ABlog the Author

Do me a favor….

If you’re not busy tomorrow (Monday) between 11-5, send some healing thoughts this way. They’ll know where to go from there.

Well what do you know? I found another lost treasure (fair video, great audio) from The Truants show last September at the Red Lion - “Cry For a Shadow….”

Action shot from high above 56th between Park and Lex….

     I probably don’t do this enough. No, I definitely don’t do this enough. Every once in a while, I remember I have a terrace and I am allowed to grab the pad and do a session on my latest book out there. I always get a bigger yield, word-wise, and when I load it into the computer later on, I get an automatic rewrite and polish.     

    Adrianne took this shot today, around 1:30. She says I always have a little smile on my face when I’m writing, a smile she says she never sees any other time.

    I wrote my entire first novel, WHO LISTENS?, in longhand because I wanted the process to be as deliberate and organic as possible. And I wrote 90 percent of it outdoors. Seeing this photo reminds me how critical that decision was. Back then, we lived on 39th and 1st and had a tiny 6x3 balcony which overlooked an alley. I would sit out there every weekend, all year round, construction on the high-rise next door chattering in the updraft, and I never heard any of it.

    We moved here in March, 1997. Still the only good financial decision of my life. They were putting up the Bloomberg tower on 58th and Lex in a hurry and many of our friends said it would ruin our view. “What are you talking about?” I said. “This is Manhattan. Big buildings. That IS the view.” Am I wrong? If you look at this shot, can it be any other place?

    The space was 25x5, and I now spent my weekends out here. By the first week of September, 1997, just shy of two years since I had begun, I had filled five National Brand college-ruled spiral notebooks. It took me two months to load it all into my first laptop, and the havoc natural light plays on a computer screen forced me inside, where I’ve pretty much remained ever since. Through the four-plus novels that have followed, including the first 60 pages of this current project, tentatively titled THROUGH THE RINGER.

     So yeah, I definitely don’t do this enough.

Time for another installment of “I Wish This Was Me….”

Our friend Sammy’s son Ethan getting a wake-up call.

Please don’t get the idea that I’m a “two on the aisle” guy…..

….but I happened to find myself in a Broadway theater for the second straight week when the boss and I went to see Tom Hanks in “Lucky Man” at the Broadhurst Theater (I just had to look up the place on the web because I forgot where we were) Tuesday night.

I go to the theater about one and a half times a year. I see just about everything Nathan Lane is in because he’s a friend and how bad is it going to be if you get to see him behave for two hours? I see everything Grant Shaud is in for the same reason. And we go to everything Julie Halston is in for the same reason, but in heels. Julie Halston is the funniest gal you don’t know other than Adrianne, who you should know by now. She’s a modern day Eve Arden. She and Adrianne are big pals, wonderfully supportive of each other. 

Here’s how supportive they are of each other. Adrianne hates going to the theater. HATES it with a hot hate. She hates how difficult it is to get in and out of Times Square, she hates the stampede to the ladies room. But mostly, she hates how pretentious an art form it can be. Especially musicals. Lenny Bruce used to do a bit about it. “You know, Bob, I’ve never been in love before.” / “Really?” / “Yes (sings) I’ve neeeeee-ver been in lovvvvvvvvvve before….” 

Okay, so last year, Julie Halston gets hired in the big Broadway smash musical “Anything Goes.” And we gotta go see her. Have to. So, we get there, and I got us way in the back, on the aisle, nice. Adrianne motions the usher over, a very very enthusiastic kid wearing a sailor hat like all the other ushers, except I have a feeling he already owned this one.

“How long is the play?” Adrianne asks.

“Two hours and forty minutes!” he squeals.

“Fuck!” she says.

So, you get the idea. I pretty much feel the same way, though I don’t state it as well as she does. I was sitting in the Broadhurst trying to remember the last play I’d seen that didn’t have Grant, Julie or Nathan in it. I saw something with Ed Harris six years ago, “Wrecks,” because my sister had an extra ticket. But that was downtown. Doesn’t really count. Oh, wait. I saw an awful musical two years ago because a good friend of Uncle Herb’s daughter had written it. Brutal.

This was a good experience. I was very interested in the story, because it’s all about the newspaper business in New York in the 80s and 90s, which, if a couple of things had happened the way I thought they were going to happen, was where I was planning on ending up. And about the tabloid columnist Mike McAlary in particular. McAlary came over from sports (where I was familiar with him), became a police reporter, broke the Abner Louima story in 1998, won the Pulitzer Prize, then had the bad taste to die of cancer at 41. Nora Ephron wrote the play, got Tom Hanks for the lead, then she had the bad taste to die of cancer. So, there’s a lot of things to get me over there.

I liked it. And if you’re in New York before July 3 and want to get lit up by a ticket broker, I recommend it, There was so much to keep your attention. A lot of people on stage at once and a nice rhythm. And you cannot beat the real story. Or the compelling context in which it unfolds. That said, I’m not sure it’s a play, but it is something. A presentation, Dave called it. Which is something you shouldn’t say to the theater people. But that’s what it was.

You’re dying to know about Tom Hanks, aren’t you? Let me just say that Tom Hanks will probably win the Tony for Best Actor, so what do I know? Let me be as diplomatic as possible. He was much much better in the second act, but that might have been how long it took me to look up at the stage and not see Tom Hanks standing with a bunch of veteran Broadway actors. So, it might be me.

Let me instead criticize Nora Ephron because she ain’t here. How do you, a celebrated writer, writer a two-hour play about another celebrated writer and quote maybe, maybe four of his lines, none of them memorable? My buddy, Brian McDonald, wrote a play about the legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin (McAlary’s hero and biggest influence) starring Michael Rispoli that I saw at a backer’s preview last year that was wall-to-wall chunks of original prose. Phenomenal. That still hasn’t made it to Broadway. But on the bright side, I just remembered the last play I saw with Nathan, Grant or Julie.

If you went to a New England prep school in the 60s or 70s….

….or if you need more justification for your disdain for George W. Bush, or even you’re neither of these and just want to see a compelling documentary, I cannot recommend “Regular Guys” highly enough. Directed by Kevin Rafferty, who brought us “Harvard Beats Yale” (which I have now seen about 30 times), this is as honest a piece of film as I have seen. Of course, I related to much too much. It consists of interviews with the Phillips Academy Class of 1965, who graduated a year after our 45th President and two years before my brother Tom.

Unlike the relentlessly feel-good “Harvard Beats Yale,” this is clearly not for everybody, which is why you can only get “Regular Guys” by sending $20 to the man himself.

Kevin Rafferty Productions /51 McDougal Street / #204 / New York, NY  10012

I’m not normally in sales, but man, does this guy know what he’s doing.

Post-show report: “The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream….”

     Paul Shaffer was kind enough to let me tag along with him, Will Lee and Will Lee’s voice coach Wednesday night to the Richard Rodgers Theater to see “Once Upon a Dream,” the live show in which Steve Van Zandt successfully reunites the Rascals after 40 years.

     I don’t know if the Rascals are my favorite band of all time, but they are on the podium with the Beatles and Tower of Power. When the curtain came up and there they were, everyone of the audience was of a like mind. They never thought they’d see this again in anyone’s lifetime. The breakup was so acrimonious (and still, despite the show’s attempts, still not explained to anyone’s satisfaction), that the music world chose to treat these four musicians for the comet they were, “the blackest white band ever.”

    Two hours, no intermission, 30 songs. As Paul said to Felix Cavalieri after the show, “You decimated the catalogue.” Many songs I hadn’t heard in 40 years. Four I would have liked to hear (Mustang Sally, Midnight Hour, More, Land of 1000 Dances), but they were all covers. So, I get it. And I would have liked to see a full performance video rear projected at some point, but I get that as well. Why compare if you don’t have to?

     Here endeth my crticism of the show.

     They sounded great, really great. Felix sings in the same key, Eddie Brigati is pretty damn close (especially when he stopped the show with “How Can I Be Sure?”), Gene Cornish still makes more music than one guitar should be entitled to.

      And Dino Danelli, my favorite drummer of all time? Absolutely mesmerizing. Normally, I loathe plastic drum kits, but the fact he was playing a clear one enabled everyone to see his kick drum. So, in addition to the show, some of us got a two-hour right foot clinic.

      They played my favorite song “What is the Reason?” third and Dino was a little more restrained than I would have liked. When I spoke to him after the show, I said, “I don’t want to tell you your business, but could you air it out a little more on ‘What is the Reason?’”

      “We’re working on it,” he said.

      Yeah, you heard me. I talked to Dino Danelli.

      You have to understand, when you go to something like this with Paul and Will, you’re traveling with royalty. Will and I bought t-shirts at the concession stand and we went backstage before the meet-and-greet out front. I introduced myself and said, “Dino, I need you to sign this for my brother. You are our hero, but he needs the shirt.” So, he very painstakingly write, “TOM — TO THE FUTURE. DINO DANELLI.” Then, he says, “let’s get the other guys to sign.” I say, “No. Just you. I Iove this band, but my brother is the reason I became a drummer, and you’re the reason he became a drummer.”

     Dino is very sweet, a little shy, almost broken. We talked briefly. I did the “right foot clinic” line on him and asked if he liked his new style cymbals. He said they were fun. I think he is aware of who he is.

     Felix, for all his lead singer kavorka, is stunningly  accessible.  You hear their sound and forget they are mostly Italians from Jersey. Then you talk to them and the neighborhood thing comes through. When I told Felix I worked at the show and my brother had seen them four times in college at the University of North Carolina, he said, “We’re going to Durham. Have Paul give you my number and we’ll get him in.” Come on up!

(live at Patchogue High School, circa 1968)

      I asked Felix when everyone was back together for the first time, did they just pick right up, or was it awkward. “Well, this whole thing was Steve’s vision, so as long as he was in the room with us, it was fine. But a couple of times, he left the room, and it got a little tense….” He smiled and shook his head. No, they may never resolve everything that happened or why it happened. But they’re up there now, 15 shows on Broadway, 80 dates upcoming, Felix, Eddie, Gene and Dino in plain sight to themselves and us, and the fun factor cannot be measured. So really, who gives a shit? 

New post about seeing the Rascals on Broadway coming soon. In the meantime, I’ve been hard at work….

Always remember that your wife’s phone has a camera….

And yet more recently discovered grainy video (but great audio) of The Truants last September. Here is the sepia-toned “The Night Before….”