MJK in NYC!
"Maybe I'm a horrible elitist, but when I pass [really hot gay guys with discmans] I think "How quaint of them to be using discmans." They may be gorgeous, they may be rich, they may be cultured, they may have just gotten gang-banged by 20 guys in the back room of Roxy last night, but I have an ipod" - Jon Collins.Exactly the reason I'll probably buy an Ipod next month instead of groceries.
Should the MTA wire the subway for cell phone reception? I don't know why they'd bother, since you can't hear anything down there over the squeal of the subway cars (right now, the majority have voted NO).
"It's official: for the very first time in my life, I just used a straw to sip soda from a bottle. Previously, whenever I was given a straw, I'd discard it. Today, the bottle I purchased smelled so rancid and disgusting (while the contents tasted perfectly fine), I decided to take the plunge. Midwesterners drink their pop right out of a dirty can. New Yorkers sip with a straw. After 2 years, I've become a convert" - Aaron / 601am.com.I made fun of Mike the first time I saw him drink a coke with a straw, but he quickly impressed upon me the importance of doing so. Which I will do, as soon as I get over the cost of buying a can of coke in this city.
Forget going to the Statue of Liberty or a show on Broadway... tonight I went to the hip little Zipper Theatre and caught David Yazbek. I don't think I've ever been in a room with so many Jews before. Yazbek's between-song-patter and was hysterical and he played most of my favorite songs (albeit in some bizarre arrangements). After Patrick Wilson (who I ran into in the restroom afterwords) sang a bland song from the upcoming musical version of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, Yazbek joked that the rest of the score consisted simply of "You con me, I con you..." Honestly I wasn't terribly impressed with the other new material, but he played a fantastic throw-away number ("Stupid Song") as the rest of his band tried to sort out a malfunctioning amp. And I don't want to sound like a starfucker, but I'm pretty sure Jason Robert Brown was there seated across from me.
A cool site dedicated to one of my favorite records growing up (the other was my copy of the Partridge Family Album).
Since it doesn't look like I'll be able to host my website on my own server anymore (New School won't let me through the campus firewall), I'm looking for a web host. I can't believe how many different feature sets and pricing structures there are out there. Mike recommended Myacen, which looks great except that they don't have telnet/shell access (I'm too much of unix junkie to be happy without it). Basically, I'm looking for Perl, PHP, MySQL, telnet/shell access, cron jobs, and support for 2 or more separate domains.
My friend Melissa is in town visiting NYC and we meet up last night night for dinner and saw AIDA. I've been wanting to see it ever since hearing the original Elton John demo recording and seeing photos of the striking sets. Toni Braxton just joined the cast in the lead role, but suffice to say she is no Heather Headley. Apparently diction and enunciation are no longer requirements for starring in a Broadway show. Her performance was pretty wooden, but I think that was a directorial choice. I'd much prefer to see someone like Vanessa Williams in the role.
It's been two weeks since I moved to NYC and so far my fabulous New York life has been a dud. I thought I'd be living the high life, experiencing art and culture; but most of the time has been spent shopping for innocuous items like laundry detergent and socks. My new futon was finally delivered today (after the delivery men unloaded the first one at the wrong apartment building and then accidentally dropped it down an elevator shaft yesterday -- don't ask). I've given up on the idea of having a hip, suave NYC bachelor pad -- I'm too much of a cheapskate and at this point I'll be happy just finding certain items for purchase, let alone attractive ones. Currently, I'm looking for an inexpensive, basic black TV cart on casters so I can wheel my TV/TiVo back and forth between my living room and bedroom. As far as my job is concerned... it's too early to tell. Managing this apartment building is going to be a significantly different experience than what I've done in the past -- and I'll probably be better for it even if it may not have been quite what I was looking for. What's not really surprising is how alone I feel. Like Sondheim wrote, NYC can be a city of strangers. There's an unbelievable number of hot, impossibly cool guys of every stripe around, but I haven't got the first clue how to go about meeting them. I've really enjoyed hanging out with Mike, but it would be nice to have a few friends in my neighborhood (unfortunately, it doesn't seem like a whole lot of people live in the Wall St area). All in all, I'm not sorry that I moved here. The alternative would have found me just as sad and alone in northern Wisconsin right now. At least here, I can get Thai food next door. UPDATE: Okay, so maybe my life isn't so dull after all. I'm wildly excited about seeing David Yazbek on Wednesday night at The Zipper. Word is he's debuting songs from his upcoming album and his new musicial version of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS.
Just when I started to think that living in NY and riding the subway was pretty safe, I read about this. I haven't been paying attention at all to emergency escape routes during the past 2 weeks.
