

After further thought, it absolutely is possible. It happened.

Music is pretty solid if you’re in to late 70s/early 80s rock. I am. Not sure if my co-drinker will be. He loves Kanye so likely not.

Good selection for me. I’m not sure the source of the music since I never saw a juke box or a radio. I’m assuming it’s some kind of Muzak or Sirius. We were there late enough to see the crowd shift from early dinner to late dinner but, honestly, the crowd may have been a little skewed due to nobody leaving as the interest in the Mets/Cardinals game grew toward the 18th inning. As for the music, I’d guess my companion wasn’t a fan, but also insists music doesn’t affect his experience. Of course, given this:

@ThatBootlegGuy @tdphillipsjr Pfft. People might like listening to Kanye. No one “loves” Kanye.

Maybe it was OK. Of course, the night also passed through Rattle ‘n Hum and then inexplicably we finished the evening at New York Dolls. Can any night really suck that ends at an NYC… um… library? But that’s a post for another day*.

—-

* – pfft.

My mom gets very testy with me when it comes to telling her what I want for Christmas. Every year, she sends progressively nastier and more sarcastic e-mails demanding a list of potential gifts. It is also my job to get PLR, HLR, and MLR (the three sisters, who my dad refers to as “Tommy’s Angels”) to send similar lists. My mom refuses to recognize the irony in the fact she and my father are the two most impossible people to buy gifts for. This year, I finally just told her to buy PLR and I a gift card to B. R. Guest Restaurants. B. R. Guest is a restaurant management firm (I think) that owns about a dozen restaurants around Manhattan. A few times a year they make their gift cards available (good at any of their restaurants) at a 25% discount. When they go up for sale, PLR and I usually buy a $200 card for $150. This year, I had mom buy one, too.

We used mom’s gift card to visit Primehouse — the B. R. Guest version of an Old Man Steakhouse. This is the third B. R. Guest restaurant I’ve been to and, well, they’re all pretty rock solid.

Appetizer: My pre-planned menu strategy involved having a variety of oysters as an appetizer. Unfortunately, our waiter immediately threw a wrench in my plan by describing that day’s special appetizer. On the menu was a “Bacon, Egg, And Cheese” described as a “lightly soft-boiled egg, deep-fried, and served on a bed of cheese grits with a small piece of pork belly.” Just like that, my carefully crafted oyster plan fell to the wayside. I’ve never been a fan of grits, but my experience with them has been limited to Waffle House. PLR, having spent a few years living in Alabama, won’t even look at them. The professional chef version of grits were much denser than the Waffle House grits with a non-Velveeta tasting cheese-flavor. The lightly breaded egg burst and gave up its yolky goodness at the slightest prodding and mixed with the grits. The pork belly was about the thickness of slab bacon and tasted like concentrated bacon with less fat. It was a small piece of salty, cheesey, yolky deliciousness. PLR went with the East Meets West Oyster plate. It was three east coast oysters and three west coast oysters. I had one of each just to get a sample. Unfortunately, as I was too busy admiring my appetizer, I missed the description of which ones were which. I’ll assume I liked the east coast ones better.

Main Course: The Primehouse features a “Himalayan Salt Room” to dry-age their steaks. My plan here was to go with the dry-aged porterhouse until the waiter used another Jedi mind trick to talk me in to the 40-day dry-aged ribeye. The steaks here are grilled to a much firmer crust than the Del Friscos‘ steak. The medium rare steak had all of the buttery flavor promised to me by the server, but it didn’t quite have the flavor of the bone-in steak from Del Friscos. On the other hand, the sides blew me out of the water. We went with goat cheese mashed potatoes and grilled jumbo asparagus. The slices of asparagus were the biggest I’d ever seen and grilled to buttery perfection. The mashed potatoes were a little lumpy (when I go out, I like mashed potatoes to have the consistency of pudding… I can pull off lumpy mashed potatoes myself) but the goat cheese flavor mixed with the likely two sticks of butter were enough to earn forgiveness. PLR deviated from steak and got her offical “B” steakhouse dinner — scallops. The Primehouse’s scallop dish comes with caramelized artichokes, potatoes, and double-smoked bacon. I only had a bite of hers, but I had enough to know that I liked mine better.

Dessert: PLR’s misinformed dislike for bananas screwed up my plan to get the Bananas Foster Sundae, but fortunately I knew that going in. I went in with no plan for dessert so I was surprised when the decision handed down was the pistachio souffle. It was tasty, but the homemade vanilla ice cream that came with it was the superstar. I can take or leave the cake, but I would have happily bathed in the ice cream.

Cocktails: PLR usually dives for the wine list when we get to a new place. And by “dives for” I mean “I hand her the wine list because I know nothing about wine”. In this case she ordered us Tolosa Pinot Noir 2006 from Edna Ranch. I don’t know what any of that means other than “Pinot Noir”. Unfortunately, I wish I’d actually checked the menu this time. Usually these steakhouses have a lackluster beer selection, but a Samuel Smith’s Nut Brown or a U’s Fin du Monde might have been a home run pairing with a steak.

——–

Up on the completion of the meal, it was only about 9:30 pm, so PLR and I decided to get a drink. We went to one of our regular-ish spots in the East 20s called Metrocafe. PLR’s a fan because it’s a wine bar with a giant, reasonably-priced wine list. I’m a fan because they always have Blue Point Toasted Lager on tap. The bar is generally not crowded on the weekends. The lower east 20s are a weird little neighborhood. They’re very residential and parts of it are “always been wealthy” Manhattan. The weirdness is that they’re like one block from part of the NYC club scene. My office used to be around the neighborhood and you’d never even know the clubs are there during the day. If you walk through at 11:30 pm on a weekend night, though, there are suddenly velvet ropes on the street and large men in suits checking the fake IDs of Long Island and Jersey kids. This bar is away from the clubs, but next to an active parking lot where the folks on their way to the clubs park. It’s a small, neighborhood bar for local residents over 25 and not in to the metal detector and $20 coat check scene. It’s also across the street from “Tens” strip club.

Since the area is usually such a disaster in the evenings, the bar is rarely crowded after 10 pm. The first weird sign was the bar actually being crowded on a Saturday night. PLR and I can’t find a seat at the bar. I send her up to order drinks (that’s how I roll) and the bartender hands her the menu and tells her “we’re out of a lot of stuff.” Weird. About halfway through the first round, the couple we were stool-stalking finally leaves. We sit down and PLR strikes up a random conversation with the lady next to her, who lets us know the bar is closing. Confused, PLR asks “early tonight?” The lady responds with “no, forever. Tonight’s closing.” We had, apparently, stumbled in to the closing night of one of our go-to bars. As it turns out, bars that are perennially uncrowded on Saturday nights are probably not long for this world.

We ordered the same thing for the second — and at this moment planned last — round. Pam ordered a second glass of cava (Spanish champagne) and I get another Toasted Lager. I offer the bartender my $20. He shakes his head and says, “No, everything’s free now.” Our “one or two drinks after dinner” had unexpectedly and spectacularly turned in to us joining a “help drink the bar dry for free” closing night party.

…..

Game On.

At various points in the night, the following things may or may not have happened, depending on who’s reading this:

• Customers went behind the bar to make their own drinks.
• PLR’s glasses of cava were being poured by an aspiring actress who was there with her super-douchey looking boyfriend, who I met, and managed to not have fun at a drink the bar dry for free party. I can totally see what she saw in him… guys who are too cool to have fun are real catches.
• A large, salty looking man who knew the bartender by name and his drinks were coming without ordering (the Norm of Metrocafe) asked for his regular brandy nightcap and was simply given the entire bottle of Hennessy.
• I tried Hennessy.
• I unsuccessfully lobbied to be given the bar’s bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label. The bartender declined, saying he was saving it for himself.
• PLR unsuccessfully lobbied the bartender to be given one or more of the framed wall photos (a nice shot of the Brooklyn Bridge). Bartender: “You’d have to ask the owner.” PLR: “Is he mean?” Bartender: “Well, he’s laying me off so yes.”
• Another regular sat down next to Norm and they decided to try all the different brandies in the bar. If I’d put away as much brandy as these guys were taking down I’d be clinically dead.
• A girl sat down next to Norm and had a quick conversation with the bartender. He walked away and came back with a bottle of Dewar’s and two bottles of Maker’s Mark and told her to go to town.
• The bartender simply left to have a cigarette at one point and said if I needed another Toasted Lager to “try not to spill it.” I just asked the aspiring actress to pour it for me. I left out the jab that she should get good at it because it’s probably her future profession.
• After PLR took down the bar’s last two bottles of cava, the actress somehow managed to pick out PLR’s second favorite wine. Actress: “We’re out of cava. This is Sancerre… it’s a type of wine…” PLR: “I got it. You’re awesome.”
• PLR tried to convince me to leave a few times since we had Mets’ tickets in the morning. I may have responded at various points with “I might stay here until it’s time to take the train”, “I’m still young enough that I’m not leaving free booze”, and “Woman, you out your damn mind?”
• The “oh yeah, THIS is why we still live in the stupid, overexpensive city” conversation was had. Probably twice. More likely six times.

The Mets’ game did actually happen. I had to promise I’d be up by 9:30 so coffee would be made by 10 am (nailed it) and I’d have an omelet done early. Both missions accomplished.

At the end of the day, good meal at Primehouse and sorry to see you go Metrocafe — but thanks for the final, great memory.

I complain about Manhattan a lot to anyone who will listen. It’s kind of dirty, it’s over-expensive, I have to ride a subway to work every morning with roughly 500 other people in my car, I can’t have a car, groceries are overpriced, and 1,000 other things. The problem is — every once in a while Manhattan drops a ridiculous night that can only happen in a city where bars are open until 4 am, Late Night Happy Hour exists and happens from 12am to 3am, around every corner is a neighborhood bar you’ve never been to, no one ever has to drive, and a group can turn swapping two favorite bars in to a night out. The last time this happened was a friend’s bachelor party that began with a Mets game and ended yelling curses at Sean William Scott and his entourage (true story). It never happens when you’re expecting it.

Two of PLR*’s co-workers moved in to a new apartment on Wall Street. This lovely 500-square foot studio/office apartment comes in for the bargain price of $2600/month. This is being shared by two guys… see above for the list of things that really suck. The evening began as a house-warming party. As it’s Manhattan, the housewarming party began promptly at 10pm. The supposedly low-key evening featured bottles of wine, cases of Coors Light, and bottles of sangria. By midnight, it had started to border on ugly. By 12:05 someone had uttered the words no-one really needed to hear.

“We’re going out.”

Now, keep in mind. I’m not a fancy guy. I travel like a homeless person and I don’t generally spend my free time in club clothes. When PLR’s group decide to go out, it’s generally to a place where they can shake their collective asses. My ass does not shake. I know my limits. Ass-shaking is well beyond those limits. Regardless, the group was going to a club near Irving Place which, fortunately, is pretty close to Pete’s Tavern. I told the group where I would be and took the non-club people with me. We giggled at the club folks’ desire to wait in line to be allowed to drink and went to get some cocktails.

Should the night have ended after a few rounds at Pete’s and a cab ride home, we wouldn’t be here right now. After waiting in line for far too long, the 2nd group met back up with us for a few rounds. This was followed by a sentence which I don’t think I’d ever heard uttered after 2 am in the history of ever.

“Let’s go do Kareoke.”

Train-wreck potential just went off the charts.

We wind up in 3 cabs going to a bar called 2nd on 2nd. Now, I’ve never been to a serious kareoke bar. My kareoke experience has been “Kareoke Night” at a bar near my old college, bowling alley kareoke night, and my 30th birthday party. I have never been to a bar whose raison d’etre is kareoke. Not only that, but one of PLR’s co-workers IS A REGULAR THERE. To the point where he was known by the bartenders and the kareoke DJ.

Have you ever had a moment where you were really drunk, but something so bizarre happens that your brain actually forgets it’s drunk and you’re suddenly stone cold sober? It’s happened to me three times in my life. This was one of those times. I walked in to this place — this glorious, glorious place — and walked in to see the whitest person I’ve ever seen terribly rapping to a song I didn’t know. This was followed by a guy trying to pull off Celine. It was amazing. On the list of “this isn’t actually happening, I’m really in a movie right now” moments, this ranked up there white trash fight at Atlantis. I could do nothing but sit in awe of the awesome.

We eventually closed this bar, which is conveniently placed across the street from a diner. At 4:15 am, when your party sees a diner, it goes to the diner. There is not a debate… it just happens. Apparently, your body knocking all alcohol out of your system in 8 seconds takes a lot of energy, because I ate at an unprecedented level. I ordered like food was free. I expressed my disdain for the lack of bacon.

We walked out of the diner and it was light out. PLR and I got home at 5:34 AM.

Nights that you plan somehow never turn out to be epic. I’m not sure why that is. Nights that just happen spontaneously always turn out to be the most fun. Nights like this are what keep me from thinking I’m wasting my time. This night doesn’t happen in Albany. It sure doesn’t happen in Mechanicville.

At some point, I’m actually going to have to admit that I kinda like it here.

—–

* – Ms. L has filed a protest at being called Ms. L, so she will henceforth be referred to as PLR. Should you see her in real life, this is now her nickname. You should refer to her only as that. No longer by her first name. She wants to call her own nickname, she’s stuck with it

Ms. L and I had no intention of going to this but we wound up with free tickets. We’ll pretty much do anything for free which is why Free NYC and My Open Bar both rule.

I will admit to being a bit tentative on about this show. These shows using a bunch of songs to tell a story have a history of not being what I expected. When we went to see Movin’ Out a few years ago I was expecting a story about growing up in Jersey, getting shipped to Vietnam, coming home and getting high all the time, and eventual redemption. I got that — but it was a ballet. I was not expecting a ballet.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to find this wasn’t a ballet but more in line with what I was expecting Movin’ Out to be. It follows the history of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons from their inception in Jersey through almost the modern day using songs to highlight different parts of their lives. Frankie Valli, surprisingly, is almost a supporting actor in the whole thing. Tommy DeVito is really the lead of the whole thing and narrates it… sometimes from the sidelines and sometimes Zack Morris Style in the middle of the scene .

The Good

• The cast we saw was excellent. Our Tommy DeVito was part of the original cast and hadn’t left yet (he has since left as of 9/28/2008, which should tell you how long this post has been sitting in the “draft” section with bullet-point notes). The Frankie Valli was fantastic. I was never in to Four Seasons songs because I’m not in to falsettos, but the guy we had hit every note and could have been Frankie Valli.
• There was more comedy then I was expecting, including a whole bit with Joe Pesci. Pesci claims to have been present at the formation of the Four Seasons and appears as a character in the play. There’s a bit where Tommy deadpans to the crowd “Joe Pesci — yeah, ‘dat one” and the character enters talking in a Joe Pesci voice. It’s funny.
• For me, Broadway stuff is enhanced when you know the music. In this one, I could know the music without going out and buying a cast recording without knowing whether or not I’d like it. I already knew all the music and dug a lot of it. It should be noted that not ALL the songs are Four Season’s songs — just most. My Boyfriend’s Back, for example, makes an appearance. Almost all of them are songs you pretty much know whether you want to or not.

The Bad

• While I’m happy the dancing in the show was at a minimum (non-existent really) they could have given the guys a couple more moves while standing behind the microphone. They have a specific “move” that they did during every song and it became funny more than anything else.
• The crowd. I know, I know… Manhattan snobbery. I get that this show is well-supported by tourists and the like, but at one point a 45-year-old woman was screeching and helicoptering her coat over her head like a Terrible Towel. Maybe I don’t get it, but I didn’t freak out when I went to see a Pearl Jam cover band.

The Rest

Not the best show (Wicked) I saw in 2008, but a perfectly acceptable way to spend an evening and not be completely bored. My grandmother saw it in Vegas and loved it, so if you’re stuck for a Christmas gift and your grandmother’s visiting New York, go for it. I probably wouldn’t go again or recommend it as the one show you need to see if you’re in New York — but if the touring cast comes to a town near you and you want to spend a nice (Oh What A?) night with dinner and a show, go for it.

Funny story about this show. Ms. L’s birthday is in November. Last November, I gave her a “voucher” saying I would buy tickets for this show on the day of her choosing as her birthday present. I figured this would work out well because we were about to hit the holidays (her birthday’s 11/7) which is quickly followed by tax season. I didn’t want to buy tickets six months out because I hate doing that.

To make a long story short — sometime in October, they announced the show would be closing on January 18th, 2009 and I realized that we’d never gone and her new birthday was about to come up. So, while I saved money on last year’s birthday, I wound up buying double birthday this year. I did my job as a man and picked a day and said “this is the day we’re going” and, of course, I bought the tickets on the night of her company Christmas party. It’s never easy.

A quick plot summary — kids hit puberty in late 19th-century Germany.

The Good

• Some of the songs are really good. The problem is — it’s only some. It’s written by a more modern musician and it shows. There’s no real overarching theme that threads through the show to tie parts together. The musical listens like an album. That’s fine, but it listens like an album with a few really good singles (Mama Who Bore Me, My Junk, Totally F*cked, Those You’ve Known) with a lot of fluff and filler. There was nothing to grab on to and take from the show. When you leave Phantom of the Opera, you remember the overture.
• There were naked boobs! I wasn’t planning on it, but it was a pleasant surprise.
• It was very funny. If I went in to it expecting a comedy, I would have been very happy. They do the awkward teenagers discovering their bodies thing very well. The song My Junk is set around the various students in awkward situations — one has a stacked piano teacher he’s drooling over, one gay student awkwardly propositioning a confused fellow student, and the whole scene is set around a guy at center stage looking at an erotic postcard with a sheet over him while — uh — moving to the rhythm. It works out tremendously (intentionally) funny.
• The stage layout was tremendously unique. There were two or three dozen seats actually ON the stage at stage right and stage left. The supporting chorus singers sat in the crowd as students and occasionally would pop up when the time was right. I thought it was going to be distracting when I initially saw it but it worked.

The Bad

• All the show’s adults are played by one man and one woman. I understand why — the adults are really only small supporting characters — but I found myself occasionally confused about which person they were supposed to be at any given time. That isn’t to say the actors weren’t good, it’s just that there were times where they could have legitimately speaking as more than one person.
• I really didn’t like our Moritz. I don’t know if this is the choreography, but the actor wanted to be a rock-star a little too badly. He held the microphone on the stand with the base of the microphone to the side like Steven Tyler and seemed over-the-top even for Broadway. It just didn’t work for me. In his defense, I didn’t like the entire Moritz storyline which could have tainted him for me. By the way,
• I really didn’t like the entire Moritz storyline. The character kills himself because he fails out of school but the whole failing-out is stupidly arranged and badly told. He spends half the first act desperately freaking out about passing his mid-terms. He passes but the headmaster of the school decides that Moritz shouldn’t be promoted so they arrange for him to fail his final exams. They give no real explanation for this short of “everyone can not be promoted.” Uh, why? Especially since the lead character, Melchior, is explained as the rebellious and morose student hated by the headmaster. They let him go but conspire to expel Moritz whose only flaw seems that he’s jumpy and overly nervous? While he’s in the worst spot of his life, he runs across his old friend Ilse and they talk about old times and she invites him over for some “catching up” and companionship. He says no and then kills himself. But as he’s killing himself he’s talking about how he doesn’t really want to kill himself and should go see Ilse. But… dude… she just left and said she wanted to hang out?
• Then after the suicide, the story out of nowhere cuts to the girls talking about their eventual weddings as they tease each other about the boys in town. Then one girl suddenly goes in to a song about getting molested by her dad. Like — I understand that it happens, I understand that it probably happened more often per capita in the 1800s, but the song was totally out of place. Like, up to this point they’re delivering masturbation jokes and talking about vagina essays and erotic postcards. Then, surprise, we’re talking about a girl getting abused mentally, physically, and sexually by her father. The whole sequence is out of place and doesn’t fit with the rest of the story.
• We got a “this show is two years old and is closing in a month” cast. These guys were getting their Broadway feet wet. I’m not saying they were bad, but they didn’t blow my shoes off like the Les Miserables cast.
• The songs just weren’t solid top to bottom. While there were a couple of very fun standouts, the rest got lost in the shuffle. There’s something to be said that I walked out of theater humming the “There’s only us/There’s only this” tune from Rent. There was just nothing that popped out of this show to make me remember it.

The Rest

The musical is a pared down version of a play. Maybe the play describes some of the events with more detail. I found myself confused by the timeline and found a lot of the story threads rushed together and disjointed. The lead storyline was fine. Melchior and Wendla meet, make out, get pregnant, get separated, and one dies. I can appreciate that. I can even appreciate some of the side storylines, but there was no big tie-in at the end that brought it all together. Combine that with there wasn’t even a really a musical theme to tie the songs together and it felt more like listening to a concept album with live videos than a musical with a story.

They tried to sell this to New York as a Rent for the new generation. It could be like Rent if you took out Jonathan Larson’s ability to take the actual structure of a musical and modernize it with recurring themes and a storyline that all made sense at the end. Duncan Sheik (yes, the Barely Breathing guy) seemed like he took the play and wrote a soundtrack.

In retrospect, I find it baffling this won Tony Awards and took Best Musical in 2006. Looking at the nominees, I realize it wasn’t exactly a heavyweight Avenue Q vs. Wicked fight, but jeez.

I’m glad I got to see it before it closed, but it doesn’t get the Golden TDL Recommendation or anything.

Walking from my office to the subway today, I started to overhearing a cell phone conversation going on behind me. The guy was somewhere in his early twenties and on the phone with his dad. His dad was obviously giving him crap about having not called in while which created the following exchange.

Kid (petulantly): Well, yeah I’ve just been busy.
*pause*
Well, my schedule’s hectic, there’s a ton to do.
*pause*
(defensively) Well, not everyone’s a double major in art school.

If the father did not respond with something along the lines of: “Yeah, some people go to actual schools to get real jobs” I’m supremely disappointed.

After about a 4.5 year wait, Ms. L and I finally bit the bullet and spent the money to go see Wicked. In much the same way that everyone who liked movies said I had to see The Dark Knight, everyone who’s seen Wicked has been universal in their praise. General consesus has had it as the best show anyone’s ever seen on Broadway. For myself, I caught one song on XM’s Broadway station in 2003 and a couple more in 2004. When we moved to New York, this was one of things we wanted to do. Unfortunately, tickets are about a month wait and never on discount lists. Her aunt and uncle coming in to the city and wanting to see it finally gave us the motivation to plan something two months in to the futue.

Worth every penny.

There really isn’t much I can say about the show that hasn’t been analyzed and re-analyzed. I will say that the book is (unsurprsingly) different than the show. From what I’ve read about the book, it’s a bit dark and complicated. The stage show seemed much less interested in anything other than getting these two characters together and exploring their relationship and the definition of good and evil as quickly possible. At the core of it, really, is “are people evil because they’re evil or are people evil because someone tells you they’re evil?” Elphaba (and the audience) thinks what she’s doing is the right thing to do. The Wizard does not. The audience travels with this character who is doing the right thing but whom the establishment has framed as evil — or wicked.

The one point that I would make about this show is that, when it came out, critics and reviewers were quick to peg it as a study of racism first surrounded by other things. I didn’t think it’s really a study on racism. It’s more about outcast-ism. Elphaba is a symbol for any kid picked on in school for any reason — be it because he’s the fat kid, the kid with glasses, the poor kid, the black kid, the white kid, or the kid with braces. There’s a particular moment in the middle of the first act when Galinda (having not yet changed her name to Glinda) convinces her that an awful, pointy black hat is cool and in style. She shows up at a school dance wearing her future signature hat and everyone points and laughs at her. She deals with it. This is what makes Elphaba identifiable in a way that goes deeper than race. It also makes her one of the more wildly popular and most identifiable characters on Broadway. More people identify with this moment than could ever identify with racism because they’ve either been there or know someone who’s been there. You can’t help but root for her because she gets what’s going on in the establishment and why it’s wrong. Any person who never spent a second as part of the “In Crowd” knows that feeling.

I had very few problems with the show. It’s put together tightly and I can ignore the things that were clearly cut for time or for difficulty. Also, I give major points to the Broadway people for putting out a cast recording that didn’t give away much of the show. Ms. L got the Wicked cast recording in 2004 and we’ve probably collectively listened to it a thousand times and neither of us saw most of the plot turns coming. And, while I fully understand the whole new world of jokes this opens me up to the folks who have already penalized me countless Man Points for the other non-manly things, it’s one of the better CDs I have. The two girls on the cast recording (Idina Menzel – Maureen from Rent and Kristen Chenoweth – Olive Snook on Pushing Daisies) are really, really good. What can I say — sometimes I get bored with rock or pop and want harmony and chicks who can sing. It’s one of the reason I spent a good six weeks obsessed with the Les Miserables cast recording.

While the story does retcon a lot of the Wizard Of Oz movie (including things going on in other parts of the witch’s castle when Dorothy and her friends are trapped, why she melts when water is thrown on her, why she lights the Scarecrow on fire) and does its best to crack jokes about the movie (“It’s a pair of shoes — GET OVER IT!!”) it’s well worth the time. If you’re expecting a straight book to stage adaptation, you’d be disappointed (or not if you thought the book’s ending was too depressing). I’m glad I finally saw it, I’d recommend it to anyone, and I really hope that the movie adaptation with Menzel and Chenoweth comes to fruition.

It’s odd how backlogged this thing has gotten with my random vacations and days off and such. I made a note to write down some thoughts on Mike and the Mad Dog when I first heard about the break-up a few weeks back. While it’s extremely old news now, I really want to start blowing through the 12 columns I have backlogged here.

I listened to Mike and Chris for the first time ever on YES in 2003. They were just about the only thing on in the afternoon when I used to go to the gym on my lunch hour. For whatever stupid reason, I remember the conversation. They were talking about the NFL and how it’s likely they’d move to some sort of subscription service within the next ten years. Mike’s stance was the NFL had no reason to offer their games to people for free if they could make more by offering them for subscription. Chris said that they had the was fan-unfriendly and they should do what’s right. This was a bit before the NFL had become the fan-unfriendly juggernaut it is today.

I didn’t like them much at first but got in to it more the more I listened. When I first moved to New York and had to work at home for the best six months of my life, I started listening every day. After I had to go back to the office, I started listening on wfan.com until copier corporation X bought my company and decided we weren’t mature enough to balance streaming radio with our workday. It was (and I guess still is) still the only sports’ talk radio show I like.

The best reason I can come up with is because, while they are a little overbearing at times, they have something that other talk radio shows they don’t have. All talk radio hosts are pretentious to a certain degree. These guys are certainly no different — but their pretentiousness is different. If I had to guess, it’s a function of the fact that they’ve been around and been number one for so long that their show is essentially the same as it was in the 1990s. Their show existed long before ESPN and Fox decided to get in to radio and long before everyone decided the recipe to success was to be Opie and Anthony with some sports talk thrown in. They don’t have the Boomer Esiason/Mike Golic “you’ve never played so you don’t know as much as me” attitude.

I’ll be the first to say that their schtick can get old after a while. I’ll also be the first to say that if you aren’t a baseball fan the show’s appeal would disappear quickly. But the multitude of haters out there who say they were hacks or who suggest they suck are stupid. You don’t stay on top of the radio business in the New York market if you’re terrible. Without the success of these guys your favorite sports talk radio show wouldn’t exist. These two guys did remotes from the Super Bowl when they were the only guys there.

I will say that I think the right guy got the chance to go national. Dog’s antagonizing schtick has a better chance to catch on nationwide than Mike’s. Dog also has broader interests. Tennis, golf — all things that will give him a better chance to connect with a different audience. Mike, on the other hand, is a fan of New York sports and has been a Yankee fan all his life. I don’t think he much cares what goes on outside the five boroughs. It’s arm-twisting to even get him to talk about the Bills or Nets.

That said, Mad Dog Radio will be the first show simulcast on both XM and Sirius — so I at least look forward to give it a shot.

Since I moved to Manhattan I’ve been sort of a reverse food snob. That is: I wouldn’t shop at stores like Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s because I figured that it was for ridiculously stupid organic snobs who wanted to spend $12 on a head of lettuce. You know what else cleans a head of lettuce? Fuggin washing it.

Of course, that’s left Ms. L and I to shop at one of the other super market chains in NYC. Removing the sketchy discount places and overinflated bodegas where you’re just as likely to find a decent six-pack of beer as a can of Chef Boyardee that’s actually PAST the expiration date — that left two places.

In this corner, there’s Gristede’s (pronounced Gris-TEE-dee’s or, for purposes of this piece, Nasty’s). Nasty’s has been “feeding New Yorkers for over 100 years.” If you take a look at This handy map and take a gander in the bottom left-hand corner where there are two stores within two blocks of each other, my apartment is handily located smack in the middle of those two locations. These, by default, have become our primary super market. When we need a $5 gallon of milk or a $6.50 box of Cheerios… Nasty’s is the place to go. Nasty’s also has the irritating habit of carrying different things between the two stores. Nasty’s North has the better $12.99 per 6-pack beer selection, better produce selection, a bakery and deli section, and ground chicken. Nasty’s South has a better deli, less lines, and better meat.

In the other corner, there’s the Food Emporium, a Manhattan. The Food Emporium is much closer to what I’m used to calling a supermarket. There are two within reasonable distance from me. One is on the outer edge of walking distance (I say outer edge because I then have to carry the groceries home and honestly, kids, a gallon of milk gets heavy about halfway through a 20-minute walk) and the other is a subway ride away. The Emporium within walking distance has a great deli, good seafood, good produce, and a good selection of stuff. The Emporium in Union Square has the beer selection (which has slowly climbed in the last few months from the originally very reasonable $8.99/6-pack to the Nasty’s level $12.99/6-pack) and the prices in general have slowly climbed to be equal to Gristede’s.

As an obviously huge fan of local super markets, I continued to suffer through them rather than try something new. That’s how I keep it real, yo. Then something wacky happy. I stumbled upon the newest “how did it take this long for someone to do this” website at Beer Menus.com. The site’s goal is to get the beer list for all of Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s bars and allow you to both find a bar and see the beer list or search for your favorite beer and find what bars around you serve it. Great idea. Immediately, I tried to search for Sixpoint which is by far my favorite the New York City microbrewery. When searching for Sixpoint, however, a hit came up for the Bowery’s incarnation of Whole Foods.

Re-he-heaallly?

It turns out the Bowery Whole Foods has an entire beer store with growler stations letting you buy half-gallons of various NYC brewed beers. On top of that, there’s an entire beer store surrounding the growler station that lets you buy beer at actual reasonable prices. The growlers are $7.99 and the sixers are $8.99. Since we were there, we did our week’s shopping and guess what? Cheaper than both Nasty’s and the Emporium and even threw its hat into competing with Fresh Direct.

So, thanks to beer, I’m a Whole Foods convert. Is there anything alcohol can’t do?

Nothing makes me more angry than the fact that my apartment doesn’t have actual windows. It has sliding glass door sized set into one wall starting at waist level. So, of course, the building supplies air-conditioners since there’s no earthly way any air conditioner would work in the window.

Saturday was 95-degrees and, wouldn’t you know, the A/C doesn’t work in this worthless apartment. No problem, call down to the super. The super doesn’t work weekends. Called him after work today. He leaves at 5. So, for those keeping track at home; the first three days of the first extended heat wave of the year have featured Tom with no A/C and windows that barely open.

For F*ck’s sake.