I had lunch today with a friend in Pacific Palisades at an Italian restaurant called Tivoli Cafe. The Palisades are not the hot bed of high cuisine, but there are a few nice places, and this was quite enjoyable. Nice decor, an outdoor patio, and my linguine pesto was very tasty. My friend got a tuna salad wrap -- which he liked, but it was very odd: he was served the tuna salad wrap and also was given a big side of...tuna salad! (He liked it, but needless-to-say, he took the side of tuna salad home.) The service was odd, as well. Generally very friendly, and quite attentive most of the time, but sometimes...I don't know, I'm scratching my head. It was clueless, which is strange because it wasn't all clueless. Some, as I said, was very attentive. And always friendly.
Here is the best example of what I mean. At one point, the waitress came over to refill my water glass. (She didn't come over on her own, I had to wave her down eventually. Not a huge deal.) As she was pouring, she missed the glass and spilled a lot of water on the floor. Again, not a huge deal, these things happen. She warned us about the water on the floor, so as not to slip on it. Fine, perfectly thoughtful. I expected that she'd have a towel or something to clean it up. But she didn't, so I was curious if when she went back she would tell a busboy to get a mop. I waited -- but she didn't, no busboy. At the very least I thought maybe she'd come back over herself with a rag. She did come by...good...but then veered off elsewhere. I looked at the floor, covered in a couple puddles of water. Well, gee, I thought, that's messy and dangerous. And it was odd because it wasn't like she didn't know there was water on the floor and that it could be dangerous. She warned us, after all. But just left it be. We went on with our meal. Eventually she came by to get an order from the table next to us. I couldn't take it any longer. Trying to be as polite as possible (I later asked my friend, he said that I passed the Polite Test), I called her over and said that while we were aware of the water on the floor, a new customer would not be, so it might be a good idea to clean up the water before somebody slipped on it. "Oh, thanks," she said, and went off to get a rag and mopped it up. Mind you, what I wanted to say was, "Excuse me, but do you have literally no sense. You spilled half a glass of water into puddles on the floor and just left it?!! You know it's dangerous, she warned us. Do you not realize that if someone slipped on that and got injured, they could sue the restaurant? And if the owner found out you'd just left it, you could be out of a job. Is that how you live you life at home, that when you spill something all over the floor, even a glass of water, you just leave it there???" But I didn't say that. I passed the Polite Test. It wasn't like she was a bad waitress -- she wasn't. She was half wonderful, and half oddly-clueless. And this was a totally clueless part. And I couldn't understand it. How do you spill half a glass of water, warn people, and then just leave it? Seriously, how?? But the restaurant was good. And she was personable and half wonderful.
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As I've noted often, I'm a huge admirer of the musical, Fiorello! and explained why here that I think it's the "greatest musical you've never heard of." Not necessarily the greatest, and not the most obscure -- but the two together: the best that's little known. I feel comfortable saying that, considering how few people know of it, and yet it won the Tony Award for Best Musical (tying, in fact, that year with The Sound of Music) and won the Pulitzer Prize. And even if some knowing people might have heard of it, a very small percentage of them have ever seen it. It just is rarely performed. The main reason, I suspect, is that some think it's just a period piece about New York City politics, so no one outside of the city would care -- just like who would care about Danish politics 700 years ago, which is why no audiences ever want to see Hamlet... In its details, yes, Fiorello! deals with New York politics in the 1930s. But what the story is about is how one man can fight corruption and win. It's about all cities' politics. And it's not just a love story, it's a double love story. Actually, a triple love story. And ohhh that glorious musical score. The songs are by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, who in a few years would go on to write Fiddler on the Roof. Though it's obscure, the show holds a special place in the hears of Theater Folks. And when the now-famous Encores! series in New York began life performing stripped-down versions of little-performed musicals, the very first show they did was...Fiorello! And when they celebrated their 20th anniversary last year, the show they chose to honor the occasion with was...Fiorello! The first time they'd ever repeated a show. There's very little video footage of productions of Fiorello! and most especially top-notch productions of the show. So, here's a treat: six minutes of behind-the-scenes footage of rehearsals of that 20th anniversary revival. It's done superbly, and does honor to the original. Sheldon Harnick told me how pleased he was with the production and performances, particularly Danny Rutigliano in the lead role. (A role created by the then-unknown Tom Bosley who later went on to fame as 'Howard Cunningham' in Happy Days. He won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in Musical, oddly not lead actor, but that's because the Tonys have -- or had -- a strange rule about who was eligible to be Best Actor. The credits had to say "Starring" or have your name above the title. With Fiorello!, it was largely seen as an ensemble piece, so Bosley's name was listed under the title with all of the cast.) Another nice thing in the video. When the song, "The Very Next Man," is performed, it's with the rewritten lyrics, so people who cringe at one slip in the show can hear the fix for perhaps the first time. When Harnick wrote the words in the late 1950s, it was intended tongue-in-check, how the character of Marie -- Fiorello's long-suffering assistant in unrequited love with him for 15 years -- finally sings an anthem how she's moving on at last. And to make her point, she explains that whoever the next man is, she'll marry him and get past Fiorello. (Note: he comes around and sees the light and proposes to her. In fairness to the fellow, he married someone else, who sadly dies young.) And in being tongue-in-cheek, Harnick wrote one verse that, for that era, was perfectly normal. But as time went on it became truly cringe-worthy, no matter that it's mean as a joke. ("And if he likes me, who cares how frequently he strikes me. / I'll get married with my arm in a sling, just for the privilege of wearing his ring.") And among those who cringed was Sheldon Harnick himself, who rewrote the words, and required that any future productions of Fiorello! must use the new lyrics, and the old lyrics were not approved for any authorized production. That passage now begins, "When he proposes..." well, see for yourself what he came up with, sung by Erin Dilly. I'll just mention that the additional cleverness of his new lyrics is that they make wonderful use as a pun of Fiorello LaGuardia's name. He was known as "The Little Flower," because that's what 'Fiorello' means in Italian. The montage begins with the great Politics and Poker, where the local Republican leadership, headed by Shuler Henley, can't figure out who to get to run for Congress -- and lose -- to the corrupt Tammany Hall. (That's when the unknown Fiorello offers himself up. Which later in the show leads to the dazed and disbelieving committee singing the hilarious, "The Bum Won.") Kate Baldwin next sings "'Til Tomorrow," as Thea, and you get to see a bit of her waltzing with her mismatched husband, Fiorello, a short, fat man eventually who won the beauty's heart. This gorgeous song is worth noting, too, because it was actually was one of the numbers that Harnick and Bock wrote to audition themselves in hopes of getting the job. Needless-to-say, it worked. (The song precedes LaGuardia and other American doughboys going off to World War I.) And then that leads into Erin Dilly as Marie proclaiming that she'll marry "The Very Next Man." (Side note: If you saw the movie, Julie and Julia, she played the editor who tests Julia Child's recipes and decides that the cookbook must be published -- she gets the great line, "Yum" -- then works with Child to come up with the title.) Here then, is a whole lot of wonderful -- and rarely seen -- Fiorello! I have to admit, sometimes I don't like writing about whatever the latest insanely stupid and offensive thing Pat Robertson has said. For one thing, my head hurts reading insanely stupid and offensive things that come out of Pat Robertson's mouth and other open orifices. For another, it seems wrong, like making fun of a six-year-old. And also, it's just too easy, like shooting apples in a barrel.
But in the end, Pat Robertson isn't a six-year-old. And responding does have a way of getting my head to stop hurting. And ultimately, there's nothing inherently wrong with easy. Eating ice cream is easy (unless you're lactose intolerant, which I suspect is similar to how many people are towards Pat Robertson.) And besides, this was a guy who ran for the GOP nomination for president once, and Republicans actually took him seriously. So, I should, too. I don't, but I should. And so it was that on his 700 Club TV lollapalooza, Pat Robertson pondered -- "What would have happened in Jesus’ time if two men decided they wanted to cohabit together, they would have been stoned to death. So Jesus would not have baked them a wedding cake nor would he have made them a bed to sleep in because they wouldn’t have been there. But we don’t have that in this country here so that’s the way it is." I suppose it's possible that, in Jesus' time, two men deciding to cohabit together might have been stoned to death. Unless they lived in San Francisco. But then, in Jesus' time, the bible says a child could be stoned to death by his or her parents just for being disobedient (Deuteronomy 21:18-21). And a father could stone his daughter to death for not being a virgin (Deuteronomy 22:13-21). And oh-so many other things gallingly ghastly to us today. (And by "today," I mean like for the last thousand years.) Not to mention permitting slavery. So, I hope the good Rev. Robertson isn't holding 2,000 year-old society to the Good Old Days standard he thinks should be followed. For that matter, I also agree with the Reverend Mr. Robertson that Jesus probably wouldn't have baked them a wedding cake. But then that's because Pat Robertson's scenario merely had the two men "cohabiting together," not marrying, and it would be so incredibly inappropriate, let alone presumptuous to bake a wedding cake for that -- and Jesus had a pretty darn good sense of decorum and manners (except for that one time he went all ballistic about moneylenders). But there's another huge reason that Jesus wouldn't have packed them a cake -- it's a well-known fact among biblical scholars that Jesus was an extremely bad baker. If he ever wanted a wedding cake for anything, he definitely would have hired it out. Having said all that, I agree yet again with Pat Robertson that Jesus wouldn't have made the couple a bed to sleep in, even though he was a very talented carpenter earlier in his life, much like Harrison Ford, another celebrity. But that's because what kind of people who agree to cohabit together would do so before they had a bed already. They wouldn't have needed one, and Jesus -- being Jesus -- would have known that. Mind you, assuming that Jesus didn't know the two men (a fair assumption because Rev. Robertson clearly doesn't say they all are friends), what kind of person goes off and just makes a bed for total strangers? Even if you're the Son of God. Besides, if you're the Son of God, you assuredly have far more important things to do than build beds for strangers. (Though it's worth noting that Jimmy Carter does build complete houses for strangers, though that's a specific job he's taken on. He's not burdened with being the Son of God.) And if this imaginary cohabitation took place when Jesus was still doing his carpentry work -- I think we can all agree that it's pretty poor business practice for a carpenter to build a bed unsolicited. What if the people like a soft mattress, and you've made it medium-hard? If they don't want to pay, you could be out a lot of shekels. But, as Pat Robertson and Walter Cronkite say, that’s the way it is. (Or to keep this biblical, as Pharaoh said to Moses, “So it has been written, so it shall be done.” Okay, at least he said it in the movie version. Or Yul Brynner did.) By the way, dear Mr. Robertson also compared same-sex couples to abortion, saying that "both of them deny the reproduction of human species." Interestingly, this is almost exactly the same way I feel about when his parents gave birth to Pat Robertson. That aside, on this last comment of his I must disagree with the being known as Pat Robertson. The comparison is incredibly misguided. After all, by his definition of those who "deny the reproduction of human species," he might as well add comparisons to football huddles, Christian youth retreats, barbershop quartets, prostate cancer survivors, kindergarten through fourth grade, monks, nuns, all celibacy for that matter, senior citizens, prison, and most parents after their third child. Also, many women after delivering her first child. Not to mention fathers who stone their daughters to death for not being virgins. But far be it from me to deny Pat Robertson the opportunity open his pie hole and say whatever he wants. I not only always appreciate the opportunity to get source material for yet another article -- but every time he does speak, I suspect it diminishes his mean-spirited cause one more rung. Always a good thing, should he decide to try and get the Republican nomination for president again. And in the end, the truth is that although Jesus was not a good baker, he did know how to make delicious hummus. And that's what he probably would have made for the two guys cohabiting together. .And his good disciple would have made the Peter bread. Our visiting contestant today is Galen Spindler from Albert Lea, MN. And...huzzah, it's always a treat when I'm able to guess both the hidden song and the classical composer whose style the song is written in. Oddly, the hidden song was tough (and beautifully done by pianist Bruce Adolphe) during the well-known verse, but it became eminently clear in the bridge.
Almost a year ago, I wrote about a wonderful HBO movie made nearly 30 years ago, in 1985, Finnegan Begin Again. It starred Robert Preston in the second to last film he ever made, and co-starred Mary Tyler Moore. They're both terrific, but most especially Preston who acts with an ease that's almost ethereal. It's just a tremendous performance, the kind that anyone who wants to act should study. And the entire movie is charming. It's a story somewhat like Murphy's Romance, and oddly was made the same year, a romance between a middle-aged woman and a much older man who has no interest in romances any more. The film was written by Walter Lockwood, and directed by Joan Micklin Silver who did the wonderful Hester Street and Crossing Delancey. As I wrote at the time, the film unfortunately isn't on Netflix, nor do I know if it's even available for rental anywhere, let alone on DVD. What I said I could do, though, was embed a four-minute featurette HBO made about the film. I can now do that one better. Here's the entire film... Okay, I'm back in the apartment after being sent away for four hours yesterday afternoon by the pest control guy, who's slowly becoming by closest friend. Yes, that means it's true, I'm actually still dealing with the bed bug scenario after 2-3 months. This was his fourth spraying. Usually, it's just three. But the end -- I think -- is in sight. The bugs are down to just a few, and I had three days in a row with none, though there was one today. The spraying, my good buddy Del tells me, has a residual effect, so it'll still be there for weeks to come, and that should finally put a finish to this. In fact, he said it was safe to start putting my home back together, even if there were random bugs appearing. That's the most joyous news of all. For the past few months, I've had most everything in my place put in boxes or bags, or had all my coats and sweaters and woolenish type things that all had to be drycleaned sitting in the attack of a friend's house. I've basically been living out of a suitcase all this time, with one change of clothes. Most of my office material was boxed up, so that hasn't been accessible either. But now, good pal Del, says I can't begin to get my life back. O joy, oh wonderment! I expect to still see a few a bugs from time to time over the next week, but I've got my Fabriclear bug spray can close at hand, and I've gotten quite adept at it, able to nail a spot at 10 paces...though I prefer to stand right over the little creature and make dead sure. Pun intended. I've started moving some close and books back, and soon I'll even be able to use my new sofa (which I've kept wrapped in plastic), and sleep in my bed properly (the new pillows are still wrapped in their zip bags, and the blankets are all over in my aforementioned friend's attic). Yes, this is one room of the disaster zone. I don't have it in me to show others. With much cleverness, though, I was able to make a little pathway that you see there which happily has allowed me to get from one part of the zoo to another.
But...but this seems like it's heading to being a thing of the past. Here's hoping. Some of my clothes have now actually been put away. O huzzah! |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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