A Christmas Stroll in Manhattan

In 1983 I tried to kill myself. It was neither the first nor the last time and I am happy that, eventually, I stopped this kind of self destructive behaviour and learned to live, to fight, to love this earth and the gifts I am given. On that occasion, though, in 1983, I found myself in the hospital at Christmastime. Some friends brought me a tiny Christmas tree for my hospital room and, some days, I was allowed to leave for a few hours – even overnight—to enjoy the holiday with my family. Just before Christmas I was released and sent home (though placed in the care of a psychiatrist for the next few months). It was that year, that Christmas, that I found myself alone at midnight on Christmas Eve. Lost, confused and wondering what to do with this misery that was my life, I turned on the stereo and listened to my favourite Christmas Carol, O Holy Night (I think I’m right – it is a Christmas CAROL; my favourite Christmas SONG is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas). I played that song and, by the light of the enormous Mosher Christmas tree, I lit a candle and knelt to pray. I prayed to God for guidance, for strength, for a little help and for some happiness.

In the years to come, I have been given these things. My relationship with God has changed, dramatically, since that first Christmas Eve when I got down on my knees. It is stronger, though less conventional; I no longer pray on Christmas Eve because every moment of every day, I am in prayer – my life is a conversation with God (to steal a wonderful turn of phrase from a wonderful and famous book). If I think it, if I feel it, my God, my OB1, hears and responds. I was not given an easy life, in response to the prayer in 1983 but I was given a life better than some, a life with enough happiness and enough pain to make sure that I know what this life is really about. I don’t know, absolutely, which is a good thing because that means I will always have more to learn.

In spite of the fact that my life, my personality, my relationship with God and my form of prayer have all changed, I still spend a little time alone in the dark on Christmas. It is, usually, no longer on Christmas Eve but on Christmas morn. My habit of rising at four thirty each day allows me the luxury of solitude for a few hours on Christmas Day. Today I rose at five am (for Christmas I gave myself an extra half hour of sleep). I did some housework, some last minute Santa Clausing, some email answering and I had a couple of Christmas cookies for breakfast (this is an important part of the holiday, one that even this health and fitness fanatic insists upon: the Christmas cookie breakfast). At six am, I put on my pea coat (one of my favourite Christmas presents past) and went out into the streets of New York. I wandered midtown Manhattan, empty and barren, listening to a very particular playlist of Christmas music. For the record:

Nancy LaMott I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Judy Garland Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Harry Connick Jr. Christmas Dreaming
Movie Soundtrack SCROOGE A Christmas Carol
Nancy LaMott A Child Is Born
OBC MAME We Need a Little Christmas
The Carpenters Merry Christmas Darling
Amy Grant Christmas Can’t Be Very Far Away
Christine Ebersole Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Michael Buble I’ll Be Home For Christmas
The Carpenters Little Altar Boy
Megan Mullally Silent Night
Anne Murray No Room at the Inn
Robert Downey Jr River
Ann Hampton Callaway/Liz Callaway God Bless My Family
Marie Osmond O Holy Night
Vanessa Williams Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Reba McEntire The Christmas Guest
KT Sullivan Merry Christmas to Me/Hard Candy Christmas
Ann Hampton Callaway A Christmas Love Song

As I walked the streets, empty of most people, I looked into the sky, I gazed around at my city, I looked, really LOOKED at the people I passed. I communed with OB1 and asked myself and my God that question I have been asking for the last fifteen years – what is Christmas all about? I didn’t have this problem when I was younger. As a child, a teenager, as a young man I was able to throw myself into the holiday season like all those crazed Martha Stewart wannabes. When I moved to New York, though, I began to really ponder the season. I went round and round, weighing the religious aspects of the December holidays, the commercial drawbacks, the merriment of the season, the familial communing.. I left no stone unturned in my quest to answer Charlie Brown’s age old question: what is Christmas all about?

I never really found any concrete answers.

I’ve asked people to their faces what the holiday season is about. I have so many friends who are not Christians and who don’t celebrate Christmas. There are all the other holidays of this month, all shoehorned together so that nobody in the world feels left out during this month, a month that is ALL about one day – a day meant to celebrate the birth of a saviour who may or not be each person’s personal saviour; a man who was not even born on the day chosen for the celebration. There are, now, so many different greetings that people are confused about what to say. Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. Happy Kwanza. Happy Winter’s Solstice. Are there any others? I was told by someone that the people in their office wore buttons that said “You can say Merry Christmas to me”. Frankly, I am so stymied by the season and its’ meaning that I have made the conscious choice to only say Merry Christmas when it feels absolutely right. Instead I have wished everyone the wish I wish them every day. I hold up two fingers and I say, quite earnestly,

“Peace.”

I asked Pat the other day “What is Christmas to you?”

He replied, “Being Kind.”

He wanted to know what it was to me and my answer came out before he finished asking.

“There should always be an open door on Christmas Eve.”

That is a line from a little known movie from the 80s. It was called CHRISTMAS EVE and it starred the inimitable Loretta Young. In the film she said to her butler “Leave the door open, Maitland. There should always be an open door on Christmas Eve!”

Of all the philosophies, all the lessons, all the lines from movies, all the quotes from books, for some reason, that odd little line from a forgotten little movie has never, ever, left my consciousness. There should always be an open door on Christmas Eve. Amen to that.

I love that Pat said what he said about being kind. Years ago, somebody asked me what it was that made me fall in love with Pat and I said “he’s kind.” Kindness is a heady thing; perhaps not to everyone but it is to me. People fall in love for all different kinds of reasons. My Pat is handsome, smart, funny, talented and some things that I won’t mention here, because discretion is a blessing. He is so kind, though, that I would defy anyone to not be drawn to him for that kindness. The thing is, he is kind all the time. So for him to say Christmas is about being kind seems kind of redundant. Yet, it is interesting to consider the famous lines from A Christmas Carol: Scrooge says he will honour Christmas in his heart all the year round. If we are meant to keep the true spirit of Christmas all year round, then Pat is doing it – he is kind all year.

There is, of course, the matter of children, Santa, all the decorations and parties that come with the holiday season. That is lovely, isn’t it? The season being about love is a beautiful thing, the season being about loved ones is a beautiful thing. Of course, not everyone has loved ones. There are people out there who are, actually, alone; people out there having trouble making their miracle happen.

So what is Christmas? It’s the night when we are the person we wish we were all year round. It’s the night that we tip our super and give the mailman a banana bread and the workers at Stiles a five dollar tip and the women at the bank some fresh baked brownies. It’s when we say what we forget to say all year round: I value you. I respect you. I love you. We flawed humans become insular and selfish and must take time for ourselves and ignore the humans around us, as we self protect. At this festive time of year, though, whether we are Christians or some other faction of belief, we acknowledge (because it is in the air due to the force of Christmas that is everywhere) that we should be a little nicer, a little kinder; we should leave our door open. It’s tough to maintain that kind of generosity of spirit all year round. It is a cold, cynical world and we are all treading water. We find ourselves backing away from kindness, out of shear necessity. It is a sad fact, a reality in the sea of humanity. As a matter of fact, if you consider that the holiday is born out of the story of Jesus Christ being born, if you consider the holiday is a time to be kind and generous, you can actually say that it is a time when people think of Jesus. You see, whether you buy into the idea that Jesus was the son of God, that Jesus was the saviour of the people, or whether you believe something else – it cannot be denied that Jesus was a real person. He was a man – he was a good man and a good teacher. It is indisputable: he lived. Even if all he did was live and teach and be a good man, the fact of the holiday created to honour his birth should be reason enough to be a good person. How about this? Christmas is the time of year when we behave like the kind of person Jesus would hang out with. That’s what I do at Christmastime. I honour Jesus’ birthday by being a better friend to him, simply by being a little more like him.

I walked this morning, as the dark blue of the sky, illuminated by thousands of Christmas lights, lightened up while I continued my conversation with God. I thought about the season of peace and hope, about the families that will be reveling in the joy of their children, about the new couple in love, about the devout, about all the different ways people would be celebrating Christmas. I traversed the streets on Manhattan, a ghost town this morning. I took off my headphones for a part of the journey so that I could listen to something I never hear in New York City: absolute silence. There was nobody, nobody, on the streets this morning. I was alone, walking up the middle of the road without fear of traffic, gazing up into the sky, as though I might find an answer there. I stopped in the Rite Aid to see if there was anything on sale that I needed – all of the employees there are from the far east and when I walked in they all wished me a Merry Christmas. I passed a restaurant that was decorated on the outside by enormous branches that had been spray painted white. In front of the restaurant stood a woman who may or may not have been homeless – I could, genuinely, not tell by her mode of dress. She had two bags on the ground at her feet and she was holding, in her arms, a part of that decoration that she had broken off. She was cradling the white twigs to her bosom and rocking, softly, back and forth as she gazed into the same sky as I. A garbage truck drove by. On the other side of the street was a man with a shopping cart searching for cans and bottles. He stopped at a restaurant that had had a bread delivery – as usual the bread delivery consisted of the baker dropping a huge bundle of baked goods on the doorstep, hours before the first employee would arrive. That man with the shopping cart helped himself to some, but not all, of that bread. A person slept under a quilt on the sidewalk and Christmas tree vendors were still at their posts, hoping for a last minute sale. I passed by the homes of friends and wished I could go in and hug them. I passed by delis and bodegas, looking in to see people hard at work.

Arriving home, I stood on my stoop, listening to Christine Ebersole, and gazing, once more, up into the heavens, from whence cometh my strength and my unending need to question.

What is Christmas? It’s a day. It’s a day that can be like any other day, or it can be a day that stands out from the rest. Since I am spiritual all year, I have spent this Christmas and many Christmases in recent years focused on what OB1 has taught me is important: life. I spend this month living, enjoying the companionship of my loved ones and of my city. I do focus on being a little nicer, with the hope that it will stretch over into January, then February, and on through the rest of the year, a tricky thing to do when you are a person with so much unresolved anger as I have. In 2008 I put myself into therapy, hoping to reconcile the good man that I want, so much, to be with the angry man that I am. It’s a dichotomy, all right, and it is mine to battle – but less so at Christmastime. As I stood on my stoop, listening to Christine Ebersole, gazing into the sky, I asked OB1 why we are all so mean to one another? Why do we all feel the need to strike out, why do we have so little consideration for the next guy over? I know some of my reasons – they are all baggage related and I’m trying to unpack those bags so I can be nicer, more loving, more Christmas-y all year long. What about the rest of the world? They can’t all be carrying the same bags as me; and if they are, I wish they would learn to unpack their bags, like I am working on. Because we truly are terrible to one another. We judge each other and we hurt each other; we disrespect one another and we mistrust one another. If we all just stopped and remembered that we’re all people – we’re all brothers and sisters—maybe then the true spirit of Christmas could come out and would hang out all year round.

What a great Christmas that would be.

Below, please see some of the photos I took around New York, this holiday season. And, everyone, may I please wish on all of you...

Peace

Bulldozer Mosher

This is my favourite picture taken during my walks around manhattan. It was shot just before dawn on December 25th - a restaurant, like the surrounding streets, stands empty and alone. A tv is on. An enormous plate of choclates sits on the bar and, in front of the bar, the plate, the chocolates, the tv: the chef, feet up, sound asleep. Exhausted after a long Christmas Eve's work.

Observe the empty streets of Manhattan on Christmas Day at five am. A city at peace.

The Herald Square entrance at Macy's is simply magical. Even during the madness ensuing at five pm on Christmas Eve!

Exiting Liza's At the Palace on the Sunday before Christmas, I was struck by how perfectly the new stairs at the TKTS Booth fit in with the holiday season. And Liza. Red is the colour of Santa and it is Liza's favourite colour, too.

One night we were going home from the shops and passed two men and a woman, standing on the street corner. They were dressed as Santa, she as a Christmas tree. Normally shy about these things, I asked "May I take ya'all picture?" They said yes. Anyone dressed as a Santa or a Christmas tree should have said yes.

When we went out for our annual Christmas Eve stroll through Macy's we spotted this advertisement in the make up department. Dame Edna is a MAC spokesperson. Right on, MAC

All of our friends know that we name our trees; it's a tradition started by Brady Schwind. This year's tree is named Penelope Palandrome.

She's lovely.

Liza. 'Nuff said.

"Liza Minnelli... I like her." The person speaking to me is my mother. I am probably about eleven or twelve. A true mama's boy, a gay boy and a future gay man, I (naturally) idolized my mother. If she liked Liza Minnelli, I would like her too. What is more, I would give my mother some Liza Minnelli for Christmas. We were living in Europe - in Portugal to be exact - and there was a trip coming up for the entire family, a trip to London. I would hit the record stores there and do some Christmas shopping. That is precisely what I did, too, returning home to Portugal with the records to Liza With a Z and Liza Live at the Winter Garden. I gave them to mama for Christmas that year.



Christmas was the last day that she saw those record albums.



Upon hearing the records, I adopted them and my mother's like of Liza become a love for me. Thirty years later, I love her, more than ever.



I know it is cliche. I suppose I am a cornucopia of cliches - and yet I don't consider myself ordinary. I just happen to be a gay man with divas (cliche) and my biggest diva is Liza (supercliche). I spent my life going to her movies, watching her tv appearances, seeing her concerts, buying her records and loving all of them - even the bad ones (the movies... Liza doesn't have bad recordings; but even SHE has admitted that Rent A Cop was not a good move). It doesn't matter, though, whether they are bad, good or great - I love her. I don't defend it, I can't explain it; and I don't feel the need to. I love her and I am not alone. She is my diva, she is my idol, she is my girl. I don't care about the mishegos that the chatteratti seem to care about - the ex husbands, the scandals, the mess. I only care that she reaches inside of me and taps my on button. When I am in a bad mood there are certain surefire ways of lifting it... a viewing of UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, dancing, working out, a walk in Central Park. Liza is a surefire way to lift the grey. Maybe the recording of Liza Live at the Winter Garden, maybe a curl up on the sofa with my vhs of STEPPING OUT. The dvd of Liza With a Z will do it every time. She is my girl.

I have seen Liza Minnelli in concert something like 9 or 10 times. I have missed a lot because I have never had any disposable income (I urge you parents out there to force your kids into law school or medicine, rather than the arts); but I have seen a lot because it is a priority for me. The first time I saw Liza was 1978. I was in Switzerland and she was playing Lausanne. I read about it and I told my mother I just had to go and she said ok (recently she said to me "what was I thinking?! I let my 15 year old son get on the train and go from Berne to Lausanne for a show!"). I was a twinky tween off to see my idol perform live, all dressed up and traveling by train. What an adventure! The show was earth shattering. I'd never seen anything or anyone like it. I remember every minute, still, and I have my souvenir program. I know exactly where it is at this moment. It is in the "Liza souvenir program pile", something my friend Trish says you can only find in a gay man's home. At least, something you can find in THIS gay man's home.

Each time I go to see a Liza concert, I am thrilled; I am made happy, no matter my mood.

I remember when I went to see MINNELLI ON MINNELLI. There was this big, brassy, exciting overture. The curtain was up and there were these big, shiny, mirrored columns on the stage - the most prominent being upstage center. At the climax of the overture, that column upstage parted and there she stood. I burst into tears. In those days, Rosie O'Donnell had a tv show and she talked (alot) about Barbra Streisand and how much she loved her, what Barbra meant to her. She talked about it to the point of being irritating, if not nauseating. However, I understood her devotion to her diva; we all have a star or two for whom we feel this devotion. At that moment, at MINNELLI ON MINNELLI, I realized that Liza is my Barbra. Oh, I have other divas - in fact, I do love Barbra. I also love Helen Reddy, Shirley Bassey, Cher, Bette Midler, Chaka Khan. I have divas that aren't quite so obvious as Liza and Barbra, but divas who wouldn't surprise anyone - like Carol Burnett and Donna Murphy, Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck. I even have my Aaron Spelling divas - oh, yes, I love my Joan Collins and Diahann Carroll, my Stephanie Beacham and my Leann Hunley. I have a diva collection. They are different types of divas with different degrees of diva-dom.

But Liza Minnelli is my be all end all.

Even more than her great, glorious, legendary mom, the gay diva to end all gay divas: Judy Garland. I truly do love Judy Garland.

But Liza Minnelli is MY diva.

So I read that Liza was coming back to Broadway in a limited run concert.

Yee Muthafuckin' Haw. I was SO there.

The day the tickets went on sale, I opened my Sunday Times and there was a full page ad of Liza's eyes. It said the tickets went on sale at noon and it was noon thirty. I ran to Pat, sitting at the computer and said "I want this." The greatest husband of all time, he said "ok" and, moments later, it was done. We had nice seats. Not the best seats (first ten rows, center orchestra) but nice seats, off to the side (not way off) in the orchestra. Now all we had to do was sit back and wait for the day; of course my Ipod was set, almost permanently, on Liza for days (the only time it was switched off Liza was for a little Christmas music, in honor of the season, or for the soundtracks from THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM or THE DARK KNIGHT, for when I was in one of my angry moods -- they come up a lot). Mostly, though, it was all Liza, all day. At home I found opportunities to watch my dvds of LIZA WITH A Z, LIZA AT RADIO CITY, NEW YORK NEW YORK, CABARET and ARTHUR. I watched my vhs of STEPPIN OUT, THE STERILE CUCKOO, A MATTER OF TIME, LUCKY LADY. I watched my home recorded copies of BARYSHNIKOV ON BROADWAY, LIZA IN LONDON, LIZA IN NEW ORLEANS and every other tv special or bootleg I had. With each passing day, I grew more excited for that night when our Christmas season would start, for my husband and I would be attending LIZA'S AT THE PALACE.



I was dressed in my camouflage pants and the shirt my father wore in Korea. I had a black skully on and black combat boots. It was a definite outfit - but one I wore with pride because it is my tribute to the armed forces of this country; and because I look good in it. The Palace was going to be filled with gay men and I wanted to make sure I landed on the side marked hot. Walking up to the theater, Pat giggled: he hadn't, yet, seen the four story billboard in Times Square of Liza's eyes (and while we are on the subject - how many people do YOU know who are so famous that they get a four story billboard in Times Square of just their eyes? Yeah. I thought so). We entered, passing under the Bill Westmoreland (sigh, I'm such a fucking fan - if I had his talent, I might still have a job) photos taken for the show. The merch sellers were calling out, selling programs, shirts, hats, magnets, posters, cds - I wondered how much money I would spend at that counter? Finally, we were in our seats and they were good seats. Buzz. Chatter. People socializing. It was like being at a party - a big gay party where some of the boys had brought along a straight friend or two. There were older women behind us, affluent New York society people off to our left, and a celebrity or twenty down in the front seats. People had gotten dressed up for this. It was Christmas in New York city. It was the Palace Theater. It was Liza Minnelli. People were not there in blue jeans. House lights down. Cue the band. Drums. The notes of New York New York were played. The curtain went up and there was a silhouette in front of bright orange light - the woman stood, feet wide apart, one hand on a hip, one hand reaching toward the heavens. The audience roared and rose to their feet.

I burst into tears.

When the full force of Matt Berman's (genius!) light showed the white spangle dressed Liza with a Z in full bloom, Pat laughed "SHE looks GREAT!!". She was walking and dancing and singing and in great voice. I screamed and cheered and laughed and cried for two solid hours. It was one of the great nights of my life. There truly is no other way of putting it. It was even better than all of the other times I have seen Liza and I am going to tell you why.

The last time I saw Liza was MINNELLI ON MINNELLI. I loved her, then, as I have always. However, she was not in great voice and she was, certainly, not in good shape. Not that it mattered - I loved her and the show. The thing about being Liza Minnelli is that you are so famous that your personal life is the subject of a lot of press. At that point in her life, Liza had been through so much - and the world and her fans went through it with her. She had been through some divorces, some miscarriages, some rehab, some physical problems. She had gained a lot of weight (something she admitted openly in that show "not caring they say 'my GOD she's fat..I'm glad I'm not young anymore") and her glorious voice had suffered some setbacks. A few years later she did the show LIZA'S BACK, which I did not get to see (I was poor, broke, penniless... you get the idea) but I bought the cd and loved that her voice was getting stronger, which you can hear if you listen to MINNELLI ON MINNELLI and LIZA'S BACK, back to back. She, quite famously, had a bout with (I'm going to spell this wrong) viral insephalitis, had some joints in her legs replaced and a few birthdays. She's not a kid anymore -- and I think she still smokes cigarettes (though I don't know her, so I cannot be counted an expert on that matter). So I didn't know what I was going to get when she started singing Teach Me Tonight.

What I got was my diva. Liza is in such great voice. I don't care what the persnickety, bitchy chatterati says. SHE STILL HAS IT. She is in GREAT voice. She is in great performance mode. She owns things like "remember when I used to get down on one knee, here? Forget it!" but she IS dancing and she IS moving about that stage and singing soft songs, belt songs, songs we've heard her sing before, songs that are new to us. She looks beautiful and her costumes show her off to the most amazing advantage. She is in love with her audience and they are, clearly, in love with her back.

There were ovations after every song. People cried out from their seats "we love you Liza!" and she replied, very sincerely, in one of three ways: "Thank you!" and "I know" and "I love you, too." Dudes, she means it. She knows it. She makes jokes in the show about her divorces, so we all know that she has been unlucky in love... in THAT kind of love. But she has not been unlucky in the love she gets from her fans. We who are devoted to Liza shower that love on her with a force like a natural disaster - a tidal wave of love washes over this force of nature in buggle beads and she knows. The audience is the love of Liza's life. She needs our love and she gets it; she feels it and she acknowledges it. AND we NEED her. She is like a life force to us. I know I am not the only who feels this because I stood in that room with the rest of her fans and watched, felt, the reactions to her prescence, the love of her artistry. It was like being at a tent revival.


Aside from just being there with Liza and the other Liza lovers, some of the highlights of the show, for me, were when she sang some Charles Aznavour - dudes, I tell you, nobody (NOBODY) does the musical monologue, the three acts in one song take you on a journey by telling you a story, better than Liza Minnelli. I remember when I first started listening to her concert albums, noticing the way she told stories in song: in LIZA WITH A Z - It Was a Good Time, in LIZA LIVE AT THE WINTER GARDEN - And I, In My Chair, in LIZA IN LONDON - I Couldn't Be Happier, in LIZA AT RADIO CITY - Sorry I asked, in LIZA AT CARNEGIE HALL - The Marriage Medley (You And I/The Honeymoon is Over/Happy Anniversary). Now she takes us on a journey with What Makes a Man A Man and the audience is mesmerized, absolutely. I loved, Loved, LOVED when she turns the duet I Am My Own Best Friend into a solo, complete with Roxie Hart's character talking to herself in her moment of need - it's a great spin on that number. The quietness of He's Funny That Way, while Liza sits, comfy, in her famous and always present director's chair is sublime.

I sighed and giggled when she started to sing the Palace Medley that I spent my youth listening to, as performed by one Miss Judy Garland. GodDAMN that was special, hearing Liza sing that intro and then wail on Some of These Days and bring the house down with I Don't Care. I bounced in my seat and actually chair danced (thank God I was in an aisle seat and didn't have to worry about disturbing anyone next to me) when she did Clap Yo' Hands during the STUNNING Kay Thompson section of the show - I love that number from FUNNY FACE, it has always been one of my favourites. To see and hear Liza do it is sheer heaven - and leave us not mention that she has the sexiest and most talented group of guys doing this show with her. How thrilling is it to be at Jim Caruso's Broadway debut? And hasn't he earned it? Cortes Alexander, one of the very best vocalists around; Tiger Martina, who was so beautiful in Movin Out; and the wonderful Johnny Rodgers, of whose work I have been such a fan. These four men are so perfectly handpicked to work so beautifully alongside each other and to help showcase our diva. They make gorgeous harmonies together, dance with delightful dexterity and when each has a solo, prove that they can go it alone. I love them. I especially love it when the genius Billy Stritch comes out from behind the piano and sings for a bit. I know he is one of the very best pianists, maybe the very best arranger, but I always love it when he sings - I wish he would do it more often. When Billy Stritch sings it is like the French Silk Chocolate icing my mama used to put on her butter cakes. Sexy. Smooth. Sexy. That is Billy Stritch singing.

It it a perfect show, a perfect showcase for one of the world's greatest live entertainers.

And my very favourite moments are when, in absolutely perfect voice, Liza sings the songs she has made famous. Maybe This Time (I was completely undone), And The World Goes Round (what a belt!), Cabaret (I was laughing with happiness the whole time) and (of course) New York New York. Dudes, the song was written FOR Liza Minnelli. That is heady shit, man. The song that has become so famous, that has become the anthem for my favourite city, one of the loves of my life; it was written (expressly) for one of the loves of my life. Yee Muthafuckin Haw.


I loved the show so much, I was so emotionally spent, so exhilerated, that I bought seats to three more performances. One set of seats was so that I could take my galpal, Jennifer, to see the diva. Jennifer is an actress who has loved Liza since CABARET, yet never seen her in concert. I wanted to give her this gift for her birthday because any fan of Liza needs to see her live, at least once. I feel that everyone should see Liza sing New York New York and Cabaret, at least once. Even if Liza's music is not your thing, even if you don't count yourself among her fans, everyone should hear her sing those two songs, live, at least once. You will, then, be able to say "I wasn't a fan - but I get it now". So I took Jen to see Liza, for her birthday, and Jen screamed and cheered and I felt like it was money well spent. It was good for me to go back, too, because Liza had caught cold and was missing some shows and I got to see what happens when a great singer gets sick: they GET ON WITH IT. She sang; and when she had to cough, she did. When she had to blow her nose, she did. When she needed water, she got it. She wasn't coy about it, she didn't try to cover it up, she did her job; and the fans knew they were watching a survivor, a professional who is going to deliver NO matter what.

The next set of tickets was so that Pat could take a young friend of ours to see her. He had expressed an interest to see Liza but didn't have the bucks. He's younger than us and has his own divas (Whitney, Britney) but hadn't a fair knowledge of Liza to appreciate the diva of the older generation's appreciation. We thought he should have the chance to see her, we love him very much and wanted to give him this for HIS birthday, so Pat took him. Again, she had been sick with a bad cold (we all have one right now) but she showed up and she delivered. Both boyz came out of the Palace beaming.

And the final set of tickets were used by my husband and I, just before Christmas, last Sunday. We sat in the orchestra and held on to each other, laughing and crying, along with the other members of the tent revival, because she is just that wonderful. For the occasion, my Pat gave me a new hat - a fedora like the one Judy wore in her famed Get Happy number. I dressed for the occasion and, again, I saw other people dressed in honour of Liza. A young gay boy in a fur, an urchin haircut and eyeliner, a woman in a black coat covered with silver sequins, a young man in a black velvet blaze with silver threads throughout - people were dressed for an occasion; and seeing Liza at Christmas is an occasion. On this occasion, once more, she was in great voice (only traces of that cold came out from time to time and she handled with with grace and honesty). She was heavenly, absolutley heavenly, dealing with crazed fans screaming after every number "Are you ok, honey?" "thank you, I love you, too... security?". We who love Liza may never meet and shake hands but we are bonded together by having been in that theater on that day, on every day that we gather to cheer on this survivor, this entertainer, the New Yorker.

At the end of the show, she surprised us, each time. The playbill has a songlist and her final song is listed as I'LL BE SEEING YOU. For these days before the holiday, she has chosen to share with us a topical song. She speaks of the power of songs for sharing emotions and claims this is the best way for her to share what she is feeling. She begins to sing.

"Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas, let your heart be light"

And the entire audience sighs and melts.

At the end of the song, she walks center stage, stands, feet wide apart; puts a hand on a hip and reaches one to the heavens and the curtain closes. The audience goes out into the cold air, warmed to their core by love.


There is a moment in the show when Liza says that some things are just magical. That last time I saw LIZA'S AT THE PALACE, she said this and I thought something. Moments later, another theater goer called out what I was thinking.

"YOU are!"

Yes.

Say Yes.

Please note that I only took one picture in this story - the one of the marquee. The rest, I found on the internet and I applaud the photographer (no credit was available) who captured the images - they are stellar.