November 4 – Day 59: The Morning After the Night Before

Well, I’m unemployed.

To celebrate, I slept in a little (more than I expected; I closed my eyes “for ten minutes” after I turned the alarm off, and woke up a half-hour later), then went through the usual morning routine, knowing I needed to leave by 12:30 (when I told John I’d be going, so he could change the linens).

It was another lovely afternoon, though I bundled up a little more than I needed to because I knew it’d be chilly by the time I’d be coming home.

My plan was to see The Prom, a new musical that’s still in previews. I’d tried to order a ticket online, but couldn’t, and had thought about going straight to the box office, but when I saw that it was on the board at the TKTS booth, I knew I could go there and save about 80 bucks. I took the R to 47^th and 7^th, right across from the booth, and crossed the street, genuinely surprised to see that, not only was there no line, there were actually open windows with no one at them. I walked up, told the nice woman I wanted a single for The Prom, and got a very good seat in the orchestra. (As it turned out, the theatre is small enough that, even if I’d gotten stuck in the balcony, I still probably would have had a good view.)

I had an hour to kill before the show, so I went out by the red steps in the back of the booth (and saw a pigeon who was actually walking down the steps rather than flying or hopping; it was an odd sight) and called Pidge. The call was made more difficult by one of those groups of parasites who try to gin up the crowd by jumping over people and pulling acrobatic stunts. I thought of getting a cup of tea, but the Starbucks on 47^th and Broadway is generally a nightmare, and the Caffe Bene on 48^th that I used to go to has closed. I checked Yelp and found a place right across from the Longacre Theatre, so I sat, drank my tea, and read my email while getting a healthy load of sunlight in my eyes. As I sat, a little old lady next to me (who had been chatting with the baristas) offered me some of the mini biscotti the barista had given her. I had a couple and they were pretty good. Eventually, it was about 2:40, and the line had died down enough that I decided to cross the street. The line to the right was pretty long, but the one to the left was much shorter, though at one point, a matinee lady (you know the type if you’ve ever been to a matinee in New York) tried to cut the line because (just like all the rest of us) she “had tickets.” The security guy who was checking bags was having none of it, though, and all but threw her bodily to the end of the line, which delighted me.

 I'd been to the Longacre only once before, but it's really nice.

I went in, found my seat—which was next to a big guy who was not only manspreading like crazy, but was also wearing a hat (though he eventually took it off)—and waited for the show.

I like going into musicals about which I really have no advance notion, and I had moderate hopes for this one, since I like the leads (Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas, and Christopher Sieber), the director (Casey Nicholaw), the book writer (Bob Martin, who played Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone), and the composers (who wrote The Wedding Singer). The plot is, basically, a girl in a high school in Indiana wants to bring her girlfriend to the prom, the PTA objects, and a group of Broadway actors decide to meddle to get themselves some publicity for having done something good.

Unfortunately, the show isn’t what I hoped. While I did laugh a lot (mainly at the book), it’s a pretty generic musical. Most of the beats of the plot were predictable, the lyrics are good without being particularly clever, there’s no real unity to the sound of the songs, and it all feels a little self-congratulatory. This is not to say it’s not well-done; the performers are all very good and it moves nicely, but it lacked a real spark for me. There were two guys in back of me who nearly got into a violent argument at intermission; the younger one loved it, and the older one just wasn’t having it. Unfortunately, he kept making the same critiques (the media don’t work that way; he thought the set looked cheap; there were teens in it) over and over and over until I wanted to yell at him to just shut up. The audience went bananas at everything, though, and from the groups I saw in front and the quality of the sound, it seemed like there were a lot of high school kids in the house, and that may be the demo they’re trying to hit. They could do worse. I’d imagine it’ll be a moderate hit (and the performers are doing good work that deserves to be seen), but it could just as easily be a flop. I’ll be very interested to see the review when it opens in a couple of weeks.

Even though I should have expected it, I was kind of shocked when the show let out at 5:30 and it was dark out. I was headed down to the Village to go to the movies, but it felt like it was about 9:00. I walked over the Rockefeller Center to catch the D, passed by Fox News, still setting up for the election Tuesday, and went below. In the last few years, the MTA’s been putting in signage to indicate when the next trains are coming, but those signs don’t always have a connection to reality. In my case, in the space of about seven minutes, it showed the next D trains were due in 5 and 13 minutes, then 3 and 11 minutes, then 3 and 7, then 1 and 18, then 1 and 6, 1 and 5, 1 and 16, 1 and 5, and 1 and 16 when my train finally came. And god forbid you’re trying to get to or from Brooklyn on the weekends.

I was headed to the IFC Theatre to see Orson Welles’s last film, The Other Side of the Wind. Welles started filming it in 1970, finished filming in 1977, and left it unfinished when he died in 1985. He spent most of the last years of his life either trying to raise money to make it, get distribution for it, or film it at all. When he died, he left an unfinished cut and 100 hours of film and massive legal issues over who owned it. Finally, a couple of years ago, the legal issues were mostly cleared up and a Kickstarter was created to finish it. I contributed, and eventually Netflix took it on, paid to get it finished according to the notes Welles left, and is now distributing it in theatres and online. 

 The trailer. Yes, that's John Huston.

It’s a strange film. It’s definitely by Welles, but it’s also definitely a film that responds to what was going on cinematically in the early 70s in a way that’s still current. It’s not easy to watch, though, since it’s non-linear and all over the place, but well worth seeing, I thought; I mean, c’mon, it’s a new Orson Welles movie.

After the movie, it was time for supper, so I headed back to the East Village Tavern. I’d been worried it might be too crowded on the weekend, but thought that Sunday night might be perfect—and it was, except for the two couples playing beer pong in a back corner and shouting at each other about the rules.

The bartender was extremely friendly, in a way that surpassed the “I’m only being this way for the tips” threshold and went into someone who genuinely seemed to be enjoying her job.

I was torn between the burger, the chili, and the nachos, but figured I could get real nachos when I get back home (New York is infamous for its inaccessibility to good Mexican food) and I really wanted a burger, so I ordered one of those and a sidecar (which is a cocktail I haven’t had for a while, but which I generally enjoyed). I don’t know if it was because I was so hungry, but I really enjoyed all of it, so I left happy. I would have left happier it they’d had dessert, but you can’t have everything. (I stopped at Sunny and Annie’s on the way home to get an ice cream sandwich.)

 

The real sidecar wasn't this blurry. (Nor was I.) 

 Archetypal burger and fries.

Came home, was surprised that John had actually left the lights on (he usually doesn’t after he cleans) and had left the comforter on the bed wrong-side up (I’ll be changing it soon), called Pidge, wrote some blog posts, and will be turning in soon. My plans may include going to the movies in the afternoon, but I might just bail on that.