Tag Archives: romance

And So It Goes

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.

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, January 25, 2025. It’s getting late here so I’ll just write about the fascinating day that I had with my Astoria friend “Seth” that began at 11 a.m. We first had breakfast at the Bel Aire Diner, located near Seth’s house, on 21st Street. This was one diner I actually never dined in before, so I was quite happy.

The play began at 3, so we had enough time to have breakfast and for us to take the subway down to 14th Street since the theater, the DR2 Theatre, was located on 15th Street. This was a four-character play, as the same two performers played two more characters to round out the play. The actors, McKinley Belcher III and Uly Schlesinger, portray Teddy and Jeremy, two strangers who meet at a bar in a hotel in Amsterdam. The story starts harmlessly enough as Teddy invites Jeremy back to his room near the Amsterdam Airport. The two-hander is set in January 2011.

Harvard grad Jeremy (Schlesinger) has been in Uganda working for the past year as a medical assistant and now he’s supposedly headed home to Boston. That’s when he misses his flight and meets Teddy, a finance guy, who had been with another friend, Ed, who was about to get married but somehow storms out of the same room earlier. This is his straight travel buddy who has a psychotic break before darting out of the room.

The set features a bed in the middle of the room which becomes central to the action in this 85-minute tense drama. You see, Teddy eventually does make a play for Jeremy who freaks out – at least at first. Jeremy’s intense reaction to Teddy’s pass serves as a catalyst for the two men to interrogate each other about their sexualities, and as they explore their pasts, to discover what they’ve both done recently that might have led each other to cause the death of a friend.

In this modern retelling of Sartre’s No Exit, where both men are unable or afraid to leave the room until their secrets are revealed in the 85-minute production, written by Ken Urban, the play explores the guilt, selfishness, and self-deceit plaguing the two Americans as they grapple with the possibility that their questionable behavior may actually be drawing them closer together.

As the play proceeds, we’re introduced to the other two characters: Ed and Nicholas. Nicholas is Jeremy’s gay friend in Uganda who frequented the medical clinic where Jeremy was working. He reveals his love for a married man, Martin, and the two form a close friendship that is marred by the country’s growing homophobia and bans against the “sin.” Belcher portrays Nicholas as a soft-spoken, naive man who isn’t aware of the eventual harm that will befall him as tensions flare up against homosexuals in his country. Schlesinger portrays Teddy’s manic friend, Ed, whom Teddy reveals his feelings for him right before his marriage to Margo. All throughout the production, Teddy’s phone rings and he’s afraid to take the call because of what he might hear.

As the play proceeds, the atmosphere becomes supercharged, with jarring changes in lighting that quickly shift scenes from Amsterdam to Uganda and from present to the past, as the mystery about the men’s pasts and the fates of their friends come into focus.

At the beginning of this shift, I was thrown for a little while as the two actors adopted different accents and dialogue. Then I understood that they were playing different characters in their lives. Reading a review of the play, I learned that Uganda has long suffered from entrenched homophobia, and that as recently as this past April, its courts have reaffirmed the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which puts the lives of LGBTQ+ people in mortal peril. I loved this ending quote from Pete Hempstead’s review of the play from December 12, 2024 in which he concludes, “It is a horrific thread [Uganda’s condemnation of homosexuality] to weave through a story of two men who come from a country that, supposedly, no longer punishes people for loving whomever they want to love. But then again, it doesn’t have to when it encourages us to punish ourselves.” As in Jeremy’s fear of identifying as homosexual as the phantom of his dead friend Nicholas haunts him even as far away as Amsterdam.

It goes without saying that Seth and I both enjoyed the play. I’m not sure when the play’s run is over, but if this synopsis of it appeals to you, then by all means, get tickets for it before it does close. I just looked it up: the play now ends on February 2, which is not too far off in the future.

After the play, we took the subway (No. 7) to Hudson Yards, which is an indoor upscale shopping mall on 33rd Street and 10th Avenue. It’s near the strange-looking structure called the Vessel which had been closed recently because of several suicides there. To me, it definitely looks like the carapace of some crustacean.

Seth wanted to browse inside Neiman Marcus, but when we entered the mall, we couldn’t find the store. We concluded that it must have closed, probably during COVID-19. Instead, we sat down to have coffee upstairs in the food court.

After this, it was time to ride back to Queens. I got off at Court Square to take the E, which exasperatedly, was not running. Thus I had to walk back to the 7 to take it to 74th Street where I then changed for the E train to Forest Hills.

Anyway, that’s the day.

Have a good Sunday. Tomorrow the weather is expected to be practically balmy, with temps to be in the high 30s, close to 40 degrees. Take out the bathing suits, folks.

And so it went!

This is the playbill from today’s play.

And so It Goes

Today is Tuesday, January 7, 2025. Though I wrote yesterday that I was going to attend my gay men’s reading club, which I did, I declined to go to the local bar after 8 since I believed it was better to get home early tonight since we’ll be leaving tomorrow for Florida in the afternoon. So I got home quickly – around 8:45 p.m. I lucked out in having an E train rumble into the station on West 4th Street within minutes of getting on the platform.

Today also marked Atticus’s one-year anniversary appointment at Juniper Valley Animal Hospital, in Middle Village, at 11:30 a.m. I wish we didn’t have to take our furry baby out in the bitter cold, but we had no choice. The wind surely was somewhat fierce today. So when it was time to leave, I got the new car and parked out in front for Elliot to take Atticus out in his cat carrier. Then we drove to the vet; on Queens Boulevard, we got stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes because of construction going on in one lane. I believed we were going to get to the vet’s office later than 11:30, but we somehow arrived just in the nick of time. I think we arrived around 11:15.

Inside, we were stuck in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. For the entire drive to the doctor’s office, Atticus was very quiet. He scrunched himself in the rear of the cat carrier, as I sat next to him poking my finger into the black-and-white carrier to try to pet him. Atticus didn’t respond to my ministrations.

Even in the waiting room, Atticus remained quiet. While we waited, other “clients” came in, mostly dogs. At one point, a tall young, tattooed man came in with an Alaskan husky who promptly went to the front of Atticus’s metal house and put his snout smack dab in Atticus’s face. Our cat did nothing.

Finally, we were called into an examining room. Elliot grimly reminded me that this was the same examining room in which we put down Jocelyn, our first cat, in October 2022. In a short while, Dr. McCarthy sauntered in and proceeded to give Atticus a complete examination. He listened for heart murmurs, looked into his mouth at his teeth, and gave him a vaccination. He also trimmed his claws and back paws. All throughout this prodding and probing, Atticus was a true trouper. He didn’t flinch; he didn’t hiss. I was surprised; given how he behaves with us, I expected more fire from him. The vet declared him fit as a fiddle; he did say, though, that he was inclined to gaining a little weight, so he suggested we diminish his supply of dry cat food during the day. I believe Atticus weighed in at 8.5 pounds. He originally weighed in last January at 5.6 pounds when we first adopted him. So there was an increase of about three pounds here over the year. This area is always a sensitive one for indoor cats since they cannot go out.

We were very happy over the salutary report we received from the vet who admitted he had five cats at home. It was time to take Atticus home.

When we dropped Atticus off, I went upstairs with him and gave him two treats for his exemplary behavior. I then went downstairs where Elliot was waiting for me and we went to lunch at Jax Inn Diner, on Northern Boulevard.

At 4, I bid adieu to Elliot and took the subway to West 4th Street. I went to the Jefferson Market Library earlier to see if any copies of this month’s book could be picked up at the front desk and I was told there weren’t any by a librarian on the second floor.

I then walked to the Waverly Diner for a light bite. Oh, here he’s eating again, you might moan, and you’re right!

When I got back to the library, I entered our back room and arranged the straight-back chairs in a semicircle as a favor to our organizer. Then the guys slowly walked in after 6. I must say I was quite amazed over the number of members who attended the meeting: I think we had close to 40 guys there, despite the cold weather. When our group leader, “Jerry,” walked in at 6:15, he casually announced that the author of the book, Tim Murphy, was going to grace our meeting at 7:15 p.m. And he told me that he was going to sit right next to me. Boy, was I in goosebumps.

Thus we had only about 45 minutes to express our true feelings about Murphy’s book before the author himself walked in. Most of the members expressed some criticism of the book, while others said they enjoyed it. And Mr. Murphy was exactly on time.

Sitting right next to me, Murphy enthralled his audience for the next 40 minutes until a custodian announced, at 7:55, that the library was closing. Some members even braved voicing their personal criticisms of the book – but ever so gently. Murphy took the criticism in stride; he even agreed that this book wasn’t as good as others he’s written. What I found quite telling throughout Murphy’s presentation was that he forgot some of his own characters’ names in the book we were discussing. The members had to remind him of the characters’ names throughout his talk.

The majority of those in attendance remained mute throughout Murphy’s presentation, including this blog writer. I couldn’t think of anything remotely witty to say, so I remained silent.

With the meeting over, some of us congregated outside and some began walking to Julius’s. That’s when I decided to walk to the subway to come home a bit earlier than usual.

Now it’s getting late and I’m going to finish this entry.

Have a good six days in my absence. Don’t get into any trouble.

And so it went!