This week, the Naked Lunch podcast goes all food, but is very interesting, infectious and entertaining. The guest is Chef Daniele Uditi -- the acclaimed chef of Pizzana in Los Angeles, with three locations (though they ship nationwide and recently opened a place in Dallas) and pizza judge on Hulu's "Best In Dough" series. The conversation was recorded in the kitchen area of Pizza in Beverly Hills, and as part of this year's Los Angeles Times Food Bowl, the public was invited to feast along with the hosts. As the site writes, “This event benefitted one of Phil's favorite charities, Project Angel Food food bank, while the delicious food prepared by Daniele and his extraordinary staff benefitted anyone who got to eat that night. Daniele tells his inspiring and sometimes hilarious success story coming to America, while Phil, David and Daniele answer some questions that the guests at Pizzana jotted down in between courses.”
I can’t embed the audio, but if you click on the link here, it will take you to the website, where you just click on the “Play” arrow underneath the photo.
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Perhaps that should be "yet another" new Rainbow -- because Randy Rainbow has a second new video this week. (This supports my sense that the first one -- different from his others, but still a treat -- was, at heart, to help promote his upcoming tour.) His new video today is back to the norm. The only notable difference is that it's not based on a Broadway song, but rather...well, you'll recognize it. (The screenshot below should give you a big hint as to its provenance.) And it's a joy. On Saturday and Sunday, two of the biggest historic rivals in baseball -- the Chicago Cubs and hateful St. Louis Cardinals -- will be playing against each other in...London. This video is a fun, wide-eyed look at the event from the perspective of a Londoner. Musician-author-BBC sports commentator Felix White visited Wrigley Field to find out more about baseball, going behind the scenes at the ballpark, into the broadcast booth, on the field, to a neighborhood bar, and he even got a couple of players to play cricket. Although his report is mostly done from the perspective of Chicago...well, okay, never mind, that's okay. I was sorry to see that lyricist Sheldon Harnick passed away today at the age of 99, but what a life. Though he’s best known for writing the lyrics of the Tony Award-winning musical Fiddler on the Roof with his longtime collaborator Jerry Bock, he also won a Pulitzer Prize for another Tony Award Best Musical, Fiorello! As well as such shows as the often-revived She Loves Me, and The Apple Tree, The Rothschilds, Tenderloin, and more. But he also wrote lyrics with Richard Rodgers for the musical Rex, the libretto for several operas, including Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines and Love in Two Countries. And musical adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with Michel Legrand, and It’s a Wonderful Life with Joe Raposo (who wrote many songs for Sesame Street, such as "Bein' Green" and "Sing.") And his own musical, for which he wrote the music, as well, Dragons. There's a wonderful, detailed remembrance of Harnick in the New York Times, which you can read here. As readers of these pages know, I crossed paths with Sheldon Harnick a bit – a few times in person, though mostly as an email buddy. Happily, I had the presence of mind to save all those emails, in which he told many fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, most memorably about how a movie version of She Loves Me almost came to be that would have reteamed Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews, but got scuttled at the last minute. Every time my paths crossed with him, he was always a joy. A gentleman, unpretentious, thoughtful, open, insightful and honest. The first time was when I was at Northwestern University, and he returned to campus as Grand Marshal for Homecoming. I had a radio show on the school station, WNUR, so I got to do an interview with him, along with a reporter from the school paper, and I edited my material down toa a radio documentary. When I came to Los Angeles for grad school, I brought the tape of the documentary with me, figuring that maybe I’d come across someone in Hollywood who knew Harnick, and would help me get a copy of it to him. It took about 20 years, but eventually after bringing up my quest one day to my friend Treva Silverman, she said, “Ahhh, dear Sheldon…” And I finally reached my goal. Excited, I mentioned to my mother that I at last had found someone who knew Sheldon Harnick. “Oh,” she said, “you mean Aunt Joan?” Say what??!! It turned out that my Aunt Joan grew up with Harnick in Chicago, were very close, and even went to Northwestern together. In fact, a famous family story (which I had never before heard) was that when he had made his decision to move to New York to try and have a life there, my aunt later went home and explained his plans to her mother, and my aunt's mother -- as most mothers, especially then, concerned about the very risky world of show business -- wondered to her, "How will he ever earn a living??" I wrote to him, sent along the radio documentary after all those years, finally, and also mentioned who my aunt was, When he handwrote a letter back, the very first line was, "Joan Sered! Oh, my God!" (That was her maiden name.) We didn't stay in communication, but years later, thanks to a Huffington Post article I wrote about Fiorello! (“The Greatest Musical You’ve Never Heard Of”), we did get back in touch and became email buddies of a sort. And a few years later after that, met up back in Glencoe where I grew up and where the wonderful 100-seat Writers Theatre was putting on a production of his show She Loves Me. (Side note: it starred Jessie Mueller, who went on to win the Tony Award, playing Carole King in the musical Beautiful a few years ago, and recently, the musical Waitress.) And I coordinated schedules so that my Aunt Joan could come to the same performance, where she and Sheldon had a chance to meet up again and have a joy visit for the first time in several decades. We exchanged email opinions after the show and agreed that the first act was ragged, but that the second act was absolutely wonderful. And the explanation I suggested, and he thought likely, was that in the first act, with him sitting in the fourth row of the tiny theater, the cast was terrified – but by the second act, everyone settled down and put on the performance they were capable of. Another fond memory is that when Harnick was working on his own musical, Dragons, he premiered it at the Music School of his alma mater, Northwestern. And my mother drove to see it. Knowing how much I admired his work, she got him to autograph the program to me. This was even before I'd tracked down his address and sent him the radio documentary. I still have the program. Harnick actually began as a musician, playing the violin. Eventually though he shifted to writing lyrics. And he always gave credit to the actress Charlotte Rae for getting him to go to New York and try the theater. Both were students at Northwestern at the time – in fact, Charlotte Rae and my Aunt Joan were in the same sorority. And one day, Rae gave Harnick the cast album of a new Broadway musical, Finian’s Rainbow. Harnick has said how it enthralled him, that you could be entertaining and still write something meaningful. Later, the lyricist of that show, E.Y. (Yip) Harburg – who wrote the songs to The Wizard of Oz – became Harnick’s mentor. And Charlotte Rae later starred on Broadway in the musical of Li’l Abner as ‘Mammy Yokum’ and later came to fame as the housemother ‘Mrs. Garrett,’ on the TV series, Facts of Life. Harnick also told a great story as a young man new to New York about being invited to attend a backers' audition for a new, hopeful musical, the first backers' audition he had ever seen. He said that the score was so brilliant, it almost sent him back home to Chicago. "If the unknown songwriters are this good," he said that he was thinking at the time, "then what chance do I have?" He reluctantly met that other young songwriter. It was Stephen Sondheim. He soon learned that, no, all unknown songwriters were not that good. The two became lifelong friends. Here's a wonderful, hour-long interview with Sheldon Harnick at the Kennedy Center seven years ago when he was 90, and you'll see he's vibrant and entertaining. Know too that this isn't just an interview, but includes several of his songs from wonderful performers. In fact, when Harnick was 94, he showed up at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene in New York to help promote an all-Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof -- directed by Joel Grey -- and sang absolutely wonderfully one of his classics, "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler on the Roof with Judy Blazer. He was always one of the best interpreters of his own songs. Harnick and I kept writing periodically, up until a few years ago. I’d check in on this birthday and send good wishes, but the last few years I stopped hearing back, which suggested to me that he wasn’t as vibrant as he’d been for so long. But what an impressive life and legacy to have left behind.
Back when I met Sheldon Harnick for the first time and then did my college radio documentary from the interview we'd done, he talked about one of his favorite of his lesser-known songs, "In My Own Lifetime," from The Rothschilds, which starred Hal Linden who won the Tony Award as Best Actor. For the lyric, Harnick writes poetically and richly with the simplicity of almost everyday language, which is his hallmark. I ended the documentary with this song, and I immediately preceded it with a clip from my interview with Sheldon talking about all his work. It was a passage that ended with him discussing how he'd like people to listen to his songs and then say -- "Yeah. Yeah, that's true." I think the best way to end things is not only with that same song -- but this time, with Sheldon Harnick's own interpretation of it. The song ends at the 2:27 mark, the applause lasts for 50 seconds. It will all last much longer. In large part because people will listen to his songs and then say -- "Yeah. Yeah, that's true." The Associated Press did an analysis of government data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the current status of COVID-19, in relation to people who are fully vaccinated and those who refused to get shots. And while the results aren’t surprising, they’re notable.
And that begins with the report showing that COVID deaths in the United States are about 300 a day as of March (it’s down to about 100 per day now, though should go up again next winter). But critically important, it added that almost all of these COVID-19 deaths today in the U.S. are for people who weren’t vaccinated. But, y’know, that whole “personal choice” thing and all. So, life goes on. As does COVID Also, while the data from May shows there have been 853,000 hospitalizations for COVID-19, less than 1,200 of those come from “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted. Which, for those of you without an abacus is 0.1%. In addition, there were more than 18,000 deaths COVID-19 in May, but by comparison, only 150 of those were for people who were fully vaccinated. And that’s 0.8%, which by most mathematical standards is really small. Which means that a lot of people who had the option to make a “personal choice,” did a very tragically bad job choosing. In fairness, the CDC says that some states are more aggressive than others when tracking breakthrough infections, and not every state even does so – five or so don’t. So the data likely understates breakthrough infections. But the trend is clear and emphatic. For instance, Andy Slavitt, who was the Biden Administration adviser on Covid-19, estimated a few weeks ago that 98% to 99% of Americans who are currently dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated. But then, that’s their personal choice, of course. Further, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky reiterated that very same point this week when discussing the effectiveness of the vaccine, saying that "nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.” And as such, she said that deaths from COVID today are “particularly tragic.” And tragically, that was their personal choice. Unfortunately, it was not the personal choice of the vast majority of Americans who got vaccinated to continue living with an active COVID-19 virus that continues to mutate among so many unvaccinated. Randy Rainbow has a new song -- and it's a bit different. This time, it's about...him. That said, in promoting his campaign for president, it overflows with slams at Republican after Republican. I have the sense that the song, in large part, is a way to help promote his upcoming tour, but the song comes through nonetheless on its own. And while it's not necessarily among my favorite of his parodies, the song builds and builds...and builds in its dynamics and ends up a lot of impressive fun. |
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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