Fall Back Disposition

New York City has several recurring themes, most built around notions of high highs and low lows. The city has never been lovelier than it is right now. A perfect summer fading into a truly luscious autumn. More trees and green space than have been seen in centuries, harking back to early industrial times when the city was mostly farmland. A recent panicky shark sighting off Long Island turned out to be a huge pod of dolphins, and whales are so numerous in the harbors that a marine biologist has hailed this "the new Cape Cod." But then my friend Adam Jay, minding his business on his way to our friend Terry's party on Friday night spotted some man making business on the sidewalk.

"I wanted to post about it on Facebook," he told me later, "But had to look up the spelling of defecate to make sure I got it right."

That's New York City for you. The more things change in this city that never stops changing, the more it can't completely shake the vestiges of the past. There is something about this place. You are forced by circumstances to always be moving forward and yet the city makes it so difficult to let go of everything that has come before. Naturally I mean this both in the sense that memories made here can be hard to shake and that you could literally be stuck with the same couch for decades solely because it is impossible (read: too expensive) to get rid of.

Lounging on a chaise lounge in 2001 that, for some reason, I still have. 

I have been writing about New York City since before I arrived and my love of the city hasn't changed (even if I don't write about it as much as I used to). This place is magical. Period. But it is a cruel dark magic, like Ariel trading her voice for legs. You give up so much just to have the most basic necessities. No wonder people who live everywhere else think we are insane. But loving New York City is a form of Stockholm Syndrome. You're a prisoner but where else can you get a bagel like this?

Adam lives in Los Angeles now and while it has many fine qualities (eternal sunshine, air you can see and taste), it's no Manhattan. LA too often can feel like those commercials for depression medication where a sad lady is standing alone in the middle of a party filled with happy, laughing people. "I can't feel my life." Carrie Fisher wrote in Postcards From The Edge and that is LA. You can definitely feel your life in New York City but mostly because it has cut you and you're bleeding.

I realized at Terry's party that it has literally been forever (March) since I wrote about the city. It isn't that I haven't gone out, it is just that my desire to write has. Jimmy made some remark about his long absence from my blog, but it is the blog itself that is long absent. "I think it might be over," I declared, saying out loud what I had been thinking for a long, long time. But here I am again.

Cub and Chris got married this weekend and it reminded me that it has been a long time since I saw them. A quick dash through my blog and I relived quite probably every single interaction we have ever had. A brief, sporadic friendship was writ large, no moment lost to the ravages of time. In that moment, I realized that even as my writing has annoyed and exasperated those closest to me for years, the truth is also that it has documented all of those small moments, good and bad, that make us New Yorkers.

Meeting Cub and Chris at Ben Harvey's birthday brunch in 2009, as New Yorkers do.

We can lose institutions, from Joan Rivers to Roseland, that we thought would stand forever.  Memories can dim and pictures can fade but words are eternal. And if the man relieving himself against the wall of a Broadway theater on my way home after the party is any indication, so is public urination.

Only in New York, kids. Only in New York.

Birthday Preppers

Life is really unexpected. You just never know what is going to happen. This is why my new obsession is Doomsday Preppers, the show where ordinary people hoard a decade’s worth of food in their basement in the unlikely event of a water landing. Even today, I was crossing Sixth Avenue at 48^th Street and an SUV was driving the wrong way toward me, right past the cops permanently stationed by their cars outside Fox News. Always ready to channel Albert Finney in The Dresser, a movie I have never seen, I stood in front of her car and simply lifted my hand. She slowed to a stop and gave me a funny look and I showed her the error of her ways by merely gesturing back past her. Seconds later, she was completing a U-Turn and we were both on our merry way. The cops didn’t even bother getting in their cars and chasing her. That’s New York. And if you are going to freak out at every little thing, don’t come here.

I was making a rare Saturday night appearance in the city for back to back birthday celebrations. It is also Mike’s birthday on Sunday but he doesn’t feel like celebrating this year even though now that we have our glorious new coffee station in the kitchen, amazing new bathroom and showstopping fireplace, there is every reason to rejoice! I even upgraded the shelves in the closets so our own doomsday prepping won’t look as sloppy as that girl in Houston who plans to shoot her kittens in the head when we run out of oil.

First stop was The Tenth Rail down on 10^th Avenue and 33^rd Street. The neighborhood is so sketchy, the highlight is the well-traveled drive through McDonald’s next door from which the pernicious glare of the fluorescent lighting is a vision direct from the worst nightmares of the Dowager Countess, minus the gaiety. Perhaps they should rename the place The Seventh Circle, although we were really only there for the Third. As the strangers streamed into the empty bar from the street, each entered with a bewildered look on their face. “I took the M-11 bus!” one woman declared incredulously. I would have been less surprised (or concerned for her safety) if she had said she took an M-16. 

Tsuris Season

Tonight, I saw a baby in a stroller being pushed out of a restaurant by Santa Claus, but I didn’t have time to stop. Manhattan is a busy place and if you stopped for every crazy thing you saw, you’d never get anywhere. The other day, I was rushing to the train and I passed a homeless man noisily humping the pole of some scaffolding while shouting aggressively at his reflection in the building. I suppose I could have stopped to find out what that was all about but, like Santa and his baby stroller, it is almost better when you don’t get the whole story.

It is Friday and (as usual) the show was a freight train barreling out of control. We had so many calls in the first hour, our producer Amber didn’t even want to answer the phone anymore. Whenever the lights on the phone would flash, she recoiled in horror. It was pretty much like that all night. ADD Jeff was there and the first thing he did when he walked in was whip out a bottle of Stoli Vanilla. I was already worried about all the visitors we would have dropping by and when I saw Jeff plunk the bottle down on the counter, I knew it would be trouble.

Surprise Part(l)y

Today is Christopher’s birthday so his wonderful boyfriend Kevin plotted a surprise party for him. This apparently took a lot of effort. Chris is smart so it took serious subterfuge on Kevin’s part. A couple of weeks ago we all got separate emails letting us know about the party tonight at Bamboo 52 but also to help “accidentally” suggest there was a surprise party on Thursday. This would throw Christopher off the scent. I told Kevin tonight that if he really wanted to surprise Christopher he should also go ahead with the surprise party tomorrow night too. Nothing like a double fake out.

I did my part in keeping the secret although I nearly helped Kevin botch it all. Two weeks ago we were all at their apartment playing Buzz on the PS3 and one of the answers was the Blondie song “Atomic” and no one had heard of it. Not the boys. Not Michelle from BestWeekEver.TV. Not even Jonathan who seems to know everything I know. So I told them I would email the song to them later. So a few days ago, I sent the song and a short email. I was going to include Christopher on the email with a “See you on Thursday” coda but then thought better of the idea. Maybe that wasn’t a subtle enough accident. So I just emailed Kevin, Michelle and Jonathan and said at the end “See you on Wednesday.” Well, Kevin didn’t read the whole email before starting to read it aloud to Christopher and when he got to the end he suddenly heard himself saying “See you on wen- wasn’t that nice of Derek to send us that.” As close a call as you want when plotting a big surprise.

After the show, I raced down to Bamboo 52 to make sure I was sequestered in back with the rest of the gang before Christopher left the Broadway theatre where he is performing in Shrek The Musical. He steals the show, by the way, in case anyone was wondering. While waiting I ran into dreamy Steven DeLuca’s boyfriend Carl who by chance was there having dinner with friends. I told him to join us back there when he was finished and then headed for a banquette in the corner. I recognized a few people from my two trips to Kevin and Christopher’s island but by and large we don’t have a lot of friends in common.

Christopher was dutifully surprised when he walked in and soon the room was buzzing with cocktail chatter and clever Broadway bon mots. I felt like I was in All About Eve but everything was in color and there was a fight on to be Margo Channing. Kevin complained to me about how loud it was. I assured him that it is because half the people can’t hear anymore and the other half demand to be heard no matter what. “It’s all loud from here.” I told him referring to the domino effect of our birthdays: Kevin, then Christopher, then me, but in retrospect, I think that might make a good book title. Hmmm. I will store that idea away for later.

My pal Eddie from LA was there but left quickly for Florida. Then Adam Jay flew in direct from London with barely a moment to shake the dust of the West End off himself. Suddenly, Steven DeLuca popped into the room, no doubt encouraged by Carl who was still out in the restaurant talking at the sushi bar. Steven and I caught up, and when we spent a few moments with Christopher, he reminded him of when they met so many years ago while Christopher was doing a show in his theatre called “Avow.” Names of shows and actors and directors flew between them and past me like a newspaper headline montage in a 1930s movie. I gave it my best Joan Blondell perplexed and tried to keep my mouth clamped around fists full of sushi as much as possible. When I am in a crowd of strangers, I eat like Shelley Winters and Dom Deluise fighting over the last piece of chicken in the bucket. And tonight was no exception.

I hate surprises myself. And it’s a good thing too because I don’t think anyone could effectively throw a surprise party for me. Maybe I keep it this way, but I am the only person who knows everyone I know. It would probably take four or five of my friends who don’t even know each other well to actually piece together the guest list. And as lazy as my friends are, that isn’t happening anytime soon. But I do have a big birthday coming up this year, so I suppose I will have to do it up right. I have been thinking of a birthday in NYC and one in LA. Why not? And as for surprises, well I promise you that no one will be as surprised as me that I am turning as old as I am. In any event, I hope by then that I have had so much Botox that I will look surprised no matter what.

Garden State

I think that my Dad thinks the Olive Garden is a fancy New York restaurant. Whenever he comes to town, it is where we go to dinner because I love it there. But I don’t think they have them in Utah so I assume it’s a uniquely Manhattan experience to him. That is fine by me. Personally, I see the Olive Garden as a special kind of Americana kitsch. True it has all the homey warmth of a lit can of Sterno, but the bottomless salad is like crack and who doesn’t love an overly salty warm breadstick.

As I travel through life, professing my deep and abiding love for The Olive Garden, I have discovered other unlikely devotees along the way. Michelle Collins was really the first and she is my core Garden demographic. I know that she is always ready at a moment’s notice to split a salad over a couple of strawberry frescos. And the last time we went, she didn’t miss a beat when I walked out with a breadstick in my mouth.

Over July 4th weekend on Kevin and Christopher’s island, we picked up more of them. It was as if we ran a giant alfredo-scented lint roller over the island and chain restaurant loving gays adhered themselves to it en masse. So we planned an island reunion of sorts to commence as soon as possible at our favorite tacky Italian restaurant. Michelle is moments away from a month long adventure in Israel so the clock was ticking. After an abortive effort last week, our new Garden party descended on Times Square tonight in full force.

Joining me and Michelle were original Jonathan who bonded with Michelle on the bus ride over to the island, as well as Kevin and Adam Jay. Kevin joined me at the studio beforehand for a quick tour and then we walked the long two blocks to join the others upstairs. When we arrived, Adam mentioned some other island veterans might drop by but really it was just the five of us for dinner. They seated us in a big round corner table in back which at first seemed like heaven. But moments after sitting down, Michelle realized that the nuclear glow of the M&Ms sign in her eye line was certain to spark the kind of seizure usually reserved for viewers of Anime and the dulcet tones of Entertainment Tonight’s resident siren Mary Hart. She switched seats and then we were all off to the comedy races.

The witting banter flew at a lightning pace, frequently outdone by the kinds of offensive statements you don’t want easily overheard by traumatized tourists one table over. The surprise island veteran was none other than blonde venus Hannah Waddington, looking svelte and gorgeous. I tried to entice her with a free breadstick but they were off to join others for dinner at a real restaurant instead. Hannah is statuesque and while I would love any excuse to hang out with her again, I have to assume that the allure of The Olive Garden doesn’t easily translate across the pond.

After our fantastic dinner, we tried to find a local watering hole for a final night cap before I ran off for my late train. We finally settled in a very chic lounge on the second floor of a Times Square boutique hotel. If the place hadn’t been so deserted we might have felt horribly underdressed and out of place. Plus it was intensely jarring to leave the processed cheese product slickness of The Olive Garden for the modern chic of a midtown Manhattan hotel, but Michelle with her Century 21 shopping bag and Garden take out container charged up to the bar and ordered our drinks anyway. After all, we may have looked and (after almost two hours inside the Olive Garden) smelled like tourists, on the inside we know we are New Yorkers. And as such, we know, we belong anywhere we want to go. Because when you are Manhattan, you’re family.