Best NYC Souvenir So Far

Come and get ‘em, they’re FREE! I so love this campaign. Launched by the NYC Dept. of Health and Hygiene on Feb. 14th, Valen- tine's Day, these condoms can now be picked up all over the place in NYC. (To folks not in the know, the letters and the colored circles represent various subway routes throughout four of the five boroughs...no subway in Staten Island, the poor dears.) I actually did a little research to find out exactly where they can be found and was not surprised by the usual suspects, that is, bars and dance clubs in locations where our beloved and astonishing hedonists frolic. What is really intriguing to me is that hair salons are also a prime target and, if your geographic knowledge of NYC is somewhat keen, you will see that the predominant locations are in poor neighborhoods. Well, okay, I’ll say it…in the racially ghetto-ized sections of the outer boroughs. But that’s cool too; you have to go where the message is more than just an advertising campaign.

Protests have been lodged by you-know-who but you really have to hand it to Mayor Bloomberg…he has endorsed this project wholeheartedly. I hope someone has the balls to fill up the baptismal basin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with these artistic gems. I’d light a candle.

Gung Hay Fat Oink

When I was a Boy Scout I felt unequipped to obey the “official” Scout Law, which is to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Even then, I figured eight out of 12 wasn’t all that bad and learned to live with both the admirable traits and my shortcomings thereof, while still giving token resistance to three and silence regarding the fourth. I think I understood, even then, it was all youthful brainwashing anyway and I must have somehow recognized this in my zealous (and hypocritical?) drive to earn as many merit badges as possible.

Oddly enough, this remembrance of things past was brought on by publicity surrounding the celebration of Chinese New Year today and learning we are now into The Year of the Pig. Being self-absorbed (it’s what blogging is all about, after all), I looked up my own sign and discovered I was born in The Year of The Rat and, more specifically to my actual birth date, The “Fire” Rat, whatever the hell that means. Anyway, according to my Chinese sign I am (I hope in the order of importance): creative, honest, generous, ambitious, quick-tempered and wasteful. Oh wow…I guess I wouldn’t have been a very good Boy Scout in China either.

Personal Cultural Inadequacies, Part 1

Here is yet another example of my own cultural inadequacy. I watched The Metropolitan Opera’s live presentation of The Magic Flute on the telly last month. I stuck to it for almost an hour, waiting for some sort of appreciation to set in. Didn’t happen. This production has been edited down to 90 minutes; its costumes, set and direction are by Julie Taymor (of The Lion King fame on Broadway). It was supposed to be magical enough and short enough and accessible enough (and sung in English) to attract the under-10 set so I thought maybe I could, yet again, learn something that I’ve been missing.

Try as I might I just cannot learn to understand and, therefore, appreciate opera. It’s long, it’s badly acted, the librettos are idiotic and yet this is all supposed to be mitigated by the sound of glorious (in)human voices raised in gorgeous splendorifisciousness (I might have made up that word). Pardon me, boys, to this untrained ear the sopranos are screaming and the basses have their heads in a barrel and they, and everybody inbetween, are just way too loud to an excruciating level. And, worse, they just go on and on, seemingly forever. (Joni Mitchell, where are you when I need you?)

The Magic Flute was pretty, some of the scenery and puppetry was cool and, yes, it was short and sung in English, although you couldn’t prove that by me. This problem was obviously considered by the Met powers-that-be because the English was supported by subtitles so you could follow the plot (what there is of it). So why bother singing it in English since the original Italian (or whatever) would have probably sounded better? Do Italian operas broadcast from La Scala have Italian subtitles? Search me. Opera singing is meant to produce glorious sound and I suppose understanding the meaning of the words is secondary. But, again, I don’t get that philosophy or that type of singing. Luckily, plenty of people do because otherwise they’re wasting lots of big bucks. Oh, well, I might as well stop trying and learn to live with my cultural inner dork. Sorry, Luciano, I never knew ye and, under different circumstances, we could have been such good friends.

Here, kitty...

If I had a kitten his name would be Jasper. At least that’s what I would call him. Cat’s real names are something like qdbddwrklbw which is, of course, incomprehen- sible to humans and therefore just another thing to insure the privacy of their feline inner space. Jasper is not a great name for a kitten but it’s sure good for a big old tomcat with attitude. I like big tomcats with minds of their own but, no, I don’t want a cat. I prefer to be the dominant animal in my household and tomcats with attitudes tend to challenge that ladder of ascendancy. All I can say is that it’s a good thing cats are lousy at opening cans or cleaning their own litter and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t last a fortnight with the Jasper of my dreams. Waking up with a feline draped over one’s breathing apparatus probably wouldn’t be entirely an accident.

Full disclosure: these thoughts and this blog would not have taken place if I hadn’t been rummaging around Google and run across this cute little kitty photo.

Spot Checking for Hazmats

This is Proctor & Gamble’s new product “Tide to Go.” It is small and innocent looking and yet lethal on casual food stains. You’ve probably seen the commercial. The stuff really does work and is perfect for travel, wouldn’t you say? Not! On a recent cross continent journey my friend Rob’s Tide to Go was confiscated at the Atlanta airport by vigilant authorities. Who knew a small soap product could be hazardous material. Maybe it’s the shape of the tube. Well, no use crying over spilt milk but I sure could have used that stuff, more than once, during my brief stay in Palm Springs. And not just for that earthquake (3.4 on the Richter scale) but both Thai and Indian food seem to have a penchant for flying, inadvertently, off wayward forks. Talk about hazardous.

Ape Memories

It’s a wonder I’m not a loincloth fetishist. During very important formative years I was crazy about Tarzan movies. Those were the days when Johnny Weismuller portrayed the ape man and I pretty much patterned myself after him for weeks at a time after seeing one of his matinees. My halting speech cadences must have driven my parents up the wall (although there was much else about me that no doubt also accomplished that) and it has occurred to me that I might possibly have become the accomplished swimmer I am today by adopting Mr. Weismuller’s technique in these movies. Luckily for me Esther Williams came along later.

Anyway, not only did I emulate the ape man I also, naturally, became a living example of Tarzan’s sidekick, a chimpanzee named Cheeta. I loved Cheeta because he was so damn cute and cuddly and a simian wise ass with a rubbery face; an obviously rebellious soul with a mind of his own. That he was only a trained animal (probably several different animals) was beyond my ken as a child in love with a straightforward image.

This reminiscence is brought to you by a small article I read in the paper last week about a painting that was recently auctioned off at a charity event in Palm Springs, Calif. It was an AIDS research auction so overly-extravagant prices were paid for donated items.The art in question was a painting by none other than Cheeta, the chimpanzee of my youth. “Say what?!” says I. Sure enough, Cheeta is alive, presumably well, and lives in Palm Springs. He will be 75 on April 9, 2007 and is kept in a small primate sanctuary in a middle class neighborhood very close to downtown P. Springs. (How his birthday is known is beyond me since I did some googling and he was captured in the wilds of Liberia in 1932 without, presumably, a certificate of birth being issued by local authorities.) His name, just as a matter of record, is not Cheeta…it’s Jiggs. In fact, this particular ape is Jiggs 4 and made his movie debut riding the back of Jiggs 1 in “Tarzan and His Mate” in 1934. Just in case you need to know this, his last role was opposite Rex Harrison in "Doctor Dolittle” in 1967.

Since I had already booked a vacation in Palm Springs I immediately added Cheeta’s house to my itinerary as a desired destination. My friends are so accommodating. I mentioned this monkey-desire and after dinner one night and without one (perceptible) rolled-eye, we did a drive-by and, sure enough, there it was. A fairly small one-level, white bungalow house with “Casa de Cheeta” in fairly large letters on the wall and a small bronze chimp statue in the yard. Lots of well known stars had homes in Palm Springs when it was a haven from the wilds of Hollywood: Sinatra, Hope, Liberace and a whole slew of others that probably get mentioned on the bus tour (no, that was not on my agenda) but I was truly thrilled by the shear unlikelihood of this small, ordinary structure and my actually taking a look at it. I had no desire to go in or even meet the monkey; I don’t even know if that’s doable...just knowing he’s still hanging around is enough. Of course this visit has a built in tee-hee factor but there’s more to it for me. To know why you just have to reread paragraph one, above.

Cheeta’s painting brought $1,200 for that charity auction but you can buy one for $125 on his website: www.cheetathechimp.org

At the amazingly advanced age of 74 Cheeta is the oldest living (according to Guinness) chimpanzee, so if you want some simian art it might behoove you to act now.

A New Ball...A New Beginning

This is my new bowling ball. It is a Storm Products Inc. "Jolt" and is manufactured in Brigham City, UT. I won it in a tournament in Ft. Lauderdale on January 14th and it was sent to me via UPS two weeks later. On February 2nd I went to a local pro shop and had the holes drilled. Tonight, February 5th, I bowled a 222 game using my new ball. The ball is the same color as my eyes on a swirly stormy day. I love my new ball both physically and emotionally and we are getting married February 14th (Valentine's Day). No gifts please.

Are you Ethel? ...or are you Judy?

I saw an off-Broadway musical last night. It’s called The Big Voice: God or Merman and I thought it was great. That should be enough to say, right? Why can’t I stop there? Yeah, right, like that’s genetically possible.

When I saw the NY Times review of The Big Voice in early December I thought, hey, that’s for me! And it was, and is, and maybe that’s part of the problem. I would like to say the theme of this play is universal, being a paean to love and commitment and overcoming setbacks and illness to emerge triumphant. It is universal in that way but in execution it is the story of two middle to late-middle-aged gay men and, more than that, it is written and the music is composed and the play is enacted by the two men who lived it.

Basically it’s a gay love story with theater-queen frills that is somewhat of a throwback to the days when such behavior was camp and fun. Along with its heavier themes, it’s still fun but I don’t think today’s young gay man can relate to it, although I might be selling them short. Frankly, and probably unfortunately for its livelihood, The Big Voice is targeted to an audience of contemporaries of the creators which includes, namely, me.

The only thing I couldn’t identify with was the stultifying religious upbringing of both men; one New York Catholic and one small town Arkansas Baptist (the latter, to me, almost horrifying). This will sound odd but thank God for my godless upbringing, or rather the total lack of any sort of religious instruction in my own small town in rural California. I like to say I was raised in the Blessed Church of Benign Neglect and to this day it has served me well. I somehow avoided the possible horrendous damage that an oppressive religion can bring upon an “artistic” child. I may be misspeaking a bit here because the childhoods of these two men no doubt continue to be repeated ad infinitum and, for good measure, ad nauseum in the backwaters of southern Baptist towns and the parsonages of Bayridge, Brooklyn to the detriment of young creative types.

I’m so glad I finally got it together to buy tickets for The Big Voice. However, although a Saturday night, the audience was sparse and this cannot be explained entirely by the bitchin’ cold weather. It’s always confusing to me how this happens in New York. Good theater is good theater and every performance should be packed with all kinds of t-goers. It’s a lovely, personal show and laughing through one’s tears doesn’t happen all that much in this age and time in NY (or anywhere) theater. It should have a lucrative run and I hope it will but, hey, what do I know, it’s an age of the ipod and Tivo, whatever the hell those are. Anyway, The Big Voice was way nice…and now I feel better about supporting something worthwhile instead of rotting my brain and plundering my wallet for “Evil Dead; Dreck on a Stick” nearby.