Cross Town Thoughts
Peter Dinklage as Cyrano de Bergerac.
In a league of his own. Stage actor par excellence. Evocative mesmerizing powerful performance. True to Edmond Rostand’s French oeuvre. Black box intimate venue in Union Square. Un cadeau de la saison.
Game of Thrones Tyrion Lannister’s passion and pathos came through up close. It’s all in his eyes.
Mike Bloomberg billionaire. A man of the people? Actually. Yes. He could be seen riding subways, grabbing breakfast at a diner on the Upper East Side, walking around town. Talking to regular folks.
One night we were having dinner at Lure Fishbar in SoHo. Mayor Mike and Senator Chuck Schumer with their partners were in the next booth. We tried not to stare and went on with our orders. After they were finished, they walked by our table. Bro Joe said, “Hey Mike why don’t you run? He said, “For what?” Bro said, “For President.”
The two women kept on going. But. Mike & Chuck stopped to chat. Mike said he wasn’t thinking about that then. In 2010. He wanted to know where our son was going to college and such. They stayed for quite a long time. Nice and curious men.
Post Stuffington. Turkey. Family. Balloons. All fun and happy after the Thanksgiving respite. And. Speaking of Post.
The New York Post has two front page stories about how the ugly scaffolding epidemic has blighted The City. The Scourge of Scaffolding. And. Why Scaffolding Stays Up So Long.
I did send them my blogs about it and the recent West Side Rag story. So. Maybe they got the idea from me?
Finished The Crown Season 3. Learned so much about the history of that time. The plight of coal mines, global crises which escaped our near-sighted American-centric focus. As is still true today. We are obsessed with impeachment while Iraq, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Hong Kong, NATO … For real news have to watch BBC.
Most importantly. Niners lost to Ravens. Maybe a re-match at SB?
With a lopsided partisan impeach pit on the horizon in 2019. Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted that she knew there were no weapons of mass destruction when she was on the Intelligence Committee in 2002. Yet she didn’t push for the impeachment of W. and his Neo-Cons.
So. Going to war under false pretenses when our troops were maimed or killed every week vs. Water-Gate. Monica-Gate. Ukraine-Gate. No contest. The latter three pale by any standard.
It’s that time again. Best Books lists are out. None seem particularly compelling. My own is short. Not a stellar crop this year.
Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield
Snakes by Sadie Jones
The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
Save Me The Plums by Ruth Reichl
New novels by Richard Russo, Elinor Lipman & Ann Patchett were surprisingly lackluster. Full reviews on Book-Treks.com
Fifth Democrat Debate.
Mayor Pete got his test. Tulsi took him on. He rallied. But. Did not close the deal. So. Against Trump? Joe waffled but didn’t pass out in a puddle. Tom Steyer got too much time. Kamala fakes accent. Amy shaky but funny. Elizabeth too dependent on Fed Gov’t to solve the country’s ills. Yang refreshing. Booker black-ish. Bernie consistent.
Bottom line. Nobody elicited excitement. Pretty boring.
Moulin Rouge. The Musical.
Cheeky Whimsical Parody of the Original. Serial Show-Stoppers. Modern Pop Playlist. Dancing. Singing. Dying. Confetti. Aerial stunts. Fun!
La Traviata and La Bohème all rolled into one.
Kitschy. Kitschy. Ya. Ya. Ga. Ga.
Front row mezzanine. Loved the lavish sets and costumes. Paris. Montmarte. Giant Elephant. Le Moulin Rouge- The Red Windmill.
Every Broadway Cliché you could ask for. Just what we needed after a day of impeachment fatigue. Ten minutes from home. Allons-nous-en!
Dems are complaining about everybody. Nobody measures up.
Buttigieg doesn’t appeal to people of color.
Warren’s policies are too far left.
Bernie is a self-proclaimed Socialist.
Biden is against legalizing marijuana.
Kamala’s campaign is in shambles.
Bloomberg is phony on stop & frisk.
Deval is a Wall Street darling.
Cory is for charter schools.
Amy is just boring.
Yet they want you to vote. Not for any of these people. Just against Trump. Good luck with that.
Ray Donovan is back. Mick takes Bunchy’s place in the slammer. For how long? Cartoon-ish. But. Still fun. Aunt Sandy is worth the watch. Meanwhile. Nancy is baiting Donny to testify before Schiffty’s Committee. Now. That could nix everything. And. What a show.
West Side Rag did a great article illustrating what restaurants & storefronts look like before and after the epidemic scourge of scaffolding. The two examples have been dealing with this blight for over six years. Killing small businesses all over the City. Hoping it will elicit local government action. We need Ray to fix this contractors’ cabal.
We get one day off from Democrat-Run TV today. Yay. All networks gavel-to-gavel impeachment droning yesterday. Complaints all over the net. More tomorrow. Cable News isn’t enough?
Anyway. No worries. Deval Patrick has joined Mayor Mike now in the ever-growing Democrat scrum. Can Hillary be far behind? While Schiff & Co. grind along. It’s all nuts.
So. 4-hour binged Back to Life on Showtime. It’s not Fleabag. Daisy Haggard isn’t Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But. She’s good. As is the cast. It is absurdist earthy and in the end sweet.
Side Trek . NYC 