Today is Sunday, July 13, 2025. I had another busy day today right after my viewing of Audra McDonald in Gypsy yesterday, even though I didn’t stay in Manhattan after having dinner at the Westway Diner after the show. Again, there would have been no reason to go to a gay bar so early in the day, so I decided to come home instead.

Today I headed again to Manhattan around 11:35 a.m. to meet my Astoria friend “Seth” at a supper club called 54 Below where comedian/singer/actor Lea DeLaria was holding court in a show that was advertised as “Brunch is gay.” I hate to say that I had no idea who this celebrity was since I had never seen her in anything, especially her most well-known series Orange Is the New Black from 2013 to 2019. According to her Wikipedia page, “she was the first openly gay comic to appear on American television in a 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.” Remember this one, folks? She is also the originator of the U-Haul Joke which she began performing at comedy shows in 1989. This is the joke that begins with a question: “What does a lesbian bring on a second date?” The answer: “A U-Haul.”

The show was supposed to have started at 1 and brunch was an option if you so wanted it. I had no trouble getting to the venue on West 54th Street, but Seth had some trouble with trains not stopping near there, so he was a few minutes late. When I entered the club, I descended stairs to the main area and was ushered to a table where an elderly couple was sitting. I thought we would have been sitting at our own table, but I was wrong. When I got to the table, the couple was having what looked like a salad.

There was someone in the audience who looked remarkably like the star of the hour, but it later turned out to be someone else. Before the appointed hour, the three-piece band started warming up. And at 1, Ms. DeLaria bounded on stage. I was very surprised to learn that she’s 67 years young. I assumed she was years younger. Sporting a dark suit and a practically bald pate, with black eyeglasses, she immediately begin singing a standard number. Which I’ve forgotten already. Her 75-minute set had less comedy but featured more of her inimitable jazz singing which reminded me of the late Ella Fitzgerald who distinguished herself as a scat singer. The only wonderful bit she did was when she screamed into the mic for an extended length of time this one line, “Fuck Donald Trump!” Fuck Donald Trump!” She went on interminably saying this line to the raucous applause of the audience. I also liked her diatribe of tourists in New York during the holiday season who stupidly stop traffic in the middle of the street to take pictures.

Since Seth came in slightly late, I decided not to have the brunch. I thought it was gauche to be eating while DeLaria was singing up on stage. I convinced him to go out someplace else after the show, which ended close to 2:20 or so. Overall, we were not so fond of the kind of singing that DeLaria did. Most of the songs we couldn’t even identify since she embraced a very different arrangement of them that made them almost unrecognizable. For example, her rendition of Debbie Harry’s “Call Me” from 1980 certainly didn’t sound like the version we were familiar with. Anyway, I was quite happy that I was able to sample a new venue right here in Manhattan.

The place I decided we’d go to for actual brunch was Friedman’s At The Edison, located on West 47th Street. We then walked to the restaurant after leaving 54 Below. I called first to see if I could make a reservation and I was told to just come. The gal at the other end said there should be tables at that time.

When we arrived at Friedman’s, we had no trouble being escorted to a table. The first thing I asked for was coffee since I had no time to go out this morning to get my first cup of java. I then ordered the blueberry pancakes for my entree and Seth ordered the Asian chicken salad. We were quite satisfied with our dishes.

At brunch, I discussed with Seth the opportunity we had to go to the Whitney Museum of Art afterward because it was free that day as a result of some West Side Fest. When I checked this further, I discovered that the museum is free on the second Sunday of the month, and this was that date. So we walked toward 8th Avenue to take the C downtown to 14th Street.

Overall, we spent about only an hour in the museum which was closing at 6 today. We started on the 8th floor and made our way to the 5th. The first installation we saw was one by the “sound” artist Christine Sun Kim who uses musical notation, infographics, and language – both in her Native American Sign Language (ASL) and written English – to produce drawings, videos, sculptures, and installations to explore the dynamics of sound. We thought this way too esoteric for our sensibilities, but we thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition on the fifth floor which featured the works of American artist Amy Sherald in an exhibit called “American Sublime.” This artist is best known for her luminous portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama which was on display in the exhibit. (I have several of her paintings as pics below.) She is the first African American painter to ever receive presidential portrait commissions from the National Portrait Gallery. One of her pieces, The Bathers, was sold at auction for $4.265 million.

Instead of staying until closing time, I convinced Seth to walk to the Chelsea Market to browse through the bookstore there. We left the museum at around 5:30 and walked to the Chelsea Market where I gave myself about 10 minutes to walk around the store. I tried to see if the store had my gay men’s reading club selection, I Make Envy on Your Disco, by Eric Schnall, but no such luck. However, it did have one of the previous books assigned to the guys: In Memoriam by Alice Winn. I missed the meeting where this book was discussed, so I never read it. But there was no reason to buy it.

Talking about books, I’m proud of the fact that I finished reading Griffin Dunne’s memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club. I read it in less than a week, and it was over 300 pages long. The book is a haunting and wildly funny story of a family torn apart by the heinous murder of a daughter and Griffin’s sister, Dominique Dunne, in 1982 and the subsequent fallout from the trial and unsatisfactory verdict from that trial. It was this flagrant miscarriage of justice that launched the second career of Dunne’s father, Dominick, to that of a crime reporter and subsequent novelist. What really intrigued me about the book was Dunne’s realization that his father was covertly gay after siring three children.

Anyway, this is where Seth and I parted. He took his train back to Astoria, while I took the E back to Forest Hills. I didn’t have to wait too long for a Queens-bound train, thank God.

I thought Elliot and I were going out when I came home, but he disabused me of that idea by saying we were going out tomorrow with our cross-country friend, “Patrica,” so he didn’t want to dine out twice. So I ordered in instead.

In the meantime, the president who was just cursed out by Lea DeLaria today during her show was actually booed in MetLife Stadium today as he attended the FIFA Club World Cup final. This spontaneous Bronx cheer arose when his ugly image was shown on the Jumbotron. Maybe he might finally get the message he’s not universally liked, as he so falsely thinks. Who knows? In his delusional mind, he might say Democrats put these people up to boo him.

Another week to get by. Have a good one.

As I said, I might not be here tomorrow if our dinner engagement with Patricia takes too long. But we’ll see.

And so it went!

Here’s a side view of Lea DeLaria at 54 Below.

Here’s Amy Sherald’s haunting portrait of Breonna Taylor. As you should know, she was the 26-year-old African American medical worker who was killed on March 13, 2000, after officers from Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) forced entry into her home.

Here’s another one of Sherald’s realistic paintings.

Another one of Sherald’s ordinary but truly extraordinary subjects.

This is the famous portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama that was hanging in the National Portrait Gallery.

Can you identify the original photograph Sherald is upending here by depicting two Black men kissing? If you guessed the picture of the American sailor kissing a nurse in white on V-J Day, by the world-famous Alfred Eisenstaedt, you get a free sticker from me.

One last picture before I go from Sherald’s wonderful exhibition. I don’t recall the caption that went with this picture, but if this guy isn’t gay, then I’ll eat my cap.

Oh, if you can, go see her exhibit which runs until August 10. It’s a must-see.