New York City Weekend - Day 1

Looking forward to a fun weekend in NYC, starting with Hello Dolly tonight with the divine Bette Midler.   Once again, we are staying at a friend's apartment at 30 Christopher Street in the West Village.  Posting frequency may be down as we see friends, family that live here in NYC, and some of our favorite haunts.   On the home front, the Ralph Northam staffer that we have been housing since July 4th  weekend will watch after the house and the two Chihuahuas who have become very attached to him.  The photos are of the view flying in earlier today! 

New York City 2014 - Day Two

We have truly lucked out weather wise on this trip.  Yesterday was sunny and beautiful and today is headed in the same direction.  After a lazy morning - not have dogs that want to go out at 6:00AM makes a difference - we headed up to the Theater District and bought tickets to Phantom of the Opera.  I have never seen the stage version and we will be going to a matinee today.  That was followed by lunch at Roxy's Deli and then more window shopping and visits to our favorite vintage clothing shops just to the north of the West Village.

For dinner before seeing Beautiful we went to Chez Josephine which is owned by the son of the legendary Josephine Baker who took Paris by storm in the 1920's as a dancer, singer, and actress, and who came to be known in various circles as the "Black Pearl," "Bronze Venus" and even the "Creole Goddess".  The restaurant is elegant and a virtual museum to Baker.  The food was wonderful and we treated ourselves to champagne and French 75's - a drink originating in Paris in 1915 which was said (quite accurately) to have such a kick that it felt like being shelled with the powerful French 75mm field guns of WWI.  The image at top is of the door to the men's room and another scene is below.

Beautiful was wonderful - especially for those of us who grew up with Carole King's music - and our seats compliments of the husband's clients could not have been better.  As a crazy coincidence, during intermission, I ran into a friend from Virginia Beach who was at the show as part of his amazing wife's birthday weekend. 

After Beautiful, we opted not to go to a dance club on West 42nd Street and instead ended up at the Monster Bar (less than a block from the apartment) where we used a bit more discretion on the cocktails than had been the case the evening before. 

One thing is certain - the city is thronged with tourists and, as usual, beautiful men are seemingly everywhere.  It will be a harsh reality to return to Hampton Roads which seems at times so distant from the cultural and social universe that is New York City. 

New York City 2014 - Day One

Yesterday turned out to be a wonderful Christmas Day.  After viewing the beautiful store displays on 5th Avenue - a window at Saks and the Harry Winston store are shown above - we stopped at the Old King Cole Bar of the St. Regis Hotel where we had cocktails and a light lunch.  The bar has a wonderful, elegant atmosphere and is where the Bloody Mary cocktail originated.  The bar is dominated by a huge painting done by Maxwell Parrish after he and John Jacob Astor made a bet while playing cards:  Astor challenged Parrish to "paint a fart."  The wager was $10,000 in turn of the 20th century dollars.  Parrish won the bet and Astor paid up.  

The facial expressions of King Cole's subjects are humorous to say the least.

Dinner at my brother's home was amazing and my niece out did herself cooking.  We stuffed ourselves and drank way too much wine.  We ended the evening with a night cap at The Monster Bar located just up the block from our apartment.  We will be off hitting some favor stores today and enjoying a gorgeous sunny day in the City.  We see "Beautiful" tonight.

New York City Weekend - Day Two

After lunch yesterday in the Theater District, we ventured down to the West Village and visited some consignment shops and got so great deals on high end designer clothes.  We made it back to my brother's apartment in time to clean up and head out for dinner and then see the musical, Motown.  Motown was a great show and for those like myself who lived through the 25 year period of time covered, the music was a remembrances of my teen years, as well as a reminder of some of the nation's turbulent history and the segregation and racism that was so predominant across the South.

After the show we checked out several gay bars before ending up at XL, a dance club on 42nd Street near 10th Avenue.  Today we are going to a matinee showing of Kinky Boots and will do dinner at a "Mediterranean meets Middle East” restaurant on Mulberry Street with my niece who is very involved in the restaurant/food scene in the City.  Odds are we will end up at XL again tonight.

New York City - Friday 9-9-11

We arrived in New York last evening and got settled into the apartment briefly before going out to dinner and then drinks at the Monster. I don't know if I had food poisoning or tequila poisoning, but I was pretty hurting this morning hence the minimal posting. I dealt with office e-mail and talked to the office a few times and then went back to bed for several hours. The boyfriend and our friend Rob who is traveling with us went out to breakfast and retrieved me around noon and we set out uptown to go shopping and to purchase tickets for a matinee show of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. We lucked out and got a great deal on great seats. It should definitely be a lot of fun.

As the New York Times and other news outlets have reported, there seem to be unconfirmed reports of a truck bomb attack plot for either New York City or Washington. From what we have seen, other than a heightened police visibility, New Yorkers are unfazed and are going about their business.

On Sunday we are doing brunch with the daughters of two of the boyfriend's clients who live her in New York. One works for a big law firm and the other is in the fashion industry. It should be fun and one of them went to school in Barcelona for two years and should be able to give us great suggestions for things to do and see next month when the boyfriend and I go on a western Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona.

To nigh, we'' do dinner out - probably Phillip Marie - and then finish the night at the Monster before heading back to crash. If any readers are out at the Monster, pleas say hello.

Broadway Stars Sing "It Gets Better"

A group of young Broadway stars came together to record a song with a theme from Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" project in the hopes of calling further attention to the problem of suicide among LGBT youth. Among those involved are Marty Thomas of Xanadu and Kyle Kleiboeker of Hairspray who the boyfriend and I met last month in New York City at a party to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Our LGBT youth need as many positive messages as possible. Meanwhile, Republican Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck (pictured below) has compared homosexuality to alcoholism and says being gay is a "choice"and provides one more bit of proof that the Tea Party candidates are thinly disguised Christianist extremists. Here's a video of the Broadway group:
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As for Mr. Buck and his statements on Meet the Press, here's some of his disgusting batshitery that can only help push gay youths to consider suicide:
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GREGORY: In a debate last month, you expressed your support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and you alluded to lifestyle choices. Do you believe that being gay is a choice?
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BUCK: I do.*
GREGORY: Based on what?
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BUCK: Based on what? I guess you can choose who your partner is.
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GREGORY: You don't think it's something that's determined at birth?
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BUCK: I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically, you have a choice.
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I guess to Buck, breathing is a choice too - after all you could stop breathing.

Doris Eaton Travis, Last Ziegfeld Girl and Norfolk Native Dies at 106

It is surprising at times to learn the names of some of the people who once called the Norfolk area home. They range from Gen Douglas MacArthur's mother, designer Perry Ellis, entertainers Wanda Sykes, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, Keely Smith, and Margaret Sullavan - and Doris Eaton Travis (pictured above). Some readers are likely saying who? Doris Eaton Travis died at 106 and the last of the surviving Ziegfeld Follies girls. The Ziegfeld girls were "it" back in the early decades of the 20th century. Travis kept going almost to the very end and was a supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Both 365gay.com and the New York Daily News have stories on Travis' long and amazing life. Here are some highlights from the Daily News coverage:

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The final curtain fell on one of Broadway's giddiest and most glorious eras Tuesday with the death of Doris Eaton Travis, the last surviving Ziegfield Girl.
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Details of her death were not released. She was 106 and was still dancing in the 21st century even though she was born just four years after the end of the 19th. Broadway plans to dim its lights Wednesday in honor of her passing.
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She first joined the annual Ziegfield Follies in 1918, claiming to be 16 when she was really 14. A year later she came back for what is generally considered the best of all the Follies shows, 1919. Among other things, that edition introduced Irving Berlin's "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody."
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Travis herself would later introduce "Singin' In the Rain," in "The Hollywood Music Box Revue of 1929." The song was written for her by Arthur Freed and Nacio Brown, whom Eaton was dating at the time. Twenty-three years before Gene Kelly immortalized "Singin' " in the movie of the same name, Eaton thought it was just another good song.
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Eaton stayed single until she was 45, when she married one of her dance students, Paul Travis. She and Paul bought and ran a 400-acre ranch in Oklahoma, even as Doris went back to school to finish the education the Ziefield Follies interrupted seven decades earlier. In 1992, age 88, she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Oklahoma.
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A few weeks after her 100th birthday she was talking about how busy she'd been with 40 young horses. Meanwhile, she kept her ties to Broadway, and she was an active supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. This was one Ziegfield Girl who got her full kicks. "I probably have a few regrets," she said in 2004. "But I have no complaints."

Hair - And Broadway Impact

The musical Hair last night was wonderful and played to a sold out house. Having been in my mid to late teens in the late 1960's I identified with the issues raised, particularly opposition to the Vietnam War and my own days of having shoulder length hair that I often wore in a ponytail. I also recall sweating bullets over maintaining a student deferment and then where one fell on the draft lottery - I was lucky and my birth date that year landed as 269 and safety from being drafted. The cast of the show was great and there was a great deal of cast interaction out amongst the audience and at the end of the show the stage was crowded with the cast and audience members.

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One cast member, Gavin Creel (pictured above), who played the role of Claude, stood out for a other reasons besides his terrific voice and looks: he is openly gay and has helped co-found Broadway Impact, which supports marriage equality for all citizens, gay or straight. The organization describes itself as follows:

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We are a community of actors, directors, stage managers, fans, producers — pretty much anyone who has ever seen, been in or worked on a Broadway show — united by the simple belief that anyone who wants to should be able to get married. Excited by the election of President Obama and angered by the passage of Prop 8, a group of friends came together with a hope to educate and inspire our community into action towards equality.

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We hope Broadway Impact can be a place for anyone and everyone out there who loves theatre, is passionate about equality, and wants to know how to sing out and make their voice heard. It's time for us to join together and use that voice in a way to make a huge difference. Join us on this journey to equality. It's time for action. We are ready. Are you?

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One of the activities that Broadway Impact is working on currently is organizing transportation from New York City to the National Equality March on October 10-11, 2009. Tickets are $20.00 round trip and are available through September 25, 2009. I hope people will take advantage of this option to join us all in Washington, D.C.