Sunday – June 3rd

Supposed to rain this afternoon.

I slept in till 8:30 today. Clean up the room, copy the latest play to my memory stick and head up to Broadway to see if Staples will be open to print it out (for some reason, I can only effectively edit one of my plays when I have it printed out. I doesn’t work well on the computer screen.) They don’t open till 22 and it is just after ten but they have closed off over a dozen blocks on Broadway for a street fair. They have everything but sun glasses, t shirts and food pretty much cover it.

I walk to the south end of the fair and walk north stopping from time to time. Buy a pair of sunglasses for $6 and a watch for $5. I offer the guy $10 for both and he takes it. Hank calls and we agree to meet at the Boat House in Central Park at noon so I hit Staples at 11 when they open and print out the play. I walk to the boat house – a half hour at a good pace. Work on my script for a half hour till Hank gets there. They have a waiting list an hour and a half long so we get a cab to Times square to get tickets. (Hank is big on cabs I’m big on walking.) We decide to see Company a 1970 Sondheim musical in revival.

It was good but all of Sondheim’s musical’s are incredibly difficult musical pieces. In my limited knowledge of any musical, this one is one of the worst to stage. This particular revival has the actors acting, singing and playing all the instruments. I reminds me of Radio Gals which I saw at Taproot in Seattle years ago where the actors acted, sang and played the instruments. I have the script if anyone thinks we could cast it on Orcas.

Company was all right and the male lead (Raul Esparza) is up for a Tony but there is no real plot – just a series of vignettes. One highlight for me was a young actress with no real credentials: Heather Laws. In my opinion she stole the show.

It was raining but not hard (just harder than it rains on Orcas) so I beat feet to the Subway, back to my room to drop off my notebook and other things I didn’t want to get wet. Then up the street to get dinner.

You know what’s expensive in New York? – Besides everything, I mean – Liquor. A draft beer is $6 to $7, wine is $8 to $10 and a whiskey is $9 to $11.

Came out from dinner and it is raining – hard. I walk as fast as I can back to the hotel but am soaked when I get there.

I’m really getting excited about Lincoln Center tomorrow. Hope I can sleep.

Saturday, June 2nd

Remember that I couldn’t find my ticket for my laundry? Well, I searched the room again – remember this is a VERY small room. Still no ticket. So off I go just after eight am to get my laundry. Closed till Monday. Yuck.. Bad way to start out the day. Now I have to go there on Monday just before I go to Lincoln Center and hope my laundry is there.

Back to the room and get a bottle of OJ and head for Riverside Park. I take my current book on play writing and my pad. I get there just before 9 am and by noon I had finished the first draft of my second play of New York. By the way – the first draft is about 15% done with the play. Although some (like the Hal and Cathy plays) never get finished.

Sitting in Riverside Park on the weekend is interesting. The fathers are there with their young kids and the joggers are out in force as are the dogs being walked. Several people stopped by to chat. All in all a pleasant morning.

Hank was going to call me in the morning and we’d set a time to get together. I finally call him just after noon and he didn’t remember his promise to call me. He couldn’t get together so I was on my own. I had picked up a copy of the Village Voice (a free newspaper – like the Seattle Weekly). So I looked at the off-off Broadway shows. I finally settled on a show all the way down in Greenwich Village. Off to the subway again. This time I take the local to 59th street and get an express to the Village. Still a long ride. I would have missed a 2pm matinee but I had picked a 3 pm show. I see a show named Phallacy (Yes it was spelled that way). One of the reasons I chose it was because the theater company specializes in plays that marry science and the arts. THIS PLAY WAS GREAT!!! It is by far the best play I’ve seen in years. I mean Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon was a better actor but this play was wonderful.

To start with the female lead (Lisa Harrow) is like Judith Densch at 50 years old. She OWNED that stage when she was on it. The male lead was almost as good. There were two other, younger actors that did a workman like job but were clearly overshadowed by the two older actors. The technical multimedia aspects of this show were unbelievable. I really want to do this show but I don’t think Orcas could handle the technical requirements. Without those, the play wouldn’t be half as good. When I get back to Orcas I’ll start tracking down the show and see if I could get the tech stuff we need.

What an afternoon of theater. I decide not to see a show that night. It would be hard to follow that show. I go back to my room and type the new play into the computer. Boy I hate doing that. It takes me almost four hours over two sittings.

I go to look for dinner three blocks up from the hotel. It is wall to wall restaurants for block after block. The places are either so full the sound level is above the pain threshold or they are empty and that sends me a message too. I finally got to a place called Fred’s – not named after my friends named Fred. It seems that this Fred was the first seeing eye dog. See I learned something. A good dinner of barbecued ribs. Got another shirt dirty. If I don’t get my shirts Monday I’m going to be in real trouble.

Back to the room at 10 pm and look at my e-mail, lots that need responses. Get to bed just before midnight.

Friday, June 1st.

Got some chores to take care of this morning. I know there’s a wash and fold up the street so I’ll drop off my laundry. Also hit the grocery store and get some orange for the refrigerator. Amazing how much laundry I can go through in four days but I’m changing shirts twice a day.

I show the guy at the laundry the stains on my green shirt but he says all he does is wash them. So I’ll cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I take my bottle of OJ and my pad to the park and look at a new play. I work on a play about Hank and I meeting but I keep getting drawn off the subject by the play “Dinner With Friends” I saw last night. The problem with the Hank and me play is that I can’t come up with an important, life and death subject for it. If I don’t get there the play will just start, run and stop and nothing will have been accomplished. That’s what I get for reading too many books.

So I sit there in the park and outline a play about Beth telling Karen that she’s having an affair. In the play it was Beth telling Karen that her (Beth’s) husband was having an affair so see, I’m not plagiarizing. In my play Beth’s excitement and enthusiasm for the affair makes Karen rethink her relationship with her husband Gabe. That’s good. I fill out the rest of the outline and I like it. So I start to write:

Karen: Gabe, can I talk to you about something?

Gabe? What’s this about? I’m not writing about Gabe. But I very clearly see them sitting in bed, he’s working on a crossword puzzle and she’s reading a book. Okay, so I stole the setting from Dinner With Friends. Anyway, off I go for three hours with Karen and Gabe talking about Beth and their life and Karen decides that her life is pretty good after all.

I’m about half done writing it.

Past time for lunch. I head for Times Square on the Subway. Get off the subway and look for a place for lunch. What do I find? A place called The Playwrights Tavern. So I go in. It’s mostly Irish pub and Sean O’Casey’s stuff is everywhere.

It’s just before one and all the construction workers are in there drinking their lunch and the sound level exceeds even the usual NYC roar. Too loud to think let alone write. By the time I’ve finished lunch, I’ve had two beers so it’s back to the room for a nap.

I get a return call from a friend of Mazz’s. Her husband is in the final stages of directing Romeo and Juliette for NYC’s Shakespeare in the park. I’ll have to see it if I can. She said he wouldn’t be able to get back to me till after it opens. I mentioned his name to Hank and Hank knows of him. He’s a pretty big name in the NYC theater community.

Then I clean up, head back downtown to buy tickets for a show tonight. Hank’s just having dinner with me. I’m on my own for theater. I get a ticket for an off-Broadway version of the Fantasticks. I get the ticket then head to a quiet bar I’m starting to frequent on 46th street and write a little and have a beer. Just one because I’m meeting Hank for dinner and that means three martini’s for him. I settle on wine. If I’m paying fifty dollars to see a show I don’t want to fall asleep during it.

I have to say, this theater was tiny. It had an eight or nine foot ceiling height. Makes the Grange look real good. Hang lights from that ceiling then have the actors get up on boxes (which they did) and the actors have to duck. That started it. I decided to see Fantasticks because it is a staple of American Theater. Like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I thought it was dumb. Really dumb. Now I have to see it again sometime to see if it was just that production or if it really is dumb. One side note: The playwright who originally wrote it was in the cast.

On the way back to my room I remember that I was supposed to pick up my laundry after five. Well, 11 pm is after five but the place is closed. When I get back to my room I realize that I don’t have the ticket for my laundry. Well, something to do tomorrow.

I update my journal and get to bed around midnight.

Another day in the big city.

I’m getting excited about Monday.

Thursday, May 21st

Up early again.

My legs are pretty much back to normal. I go to the corner bagel shop for some OJ. Then back to the room, pick up my notebook and another book on playwriting and over to Riverside Park to watch the people go by.

The temperature in the morning is just delightful but warmer than it was on Tuesday and Wednesday. There are a lot of people in the park – not many sitting there but mostly joggers and people walking their dogs. All with pooper bags in hand, thank you very much.

Not counting the joggers, almost half the women are smoking but very few men are. Makes you think doesn’t it?

I made some pretty major changes to the script. I’m about done with that one and thinking of my next project. Maybe something about Hank and I not recognizing each other. I’m having trouble making that into the most important day in one of our lives. Just let it sit for a couple of days and see what happens.

The are no matinees today so nothing to do till tonight.

I called and left messages for two people who live here. In just a few minutes I get a call back from Rob O’Neill. Those of you who have taken the SOAR or AIRE acting programs know who he is. Anyway, he is directing a play (Dinner With Friends by Donald Margulies) that features Lisa Benner (a SOAR/AIRE Alum). I get tickets on line for the show.

Then I head off the The Museum of Modern Art. Back on the subway to 50th street then a real hike to fifth avenue. Glad my legs are up to it. I a couple of hours wandering around. I liked a lot of it – Architecture, packaging, advertising even type faces. But when it got to the “art” it didn’t do so much for me. I know that I don’t know enough about art to appreciate it. Like Picasso, for example. I know who he was and the kind of stuff he painted. I could probably recognize one if I saw it. But I went through two rooms of his paintings and they all looked like the people were put into a blender. Then I come upon a painting he did that actually looks like a person – no blender at all. Why did he do that? What made him get out of bed that day and say”I think I’ll paint a picture of a person that looks like a person”? I know most people know the answer to that but I don’t. Oh well. We can’t know everything.

When I get out of MoMA (that’s New York for Museum of Modern Art) it is HOT and MUGGY (both with capital letters). When it gets hot on Orcas the humidity is at a reasonable level. Not so in NYC. Hoof it back over to Broadway get the subway north go back to my room and shower and put on a new shirt. Then to dinner (very nice Italian restaurant), spill olive oil on my new shirt then to the theater to see the show looking like a slob with olive oil on my shirt.

It was a GREAT play: Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies.

It was really compelling theater. The best part was that it was directed by Rob O’Neill and starred Lisa Benner. I have the play and have read it several times but it never clicked for me (of course it won a Pulitzer so what do I know?) It all came together for me tonight. I have to specially mention Lisa. There were several long periods when the audience was holding their breaths, hanging on every word that she said.

Talk about powerful theater, this was it.

Grab the subway and back to the room getting there at 11 pm again.

Love New York City.

Tuesday – a day for exploring

You’d think that I’d be able to sleep in with the time change. After all, when it’s 7 am here in the big city, it’s only 4 am at home. But no. I’m wide awake at 6 am here. I dink around in the room for an hour, unpacking and cleaning up.

I have a “two room suite”. There are actually three rooms. A bathroom and two bedrooms. Each bedroom has a bed, a dresser and a TV. One room has refrigerator and microwave and the other has a phone. Neither room is wide enough to turn the bed sideways. But this is New York. What can you expect?

I’ve decided to do a lot of walking here. So I take off out of my room and head up to Broadway – two blocks east.

I’m at 80th and Lincoln Center is at 66th. 14 blocks. Off I go. Lots to look at. The weather is very nice early in the morning but the sidewalks are BUSY – you have to keep an eye out every minute. It takes me just over 20 minutes. File this away for the future: one and a half minutes per block. I get to Lincoln Center (LC) but most of the outside of the buildings are boarded up for a remodeling. I walked around the building and found several entrances open. There are several buildings and it’s like a maze in there. I forgot to bring the directions they sent me so I’ll have to come back later.

My next stop is Times Square – 42nd street. I decide that I’m not up to walking another 24 blocks so back on the subway. The subway costs $2 a trip but I got an unlimited pass for 30 days for $76. I get off at 42nd street and climb to the surface.

My sense are assaulted.

I could not believe how loud the steady state sound it. I am amazed that everyone in NYC isn’t deaf. The screech of the subways is everywhere, taxi horns, police sirens, people talking dozens of different languages. It’s a cacophony that makes me reel. Add to that the bright morning sun – I don’t have any sunglasses that fit my new glasses and all the lights of Broadway on even at 10 AM. And the smells. There are hundreds of smells all mingled together and the result is far more pleasant than you might think. Most come from restaurants that pipe their cooking smells out to the street (what else can they do with them?) And the small ubiquitous pushcarts with foods from every nation available. Indian curry mixed with Chinese stirfry mixed with southwest mesquite grilled hot dogs(???!!!). There’s also a Macdonald’s on every block and the sweet smell of their french fry fat mixes with all the other aroma’s. It made my stomach growl and reminded me that I hadn’t had any breakfast. I got a bottle of orange juice from a pushcart and wandered around for another hour and some. Now it’s after 1 pm and I’m really hungry. My feet are also getting very sore.

I get a phone call from my high school best buddy Hank (who now calls himself Henry) suggesting we meet at Joe Allens at 6 pm and decided what to do from there.

I head back up north on the subway and get off at 79th street and have lunch at a small, hole in the wall restaurant. A great caesar salad with grilled chicken. The dressing was a really nice garlic/olive oil combination. I’d go back there in a minute but I want to try different places.

By the time I get up from lunch, I can hardly walk. My legs have cramped so badly.

After a shower and a different shirt (it gets very hot and sweaty after the morning heats up) I head back downtown on the subway. I’m glad I got the thirty day subway pass.

I get to Joe Allen’s about 5:30 and stake out a seat where I can cover the door and another seat from Hank when he gets here.

Most people get off work at 5 and the place is filling up rapidly. I start to get nervous so I take out my book and start writing.

Here are my notes:

I’m really nervous. Why?
Will I recognize him?
How has he aged (I hadn’t seen him since 2001)
Will I seem really old to him?
How should I greet him? Handshake? Hug? Normally I’d hug him but he’s gay. Is it okay to hug him?
God, there are so many people coming in the door.
He’s late.
There’s another guy over there waiting for someone too. Not Hank.
He used to drink like a fish. Can I keep up with him?
At least I don’t have to drive home. I have the subway.
Several people are looking at this seat I’m holding. I don’t know how much longer I can hold onto it.
That other guy that’s waiting for someone is more nervous than I am.

Finally they guy made his fourth or fifth trip outside to look for someone. When he came back inside I thought: “Shit, I wonder if that could be him.” I pointed to him and said “Hank?” He said “Doug”. I got up and have him a big hug. We had been sitting there for twenty minutes and never recognized each other. We both got a lot older in the last seven years.

We didn’t drink too much but had a good talk that will remain forever quiet.

He had the Times and we talked about all the plays that were in town and picked a few that we would try to get tickets for to see on Wednesday. I’d see a matinee and then get tickets for the two of us for an evening show. I’d get in line for Tkts-tkts for half price tickets. They’re still expensive $51 for a half price ticket to a straight play, but that’s a story for tomorrow.

More later.