The Workout Room - Leo Curls

Using a curl bar (go as heavy as you can), sit forward in the chair, get your elbows close together; feet together, knees together, shoulders back. Lower the curl bar slowly and then back up to the point of flex (that's where the bicep is really swollen and pumped). Only point of flex - no higher - then back down. SLOWLY. Each rep is slow. The entire time you are doing this, squeeze your bicep. Start squeezing before you even lower it for the first rep.

4 sets of 20 - 25 reps.

Make it hurt. Use the muscle. No jerking.

We call these Leo Curls because our friend Leo is a trainer and he showed us this specific form and we have never gone back to what we were doing before

Food For Thought - Garlic/Ginger Green Beans

Garlic/Ginger Green Beans

This is a really popular recipe around my house. When I make it, Pat and I can’t get enough of it; and when I serve it to friends, they snatch it right up. And it’s EASY!!

The thing you need to know about my cooking is that I like spicy, so I use a lot of crushed red pepper. You will need to season things to YOUR tastes; and if you are cooking for other people, find out how spicy they like it – then take it from there. Also, on the subject of spice – I don’t actually have a lot of time to cook; and I actually don’t derive a lot of pleasure from cooking. I love feeding people – I love serving them, I love the camaraderie of having my loved ones around me and of feeding them; I, especially, love feeding them good healthy food that causes them to make yummy noises. It just proves my point that you don’t have to suffer while dieting and you don’t have to eat garbage to have a good time. So, because of my general distaste for cooking and my lack of time, I try to make things as easy on myself as possible. In this specific instance (the topic of spice), it should be said that USUALLY I use powdered onion and powdered garlic (which I buy from this great International Grocer on 9th Avenue, where all the spices are kept in big barrels and I can go in and buy a pound of whatever I need and take it home and store it in my own jars). I don’t have the time or interest in doing a lot of peeling and chopping.

THIS recipe is one of the few recipes that I will do that for – because the result of the peeling and chopping is so delish!

Here’s what you will need:

Fresh green beans (this won’t work with frozen, BELIEVE Me)
Fresh garlic
Fresh ginger
A DRIZZLE of Olive Oil
Crushed red pepper
Almond slices – as many or as few as you want but DON’T go overboard. The recipe is green beans with almonds, not vice versa.

Once you are home with your fresh green beans, wash them (I use a nice organic vegetable wash from the health food store) – get those pesticides off (unless you can afford organic, in which case you are just washing off dirt – and who is afraid of a little dirt? Extra taste). Some people snap the ends of their beans off. Who has time for that? I cut ‘em off with scissors. Once the green beans are all cleaned up and cut up, steam them. (If you don’t have a good bamboo steamer, get one – or you can use your stove top steamer basket and sauce pot; whatever works for you). Steam them so they are still crunchy, ok? Steamed but crunchy. Not mushy. Icky. Poopie. Nasty. Mushy green beans. Nasty. It’s just a couple of minutes in your steamer, until the colour of the green beans is so vibrant you think you’ve taken some kind of mood enhancing drug (not that I ever have). Set the steamed green beans aside.

Peel your fresh ginger and fresh garlic (use as much or as little as you like – this is YOUR meal; make it your way. Be greedy. I use lots of these two ingredients). Once they are peeled, dice them into as big or as small pieces as you want. Set them aside, with your steamed (but crunchy not icky poopie nasty mushy) fresh green beans (not frozen, blech).

In a nice size skillet (I always get non stick and NO my Emeril skillet did not stay non stick forever, the way they promise, I had to replace it, which pissed me off like you can’t believe), on a medium flame (NOTHING needs to be cooked on high flame – I have learned the hard way), heat up a drizzle of Olive Oil (not a lot – you don’t need a lot, even though Olive Oil is actually good for you because you need some healthy fat in your diet, otherwise you look like I did when I was dancing on the gay pride float and everyone thought I was sick with cancer, I was so underweight). When the Olive Oil is hot, toss in your ginger and garlic and stir it up from time to time (don’t toss it in and walk away – I’ve learned the hard way how quickly things burn). Then, toss in some of your crushed red pepper and mix it up. Then, toss in your almond slices (slivers don’t work for me, texturally – it’s much nicer with sliced almonds, trust me, I wouldn’t lie to you) and let them get browned up a little.

Now, with your ginger, garlic and almonds cooked up and seasoned, you can toss in your green beans. With a pair of tongs, just toss them about until they are coated with a light dusting of olive oil , ginger, garlic, pepper, just a light tossing. You don’t want them soggy from the liquid or burnt. Just a light coating, ok? A minute. Maybe 90 seconds.

Out of the frying pan, onto the serving platter and then sit back and watch your guests go to happy town.

Just don’t let them eat it all; save some for yourelf.

The Workout Room STRAIGHT BAR BICEP CURLS

The key to this bicep excercise is keeping the elbows away from the body. Make the arm do the work.

Use a bar that is heavy but not so heavy that you have to throw your back into it. Use the muscle you are working - the bicep - to exhaustion.

Remember to breathe!

Exhale hard on the way up.

4 sets of 20 - 25.

Soul Food

This is just a little something I posted on my Facebook notes section yesterday that I decided to share here, more publically:

My friend, Stephen, asked a question on his Facebook Status Message and I had such a good time reading peoples’ responses that I copies the entire thread to share with you, here. Natch, I have edited out their names, for discretion.


Stephen: ok friends... Things that feed the soul... go!


Mary: Music! Music! Music!


Daniel: Mac and Cheese...well at least you won't be hungry!


Rob: Laughter with friends. Also music. The outdoors.


Jonathan I agree oh and a good book


Owen: Buffy episodes..


Samantha: laying in bed on a rainy day


Jerome An infant giggling.


Jerome A walk thru big sur


David Montego Glover singing within 10 feet of me two nights in a row


Jonathan Matza


Spencer the sound of the gentle rain that is falling outside my window right now. I've turned everything off so I can just get all "zen and shit"....


Michael Dogs


Tony Old Aretha Franklin recordings, watching great acting, a long nap, connecting with a good friend...


Elissa laughing children, music, good art, pets, time to enjoy..anything!


Gonzolo Chocolate ice cream and sitting on the couch watching reruns of the Golden Girls (can't believe how many times they said slut) and Sex and the City.


Lori Smokin' BBQ and deep tissue massages!


Marni Listening to Debussy while watching the play of light on the trees through the window.


Tina My KITTENS!! And my husband:-) OH and GOOD BOOKS!!


Joyce My grandchildren!!


Debbie Good friends, good books, good coffee, quite.GregThat's an easy one...Soul Food!


Kris my kids


Andrew Nina Simone


Elizabeth Love. Love. Love. Love is all you need. My son's love in particular. And music. Currently Otis Redding's "One More Day" feeds the soul rather nicely.


Pattie You


Stephen (originator of the survey)You all just made me smile.. the real kind.


Seth Grilled Cheese with Tomato Soup.


Christopher Brownies!! Chicken noodle soup :) Chinese Food delivered. bubble bath with candles


Jodi books:)


Amy DANCE CLASS!!!...im such a big nerd :)


Sarah good literature (for me, right now, that means Irish writers)


Tim rock 'n' roll and meeting new friends that'll feel like old friends in a few hours...


Susan My Cars, music and movies. And... crossing the state line into Virginia.


Sarah This list is lovely!


Sharen Having my son fall asleep in my arms :)


Brandy Rain on a tin roof, lighting, Asheville, country music, snail mail, palmetto chees and ham sandwiches, my love, brown paper packages, SDM...these are a few of my favorite things!


Sarah: Walking from room to room in my new house and thinking, "My God, I live here... I own this."


Michael Lithuanian Folk Dancing!!!!


Sarah: Ok, I take it back. Lithuanian folk dancing it is!


Diane A cup of coffee, a good book, listening to the girls play make believe in the other room, an intense tap class, good conversation with friends like you


So. Having read this list, I began to ponder what feeds my soul. What FEEDS my SOUL.

MY soul.

My SOUL.

And the only real, honest, true answers I could come up with are these:

Nature – I am in a different zone when I am standing on a beach or in a forest or on a mountain. Being out in nature is like being in the palm of God.God – I don’t really have a religion. But I have a God. My God is unique to me; and our relationship is unique to us. God is my best friend.

Pat – There is nothing so nurturing as lying in Pat’s arms and looking at him. I have begun referring to him as my docking station – when I lie, holding him, I can feel my strength, my energy, my happiness grow, so that I can go back out into the world and conquer.

Art – No matter what form it takes, art is in my system. Maybe it is a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, maybe it is a trip to the theater or the picture show; perhaps it is reading a book, or it could be listening to music. Maybe it’s writing a blog or maybe it’s creating a photograph – whatever the art is that is touching me at that moment in time, that is the most important art in my life.

Good Health – The feeling I have inside when I am eating properly, the feeling I feel, overall, when I am exercising – being good to myself, showing me that I matter, is great validation of the love I have for myself and the respect I have for the God and the parents who created me.

Family – I don’t have to tell anyone how important to ones’ soul is ones’ family. Hearing my nieces or nephew laugh, having an intelligent conversation with my father, holding my mommy’s hand when we stroll through the shops; bringing together my friends in my home and sitting back and watching them interact, being there to help a loved one who wants to be helped, making art with them, sharing life’s joys and sorrows with them, sometimes just looking at them, it’s a great boost to my life.

Goodness – when I see someone act kindly, when I recognize someone’s integrity, when I surprise myself with my own generosity, when someone bestows upon me their kindness, I am always overwhelmed by the humanity of people – and the fact that it does, still, exist in some.

Dancing.

Sleep

A good massage.

Listening to any Julie Andrews song.

Bulldogs.

A long hot bath, shaving my head and face, rinsing off in the shower after using Arbonne Awaken Sea Salt Scrub, putting on a nice outfit and, looking as pretty as I feel, going out with my husband, walking down the street hand in hand.

Doing your civic duty, getting involved and acting on something that will effect some kind of positive change in the world.

A good and hard day’s work.

New York City

The Truth.

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Kander and Ebb Files -- Curtains, Flora the Red Menace and The Happy Time

CURTAINS -- I love. In fact, when I saw the show, I wrote a story about it:

http://stephenaaronmosher.blogspot.com/2008_06_01_archive.html

That being said, I think the only thing I can, really, write in this story is that I immediately imported the cast album and that I listen to it. These are the most beautiful actors, most of them NEW YORK actors (in fact, I think every one of them are New York actors – David Hyde Pierce started on the New York stage). I love when plays cast our local talent; and I love when the local talent becomes local stars. I know that people out in Hollywood aren’t beating a path to the doors of Karen Ziemba or Jason Danieley (though, why, I cannot tell because they are great) and that Debra Monk and David Hyde Pierce balance out their work on film/tv with a lot of work on the New York stage – but these actors and the other cast members of Curtains like Noah Racey, John Bolton, Jim Newman – the members of the theater going community know who they are and go see shows, just to see them. Let us not even mention to ardour people have for Edward Hibbert and Ernie Sabella. These people are OUR people – and we love them and thrill to see their artistry.

And I did think Curtains was art. It was also fun. I simply loved it and I listen to my cd often (I actually have the songs THATAWAY!, IT’S A BUSINESS, COFFEE SHOP NIGHTS, which is quintessential K&E, and I MISS THE MUSIC in a couple of my playlists, so they get more playtime than the rest of the album).

Thataway, when I am in a bad mood, always makes it better.

It says a lot when a musical runs for under 100 performances and the lead actress still gets a Tony Award. Right? FLORA THE RED MENACE is an odd little piece with some wonderful songs but the major selling point, for me, is (natch) the leading lady – the Flora, the red menace. It’s Liza, man. How do I now have Flora in my Ipod? It’s got Quet Thing and All I Need and Sing Happy. No. Flora is essential listening for me and for any other fan of our great diva.

THE HAPPY TIME actually is NOT in my Ipod for a very good reason. I never got it on cd. I have an audio cassette of this show from my college days. I always played it on my cassette player and when cds became the new technology, I never quite got around to getting this one. My memory of it is actually a little hazy because it’s been years since I have played it; but I can tell you that I love A Certain Girl, I Love I Don’t Remember You and I LOVE Walking Among My Yesterdays. It’s such a lovely score and I adore these three male leads – Mr Goulet, David Wayne and my longtime favourite boy voice on Broadway, Michael Rupert.

Think I’ll go on Ebay today and get a cd of The Happy Time. I feel like I have betrayed it.

The Workout Room CHEST PRESS/LEG UPS

This is my favourite.

Whatever weight you can handle, get two dumbells - I use 50 lbs to 75 lbs. The legs are off the bench the whole time. The elbows never drop below 90 degrees. Press straight up, like a goal post. Do 10 reps. Then kick up for 10 reps. Press up for 10 reps; leg up for 10 reps. Again for 5 reps. Four sets of this and your chest will shelf out

Pick weight you can handle - I cannot stress this enough. As with everything, the form is more important than the number on the dumbell. Perfect form and complete sets matters - not the weight of the dumbell, ok?

Food For Thought - How I Came To Be

In the summer of 1983 I was dancing in the chorus of a show in Canyon, Texas. It was an outdoor musical drama called TEXAS! And it was a very difficult time of my life. I was 18 (would turn 19 that summer), trying to figure out who I was, trying to figure out whether I wanted to date girls or boys (well… I knew who I wanted to date – what I was trying to figure out was if God would still like me, after I started dating them: boys) and trying to find some healthy self esteem. I knew I wasn’t a talented dancer because I couldn’t learn the moves and needed help from my fellow chorus kids. I also knew this because my dance captain, a stocky young woman named Estella Levy, criticized my work in the show, every day. One of the other things she did to me, every day, was tell me I needed to watch my weight.

For your frame of reference, here is a photo of me, suntanning one day, before a show.



Every so often, Estella Levy would remark on my need to lose some weight. It (sufficiently) lowered my already damaged self esteem and gave me copious amounts of stress regarding my eating and workout habits. Once the show was over, I returned to college, where (in the next few years) I began sleeping with men, drinking a lot, binge eating, attempting suicide (it was about a once-every-18-month kind of thing), learning to make friends, learning to be who I am and, finally, where I met the love of my life (who is, as I type, sleeping in the next room, 24 years later). By the time I was 24, I had decided to stop dancing. I didn’t have the talent to take it where I wanted to go and, frankly, I didn’t want to do the work that I would have to do to achieve that level of technicality. I was far more interested in living my life and being with my loved ones. So I quit dancing. Almost overnight, I gained 20pounds. I was in a new relationship (and we both loved to eat – and remember, I was a drinker) and newly retired from dancing. I got doughy. As time passed, I got chubby. By the time I was 34, I was fat.










By the time I was 37, a doctor told me I had arthritis in my spine. He didn’t say that it was because I was carrying too much extra weight. He just said I had arthritis in my spine; and I knew that I had to lose some weight. I was in pain every day. I walked like I had some spinal condition. I knew that I could not (didn’t want to) live the rest of my life like this.

So I took every penny I had in my personal checking account and I gave it to the 19th Street gym and told them “It is April. On July 8th I will turn 38. Here is a photo of my in Jesus Christ Superstar at the age of 18. Make me look like this again by July 8th” and they gave me a trainer named Adam Wilson, who did just that.










For the next year, I trained on my own (Adam quit his job at the gym just before my 38th birthday –but I had reached my goal). For that year, I stayed at 165 lbs. My goal was, on my 40th birthday, to weigh what I did in that photo from Jesus Christ Superstar.—145 lbs. By the time I reached my 40th birthday, I did.

(The above photo shows me at my birthday party – alongside it is one of me in heavier days.)

On the day of my 40th birthday, I stood up and got dizzy; I fell down. My friend (who was with me all day that day) said to me, “You fall down a LOT. Are you eating?” No. I wasn’t. I had become Manorexic. I managed to get my weight down to 145 lbs through starvation. NOT. HEALTHY. Once this was out in the open, Pat decided that it was time to really delve into staying in shape with a greater focus on eating healthily. We had been working with a trainer named Anthony for about a year; during the next few months, he would marry and leave the gym for a more lucrative job in banking. The gym placed us with the man who trained Anthony – the man we still train with, the Rolls Royce of fitness trainers, my teacher, Ray Scalvino. When we began working with Ray, Pat told him that we really needed to focus on the concept of eating healthily. It is through Ray and my other teachers and healers (not to mention a certain amount of reading) that I found the right way for me to eat to remain healthy. I’ve been on this journey, now, for a little over eight years.

Now. Here is the thing that people either don’t know or don’t understand: I am still a food addict. I am an addict. Period. I am an alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in a decade. I am an ex smoker, a former shopaholic and a food addict. I just have an addictive personality. That’s all there is to it. I don’t believe in saying I am a recovering alcoholic. I am an alcoholic. Just because I don’t’ drink anymore doesn’t make me any less of an alcoholic. I am an ex-smoker. I don’t actively smoke cigarettes; but there are times (usually stress induced) when I want a cigarette. I am a former shopalolic who still wants to go buy all the dvds at Best Buy that I don’t own but who has learned to keep walking to the subway station, instead of going in. And I am a food junkie who wants to eat any time I have an emotion. And SOMETIMES I do. When I do, though, I get sick. And, like a dog who gets their nose pushed into their urine every time they pee on the carpet, eventually, this foodie (gradually!) learns his lesson. I no longer binge eat on cakes and pies – now I cheat on my diet with peanuts and raisins; and my friends scoff and say “that’s not cheating on your diet” and maybe they are right. But when you have an intestinal system that is used to processing broccoli and asparagus, eggwhites and chicken breast, when you put that amount of roughage and sugar into that system, you (at least, I) have to lie down and take a nap to escape the pain. This is something I struggle with, almost daily. Happily, I get stronger and the struggle becomes easier to handle.

I’d like to share with you some of my old eating habits.

--I could eat an entire bag of Keebler Pecan Sandies or Chips Ahoy cookies at one sitting WITH a gallon of skim milk for dunking.
--I used to buy Entenman’s variety pack donuts AND an ultimate crumb cake, sit down on the floor, pop in a dvd and eat every morsel (again, with the skim milk for dunking). The crumb cake, I didn’t even cut. I just got a fork and started at the center of the cake and worked my way outward.
--I could make an entire rectangular pan of Katharine Hepburn Brownies and eat all but four (whch I would give to Pat when he got home, using the mentality that, by not giving him more than four, I was not sabotaging his diet).
--I would make an entire huge bowl of popcorn, eat it, then wash the pot and the bowl used in the process and put it away so there was no evidence.
--I could eat an entire bag of Nabisco Oreos (skim milk!) in the middle of the night, hiding out in the bathroom so Pat wouldn’t find me.
--I would buy one of those big bags of Twizzlers and eat the entire thing, shoving three and four twizzlers in my mouth at a time.
--The days after Valentine’s day, I would go to the drug store and buy the marked down boxes of Russell Stover’s chocolates and eat the entire box.
--The days after Easter, I would go to the drug store and buy the marked down bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs and eat the entire bag before Pat got home (half of the bag would be deposited in the freezer upon arrival home because frozen PB eggs are the living end).
--I can buy and polish off a box of breakfast cereal in under an hour.
--I used to go to McDonald’s and come home with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a Filet-O-Fish sandwich and Chicken McNuggets and eat it as one meal, taking the bag and packaging out to the street to put into the trash can so Pat wouldn’t see it.
--I used to order a large pizza from Pizza Plus, eat the entire thing and dispose of the packaging the same way.
--I would order a soft taco, hard taco, quesadilla, guacamole, sour cream and burrito from Fresco Tortilla and could consume it before anything had cooled off. Chased with milk (almost everything was chased with a gallon of milk).

These are some of my big food addiction memories. I was never happy afterward and I was usually sick.

I think having my binge eating be a cup of unsalted peanuts and a cup of organic jumbo flame raisins from Westerly is a lot more healthy.

However. I also think that the food item itself is unimportant; it is the behaviour that matters. What is it that makes me binge eat like this? Mind you, it isn’t an every day kind of thing. It also isn’t something I discuss with everyone. Pat knows when I have been overindulging. So does my best friend, Hunter. They know the symptoms, they can tell by what I am wearing if I have gone off my program, they know by the way I walk or whether or not I am smiling (as opposed to scowling in intestinal pain). I don’t know the answers – but I am working on finding them, with my therapist, who (along with Pat and Hunter) makes sure to tell me, often, that I look good – even though my dismorphia has me convinced I am still fat.

It isn’t easy sharing these private facts with the people who might be reading this blog entry: but to NOT share them would prevent me from letting people know – I am just like you. I am still trying to be healthier, I am still struggling with food issues, I am still battling weight concerns. There are ways in which we are all different and ways in which we are the same. We’re in this together – no matter what our individual perceptions of ourselves and of each other may be.

Now you know my history.

Let’s talk about food….

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Kander and Ebb Files -- Cabaret and Chicago

I think it is probably hard for anyone in the world to NOT know the musical CABARET – it’s so famous. The images from the movie are iconic, you know? And then, there is that song; everyone knows the song Cabaret. It must be wonderful to create something that everyone in the world knows, right?

I think I was 13 years old when my dad took me to see the movie Cabaret. I didn’t understand most of it, but I was mesmerized. I listened to that soundtrack for most of my life because of that movie date my dad and I had. Imagine my surprise, then, the first time I listened to the OBC? All those songs that had been cut! Sally Bowles had an English accent! It was a completely different entity, a completely different experience. It was marvelous. What a fantastic show.
I’ve seen more Cabarets than just about any other musical (Gypsy and Forum are neck and neck for a three way tie) and I don’t mind. I love it that much. The revival production actually had me hyper-ventilating the first time I saw it; that ending? Have mercy.

Suffice it to say, all the major versions of Cabaret are in my Ipod. Natch, the movie soundtrack is in my Liza Minnelli section. The OBC is in my Ipod, though I must admit it has been expurgated to make room for other music. I left in Lenya, Jill Haworth and Bert Convey, trimming out Joel Grey because his numbers are exactly the same here as they are in the film. The West End cast album has a similar story – I kept all of Judi Dench’s track (duh) and all of Lila Kedrova’s tracks (oh my gosh, I love her so much – she has been a favourite of mine since childhood) but I cut the songs by Cliff and Emcee because I’d rather hear Bert Convey on the OBC and Joel Grey on the soundtrack. The revival cast album (which is vastly different from the others) is the cast album that is complete within my Ipod. That has been my favourite production of the show and it is the one I listen to when I want to full story from start to finish. There is also the little matter of my friend Alan Cumming, who gives a genius performance here, and my angel in heaven, Natasha Richardson, who I never met but who I loved very much and was so proud and honoured to see in this show – the only time I saw her live. Dammit. There is also a studio cast recording that is worth getting a copy of. I don’t really like ALL of it but here is what I DO like.. LOVE, in fact. Judi Dench plays Fraulein Schneider to Fred Ebb’s Herr Schulta. Rieeeght? Maria Friedman not only plays Sally, at the end of the cd, she does the numbers written for the movie. And rounding out the principal cast is Gregg Edelman, one of the best leading men on the Broadway stage and one of the kindest and friendliest men you could ever meet.

There are certain days when I am in a real Cabaret mood and I will play each recording, back to back, enjoying and comparing what I hear there. You should try it sometime. It’s fun. It is especially fun to check out What Would You Do by Lenya, Dench and Kedrova, back to back. THAT is some acting man! Let me tell you…

I can remember the first time I heard the OBC of CHICAGO. I was 12 or 13 and living in Portugal with my family and our next door neighbour would let me come over and listen to her Hi-Fi. She had all these great cast albums and vocalists and, in any given day, I could go from Robert Goulet to Claudine Longet, from Pippin to Chicago. I spent a fair amount of time over there, playing record albums; and I became obsessed by Chicago. I only know, about it, what I read on the inside of the record jacket (and those scandalous photos! Women onstage in bikinis!) but I knew that I had to own that record, so on summer vacation, back in the states, I found a copy and I’ve been playing it ever since. I was captivated by Chita Rivera’s belting voice and Gwen Verdon’ squeaky monologue about everybody saying no, no no; and the songs! I never heard songs like this. All That Jazz became the song I drove my mom crazy with, playing it over and over on the record player until she was pulling her hair out. Damn. That Chita Rivera could sing. I didn’t know who she was. I hadn’t found West Side Story yet; but I would find out about HER, wouldn’t I?

I saw some community theater productions of the play when I was living in Dallas/Ft Worth as a young man. I never saw the definitive production of the show – but I liked what I saw and continued to listen to my OBC and to research the show. It wasn’t until the Encores! Series did their concert version that I really got it. And, boy, did I get it. We were in the last row at the top of the theater and I was exhilarated by every single stylish move, by every song sung, every sentence spoke, every blink of Annie Reinking’s brilliant baby blues (which I really COULD see from all the way up there!). I was SO in love with Chicago – more than ever before. Therefore, I was delirious to learn that this production would be coming to Broadway. I couldn’t WAIT.

Somewhere in between Chicago closing at Encores and opening on Broadway, I met and worked with Annie Reinking (hello! Thill!) for The Sweater Book; and during the shoot, I was asked to do a new headshot for her. I have been told by her close friend and longtime publicist that the headshot I did of her is her favourite she has ever had (hello! Thrill!). I was a young kid and I was still pretty new in town and the Annie Reinking headshot was going to be my first headshot in a Broadway Playbill. The night Chicago started performances at the Richard Rodgers Theater, I waited around the theater for an hour so I could second act the show. When the intermission came, I walked back in with the rest of the smokers, found an empty seat and prayed nobody would tell me “you’re in my seat”. I snatched up a Playbill and opened it and there it was – my first Playbill headshot. Hello. Thrill.

I was in Los Angeles working on The Sweater Book when the cast album for the revival of Chicago came out. I was on a budget but I spent something like sixteen bucks to buy that cd at some expensive candy ass record store on Sunset Boulevard and I played it in my Car for the rest of the trip.

The Hot Honey Rag, by the way, is probably my favourite piece of instrumental music ever written.

In my Ipod, Chicago is represented thus:
OBC complete recording
Revival cast: Ann Reinking, Marcia Lewis, Joel Grey tracks. Bebe Neuwirth tracks: All That Jazz, I Can’t Do It Alone reprisal and I Know a Girl (I mean no disrespect to Miss Neuwirth – I happen to love watching her and she was Da BOMB in this show – but I like to listen to Chita’s versions).
West End cast: -- Ute Lemper’s tracks (not a fan of Ruthie Henshall)
Film soundtrack: from start to finish. All the people who want to talk about Rene Zellwegger not being right for this gig can kiss my tan, waxed ass. I love this movie – every freakin’ frame of it; and she deserved the Oscar for it, even if it did go to my treasured Nicole Kidman, who also deserved the Oscar – I wish there had been a tie that year.
I am also thrilled to own an audio bootleg of a live performance of Chicago starring Chita Rivera and that chick, Liza Minnelli, when she covered for Gwen Verdon.

I think you could say I am IN TO Chicago.

I love that these two musicals gave Kander and Ebb Oscar winning best pictures. It validates my appreciation of their artistry.

Food For Thought - Introduction To the Kitchen at Two-A

If any of you who are reading have read some of what I written before, you will know that one of my joys in life, one of my passions, is health and fitness. People who know me have all heard the story - it's a major part of my life, a major part of who I am... When I was a teenager I was a runner, a swimmer, a bicyclist; at 16 I started dancing and by 24 I admitted I didn't have the talent to make it as a dancer and I quit. Overnight, I gained 20 pounds. By the time I was 37 I weighed in at 205 lbs. I joined the 19th Street Gym in New York and by my 38th birthday I weighed 165 lbs; my goal was to weigh what I weighed when I was 18 -- and I had to weigh that by my 40th birthday. It took me two years to lose that last 20 lbs but on July 8th, the year I turned 40, I did (indeed) weigh 145 lbs. It wasn't healthy. I was underfed and underweight and I had to make a change.

I got some good teachers to teach me how to be at a healthy weight through diet and exercise. Since then, people ask me (often!) for tips on weight loss, on working out, on eating right. I am happy.. HAPPY.. to impart my knowledge; as long as people understand that it takes work and sacrifice. The reward, though, is so great.

I am a bit extreme with both my diet and my training; but I am an extremist in everything. I would never ask anyone to live the way I live. HOWEVER... that being said, people can start to live healthier lives by just replacing ONE meal a day or even four meals a week with some of these recipes. By changing your life even a little, by switching out a night of lasagna with a night of my spicy turkey meatballs with fresh steamed vegetables, you can start to live a healthier life. And, trust me, your body will thank you.

So, after a few years of writing down recipes for individuals, I have decided to go public. I will be posting regular (or semi regular, depending on how busy I am) meal tips for anyone who wants them. These are really tasty things to eat that are really quite healthy. I'm not a nutritionist or an expert or anything - this is just what I have learned to do.

I've walked the walk.

Now; I talk the talk.

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Kander and Ebb Files -- 70 Girls 70, The Act, And The World Goes 'Round

70 GIRLS 70 is a show I didn’t take the time to get to know until the ENCORES! Series did a concert version of it starring Olympia Dukakis, Anita Gillette, Bob Dishy, Mary Jo Catlett, Carole Cook and Charlotte Rae (I’m doing this from memory, so I have no idea who I have forgotten to mention) and I was so incredibly enchanted by it that I went right out and picked up the cast album! There, I discovered songs I already knew and already knew I knew. I had heard Liza Minnelli sing SAY YES and SEE THE LIGHT; I had heard various people (most notably Bea Arthur) sing BROADWAY MY STREET; I had heard Mandy Patinkin sing COFFEE IN A CARDBOARD CUP (and it was one of my audition songs when I was an actor). So I was bound to enjoy the score – I had just never gotten around to it.

Now, here’s the thing about Kander and Ebb…

I have said that Sondheim is like air to me; Kander and Ebb are like water. Their musicals actually tend to be my favourites – they sit so naturally in my mindset and my outlook on life. There is always an optimism, a message about actually getting out and living your life (hello? Say Yes?). I just seem to gravitate most easily, most naturally, most spiritually to their shows. I cannot think of a K&E show that I haven’t liked.

70 Girls 70 is no exception.

It’s not every day I actively decide to listen to a bunch of singers croon showtunes; and some of them don’t have the prettiest or best trained voices – nevertheless, the performers on the cd are all delightful actors and seasoned performers and they put forth the best efforts; and the payoff is good, quite good. Mildred Natwick, whose singing is extremely limited, is such a wonderful actor, so committed to the performance, that you cannot help but have a good time. The score is such an absolute fit to the storyline, the age of the characters, the age of the performers – I must say, K&E always create a score that is a full representation of the story they are telling. Coffee in a Cardboard Cup has such an authentic vaudeville flavour to it --- well, most of the songs here have the perfect feel of the early part of the lives that these characters would have lived, until we get to the more aged sounding grandparent feel of Go Visit Your Grandmother, which juxtaposes perfectly with the exuberance of 70 Girls 70 – an exuberance that speaks, that sounds, genuine to an older person who is still young on the inside. It’s a really good, a really fun and authentic score, one that I left in my Ipod, to listen to from start to finish

THE ACT is actually up in my Liza Minnelli section. Pat and some other people make fun of me for things like this. In my Ipod I have all my Liza music in one place; just like, in our living room, I have all my Diane Lane movies in one place (actually a big part of my cd collection is by star – it’s just something I do.

Especially for Liza Minnelli.

I remember when I saw the Tony Awards, the year that The Act won Liza the best actress Tony. I saw her do the song City Lights and I knew I would have to go out and buy the record. I was a kid, a teenager, visiting my grandmother and grandfather in Reedley, California – and the closest town where I would be able to find the record album of The Act was Fresno, 45 minutes away. I would have to wait until a day when we drove into town for something. When we did, though, I snatched that sucker up and played it until my grandmother threatened me with bodily harm. I loved that record. I played it, regularly, throughout my teenage years – and when we got back to Switzerland and I did that, eventually, my mother threatened me with bodily harm. I could turn on City Lights and have it on permanent loop, the entire weekend. It isn’t, though, all about City Lights. I am queer for the song The Money Tree – I think it is one of the greatest songs (and performances!) ever. I always that It’s the Strangest Thing was so beautiful, both in melody and poetry; and I must (to this day) sing My Own Space at least three or four times a week. In recent years, I have read or heard that this isn’t a good show, that the script is week and the score is criticized – I don’t care. That doesn’t affect me. I know if I like something or if I don’t and I love TheAct.

Of course, my devotion to Liza Minnelli is a big part of that – but I think these songs speak for themselves.

AND THE WORLD GOES ROUND is actually not my cup of tea. I tend to think revues have to be something really special to interest me. They have to be either very original (innovative, interesting – or the other end of the spectrum: simple, sophisticated) or performed to spectacular perfection. Every time I listen to the cd from And The World Goes Round, it feels like a show created by someone in college. It just doesn’t feel or sound right to me…

That didn’t stop me from importing the Karen Mason and Karen Ziemba tracks into my Ipod. I could, would and do listen to everything these two women sing. I am devoted to both of them – I love them as performers and as people and I am never disappointed by anything they do. So I listen to their tracks from this cd that I find, otherwise, pretty bland; especially wonderful are Mason’s Colored Lights and the Isn’t This Better Trio. Ziemba’s Arthur in the Afternoon is a lot of fun and her duet with Jim Walton on Marry Me/A Quiet Thing is simply lovely. I will admit this – I love the Bob Cuccioli version of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Damn. That man can sing.

Taken out of the (what I feel to be) clumsy contrive of the flow of the revue, each of these tracks is enjoyable and there was no reason to leave them out of my Ipod because I do play them and enjoy the heck out of them. It lies, entirely, in the hands of the performers; and it just doesn’t get better than the Karens.

The Workout Room TWO PART ROWS

I'll be back to my musical theater blogging later today or tomorrow ...



In the meantime, I've decided to make some good use of this blog by talking, periodically, about a topic for which I possess enormous passion: Health and fitness.



The story I wrote about body image prompted several friends (both in life and online) to contact me for further discussion thereabout. This is nothing new for me; people often ask me for workout tips and diet tips and all that jazz. I am happy to impart any knowledge I have, whether it just be a couple of dietary tips sent to someone in email form, words of encouragement for someone trying to be healthier or even an hour together training someone so that they can be in better shape, so that they can feel better about themself.



On my Facebook profile I began posting workout videos so that a friend in a different state could use some workout tips while trying to get in better shape for a part he was playing. I think that, from time to time, it might be good for me to share those videos (and more that Pat and I will make), here, for a wider audience.



Today I'm going to show you a back exercise (and I am going to urge anyone reading this to A--workout in some, in any way, B--do so with caution and focus, so that you don't hurt yourself, C--talk to your primary healthcare giver about your intent to exercise; check to make sure you're good to go and D--if you have the wherewithall, hire a trainer. Get a professional to help you, even if it is only until you know what you are doing. You must ALWAYS protect your body from injury.



So here is a nice back exercise for youse who like to weight train.



TWO PART ROWS



Hold the handle in front of you (there are various handles you will find at the gym - I like the one that looks like 2 semi circles connected at the center spot; find the one that feels good to you); with a straight back, let it pull you forward just a little, then pull. stop. pull the rest of the way - to the belly button. Ribcage is up, shoulders are down. Control your motion. Always be in control of the weight. Use the lats. Don't jerk. Use the muscle. If you have trouble with the movement, lessen the weight. The FORM is most important. Do more reps with less weight and perfect form, rather than jerking heavy weight for fewer reps. No good comes of that. 4 sets of 20 to 25 reps. Natch, I always go for 25.

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - Random Cds

RANDOM RECORDINGS

The Trotter Trio:
Sweeney Todd in jazz
Company in jazz
Passion in Jazz
Follies Themes

Oh, I spent MONEY on these and I can NOT listen to them. I thought I liked jazz because I have a number of jazz cds from Nelson Rengell to Chris Botti; but, clearly, I like my Sondheim sung because not only did I find each one of the Terry Trotter cds unlistenable, I also couldn’t stomach:

Color and Light Jazz Sketches in Sondheim… even with the presence of my favourite living lady jazz singer, Miss Nancy Wilson, I can’t listen to this cd. I think it is because the jazz arrangements have (In my humble opinion) stripped the songs of their emotion.

I understand the Trotter Trio also took on Night Music and Forum; but I learned my lesson and saved my money.


DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT OUT OF MY CASELOGIC TO THE IPOD

A Little Night Music studio cast recording with Sian Phillips as Desiree and Maria Friedman as Petra. You know; it’s not bad. The two ladies I mention are great actresses and actresses I love. There’s just NO room in my Ipod for ONE more recording of Night Music.

Sondheim Sings Volumes one and two. I actually have both of these cds and I keep them near my stereo at home. I play them on the big machine, through the big speakers. I prefer them that way, while doing housework or work at my desk.

Marry Me a Little – most of these songs can be heard on other recordings and since I don’t particularly care for the vocals on this cd, I figured, why use up my Ipod space for it?

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - The Compilations

THE COMPILATION CDS

Unsung Sondheim has some lovely tracks on it. The instruments and arrangements sound mostly real – like someone actually showed up with instruments and played them, rather than someone using a Casio to lay down various tracks that sound like a real instrument. And the actors sound, mostly, like they are on a stage or in a club singing, rather than people deep throating a mic. Particularly good (and Ipod worthy) are Judy Kuhn (What Can you Lose), Debbie Gravitte (Water Under the Bridge), Michael Rupert (Multitudes of Amys), Kaye Ballard and Sally Mayes (There’s Always a Woman) and (most especially) Liz Callaway doing the best version, yet, of Goodbye For Now. Those are the tracks in my Ipod and I love them.

The Stephen Sondheim Album. Sigh. Well. Ok. This is hard for me to write. It’s hard for me to write because I respect the performers on the cd and I respect the producer of the cd. I just found that most of the tracks were either uninteresting, trying too hard to be something different, forced, overproduced or badly performed. I hate the Dame Edna version of Losing My Mind. I Love the Dorothy Loudon I’m Still Here. I will listen to Brian d’arcy James sing anything, especially Giants in the Sky; the same goes for Liz Callaway, who does Everybody Says Don’t on this cd. Otherwise, I cut most of the rest of the cd, except for Lea Delaria, Michelle Pawk and Norm Lewis. It just doesn’t work for me – and a big part of it is the arrangements and the electronic instruments (and if these aren’t electronic, something is really wrong, here). I wanted to love this cd and I tried, on several occasions, but couldn’t.

A Collector’s Sondheim is a great compilation from the 80’s that had a bunch of his best tracks from previous releases, as well as some songs that had never been released. Since all the tracks appear on other releases, there was no need to put any of this collection in my Ipod – though, when it was released (on vinyl!), it was quite the thing to own.

Sondheim Book of the Month Club is a fascinating little collection of songs that was released in a box set in the 80s. The songs are performed by New York performers with a degree of fame and some of these recordings are wonderful! For example, Bob Gunton and Timothy Nolan doing the song I DO LIKE YOU (cut from Forum) is WONDERFUL, as is Timothy Nolan’s EVERYBODY SAYS DON’T and Debbie (then) Shapiro’s LOSING MY MIND (it’s very quiet and touching, very heartfelt). There’s a nice GOODBYE FOR NOW by Joyce Castle and a fun THE LITTLE THINGS YOU DO TOGETHER by Timothy Nolan and Joyce Castle. There are also some pretty instrumentals of some of Sondheim’s songs. It’s a nice set to own.

Sondheim at the Movies. I really can’t listen to most of this syrupy, overproduced, underimagined collection. It is almost all so over the top and oversung (again, too close to the microphone) that I can’t listen to it. There are, though, exceptions – I like this lovely, simple, sweet vocal by Guy Haines on WHAT CAN YOU LOSE and I like Jane Krakowski’s SOONER OR LATER. I would have kept the Susan Egan track LITTLE DREAM in my Ipod because I can always listen to Susan Egan – but I don’t like the song. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of Nathan Lane and I still can’t seem to get past my personal feelings for the man. Then there is a lovely section in which Liz Callaway and Gary Beach do songs from EVENING PRIMROSE – and I can always listen to Liz Callaway (and Gary Beach is such a treasure). The sad thing is that I really wanted to like this cd. But I don’t

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - The Concert Recordings

THE CONCERTS

A Stephen Sondheim Evening is one of the most important albums in my Sondheim collection. I was in college and discovering Sondheim (really discovering him), when a friend introduced me to this record. Natch, I went right out and bought a copy. It is some of the great musical theater voices doing some of the definitive performances of these songs. I mean, does it get better than George Hearn singing With So Little to be Sure of with Victoria Mallory? And speaking of Miss Mallory, her Isn’t it is the best version of the song I’ve ever heard. This is where I learned the phenomenon of “unreleased Sondheim”, hearing songs from SATURDAY NIGHT that hadn’t been recorded and songs from FORUM that had been cut. Judy Kaye doing Another Hundred People is the MOST perfectly enunciated performance of the song I have ever heard; and her Being Alive actually IS my favourite version. Liz Callaway, one of the all time great voices, doing What More Do I Need and The Miller’s Son (my favourite performance of the song) are, alone, worth the price of purchase. But. The ultimate is Angela Lansbury singing Send in the Clowns with Sondheim on the piano. This is essential Sondheimlistening.

Sondheim Tonight is some British tribute recording that a friend gave me. It came to me, a copy; no liner notes of cd dust jacket. I imported it into my Ipod and hit play and I actually quite enjoyed it, in spite of not knowing who some of the people are. I, particularly, enjoyed the stories told by Michael Ball, Julia McKenzie and Ned Sherrin. To hear Len Cariou sing again, to hear Cleo Laine sing any time, to reunite Millicent Martin, David Kernan and Julia McKenzie.. it’s just a really good cd. I just don’t love listening to Dame Edna sing Sondheim. I love Dame Edna. I love her shows, I love her tv shows, I love her. I just think that, every time someone lets her sing a Sondheim song, it cheapens Sondheim’s work. She’s too much. The song should do the work. Dame Edna won’t let anyone else have the moment; and with Sondheim (for me) it is all about the song.

Sondheim a Musical Tribute. Heaven! Absolute heaven! It’s a concert tribute in the 70s with things like Dorothy Collins doing Losing my Mind and Alexis Smith doing How Could I Leave you. It has original cast members doing their songs (some of which ended up being cut) and stars doing songs that weren’t theirs (Nancy Walker – I’m Still Here; Dorothy Collins – Do I Hear a Waltz) and it has Angela Lansbury. That’s enough for me.

Sondheim A Celebration: The S.T.A.G.E. Benefit Concert. Well, the cds of these Los Angeles benefit concerts tend to be a crap shoot. Sometimes they are wonderful from start to finish and sometimes it is just about programming certain tracks to play. A lot of the time, the people on these cds are performers I have never heard of who overcompensate for not being famous by totally overperforming their numbers. This cd is one of those – so I just have a few numbers, the really special ones, in my Ipod. For example: The Cassidy Brothers doing You Could Drive a Person Crazy, Tim Curry singing Losing My Mind, Loretta Devine performing Not While I’m Around/Children Will Listen, Billy Porter singing Not a Day Goes By/What Can You Lose (I can always listen to ms Devine and mr Porter), Sally Mayes doing Everybody Loves Louis, Carole Cook and co singing Can That Boy Foxtrot and Miss Glynis Johns singing the song that was written for her – Send in the Clowns. Irritatingly, I was to discover, through research, that Joanna Gleason did the INCOMPARABLE song Goodbye For Now in the concert but it was not included on the cd. I almost threw the cd away in protest.

Sondheim at Carnegie Hall. This is just beautiful. I love this concert; got the dvd and watch it, have the cd and listen to it – it is just beautiful. What wonderful performances! Once the overture is over, you know you are in for something wonderful when Madeline Kahn does Not Getting Married Today; but the embarrassment of riches that is Betty Buckley doing Children Will Listen, Karen Ziemba (assisted by Bill Irwin on the dvd) doing Sooner or Later, Billy Stritch doing (what I feel is) his sexiest recording, Anyone Can Whistle, Bernadette Peters doing Not a Day Goes By, Glenn Close doing Send in the Clowns, Liza Minnelli doing TWO numbers (!), Patrick Cassidy AND Victor Garber (have mercy) doing The Ballad of Booth, Patti LuPone doing (my SECOND favourite version of) Being Alive and what is, arguably, the most special treat on the cd or dvd: Dorothy Loudon doing a medley of Losing my Mind and You Could Drive a Person Crazy. This isn’t just a cd for Sondheim files… It is a cd for anyone who loves great entertainment.

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - The Revues

THE REVUES

SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM is one really important cast album to me. I was in college when I got it and I was trying to learn as much as I could about my chosen craft: theater. I wanted to be an actor and, even though I wasn’t a singer, I dreamed of doing musicals. So I took the musical theater class and I spent my money on cast albums and I devoured all that I could – especially Stephen Sondheim. So when I picked up Side By Side, I did so knowing it was a revue and it would help me in my education. It was here that I was introduced to Julia McKenzie (oh my GOD – I have loved her ever since; she is a great actress who can do ANYTHING – including sing in an alto belt and a legit soprano) and to David Kernan (oy, what a sexy voice). I had, previously, known Millicent Martin because I had the great honour and privilege of seeing her as Dorothy Brock on Broadway. I loved and love that woman.

There I was, almost daily, listening to my Side By Side cast album and this morning I played it again (for the first time in years – isn’t it amazing how something we love can become something we never visit?) and marveling about how much I STILL love it. Some specific examples:

--Every single harmony. The three part on Everybody Says Don’t is thrilling. The women, dueting on If Mama Was Married, the arrangement of harmonies on Company.. all the harmonies are just divine (and SO well blended!).

--The album is where I, first, heard the songs I Remember Sky, I Never Do Anything Twice, We’re Gonna Be Alright and The Boy From; and those recordings remain my favourites of those songs.

--Millicent Martin’s Send in the Clowns and I’m Still Here are particularly effective, even when compared to all of the others I have heard. I’m not saying they are the definitive versions; but she makes both songs her own and she goes places that are unique to her performance. DeLISH.

--The Too Many Mornings on this recording is one of the most heartbreaking recorded. When I listen to it, I can actually see the two of them on a black stage in a pinspot.

--Julie McKenzie’s There Won’t be Trumpets is an exemplary performance.

--David Kernan doing How Could I Leave You… (?). ‘Nuff said. Brilliant.

It is just so wonderful to listen to this rich material in the hands of actors AND singers who know how to handle it, who aren’t intimidated by it to the point of pushing it. They trust the material, they have confidence in their strengths, in their talents, in each other and they work together, with each other AND the material, to create a perfect listening experience for the audience.

Pardon the expression; but –

Fuck a doodle doo!

PUTTING IT TOGETHER is one of the most oft played cds in my Ipod. It cannot be helped. It is an elegant, sophisticated, funny, sexy, smart piece of theater. They took all those songs from all those Sondheim shows and turned them into a story for this non book musical revue and, never, does any of it feel shoehorned in. That cannot be said of every other revue or jukebox musical. It also never feels, at any time, contrived, trite or boring (which DOES happen in a lot of reviews – oh, golly, don’t make me name names). The orchestrations are good and the recording of the instruments is classic – they sound like instruments and not like a Casio and they sound like they are on a stage and not in a closet.

Then there are the performers.

Michael Rupert, long my favourite boy voice on Broadway, is so gorgeous to listen to (and for the record, he remains one of my favourite boy voices, right alongside Christopher Sieber, Brian d’arcy James and Cheyenn Jackson) and he has such a quiet wistfulness on his ballads.
Stephen Collins, long my favourite actor (a list he remains on) and one of my favourite people (one of the top five nicest people with whom I worked on The Sweater Book), happens to have a wonderful and sexy singing voice.
Rachel York, who can sing anything and sound good does one of my FAVOURITE recordings of The Miller’s Son (my other favourite will be named in a subsequent blog). She is so mellifluous and sensuous when she sings. It is all from a combination of places within her, the vocal performances she delivers.
Christopher Durang. Um. Legend! And he can sing! And he’s funny!
Then there is the little matter of Dame Julie Andrews. I am left speechless. All you need to say is JULIE ANDREWS. Ok, you could also say GODDESSS. Dudes, if you haven’t heard this cd, you have to. She is (as always) SUPERLATIVE.

I saw this cd advertised in a magazine before it came out and I haunted the stores until it did and when it did, I snatched it up and played it voraciously, which I still do.

Often, I play my dvd of the Broadway production that starred Carol Burnett, George Hearn and John Barrowman. These are three people I love so much that they feel like family. George Hearn and Carol Burnett are ALSO two of the nicest people I ever worked with (she is actually in the number one spot – always has been, always will be) but they are also legendary talents (he’s one of the greatest bass/baritones (I think?) of Broadway, alongside John Raitt, Alfred Drake and Brian Stokes Mitchell (I think? Me = not a singer). They were so wonderful in that show. Pat and I sat in the fourth row and just cheered and cheered for that show. And John Barrowman, we just cheer for. He’s so marvelous. He’s like Scott Bakula – one of those celebrities we just WISH success on. We have always wanted him to flourish and been elated with each new triumph. When we saw the show, Bronson Pinchot was out and David Engel was on for him and all I can say is “Bronson Who?” Damn, that boy can sing and he looked ASTOUNDING in that suit. I still remember it. Next thing I’m going to say, quickly, and get it over with. Don’t like Ruthie Henshall, thinks she is schmacty and over the top. The rest of the show, though, thrilled us and that is why I get out my dvd to look at it. That, though, only happens a couple of times a year.

This cd, I listen to at least every other month.

Dudes, look at the cast list. I have to. It cannot be avoided.

My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - Anyone Can Whistle

ANYONE CAN WHISTLE is a show I discovered because of the cast album of SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM. My education in Sondheim took several years – it was almost as though I would choose a show and spend a year studying it; 1980 was West Side Story, 1981 was A Little Night Music AND Merrily We Roll Along, 1982 was a double header of Sweeney Todd and Company, 1983 was Follies and a more concentrated study of Gypsy (which I had known, slightly, as a teen), 1984 was Side by Side by Sondheim – and with it came all the others. As a revue, Side By Side had songs from all the Sondheim shows written to that point; so I wanted to learn more about each of the shows therein. The Anyone Can Whistle section of the Side By cast album, though, was particularly special (and I will touch on it when I get to that album). Also special was the fact that my best girlfriend at college, Marci, sang the song Anyone Can Whistle and I developed a deep love of it (both her version and the song, itself). When it came time for me to sing a song in a class, I chose Anyone Can Whistle. It remains one of my most favourite songs, to this day.

My studies revealed an unpleasant fact: Anyone Can Whistle was a flop on Broadway. Oh well. I wanted to hear it anyway. It was, after all, starring my favourite actress, Lee Remick and the most important actress in my life, Angela Lansbury. So I get the record and I played it.

Didn’t like it.

Well; I didn’t like all of it. It was SO smart, SO heady, SO far over my head that I would need an A-Frame ladder to peel it off the ceiling. I had no idea, none whatsoever, what the hell it was about, what they were singing about, or why so many of the group numbers were so discordant and noisy, so difficult to listen to. I really didn’t get it. I did, though, like Lee Remick’s recording of the title song and the song Parade in Town. The recording of Everybody Says Don’t was better on the Side by Side record; the version of There Won’t be Trumpets was also better on Side By Side and there was a beautiful With So Little to Be Sure Of on A Stephen Sondheim Evening.

So I put the record away and never played it again.

When the cd came out, I always programmed it just to play Anyone Can Whistle, Parade in Town and the reinstated There Won’t Be Trumpets.

Years later, a concert version was presented at Carnegie Hall starring Madeline Kahn, Scott Bakula and Miss Bernadette Peters. It was too expensive for us to go, so we missed. When the cd came out, I played it once and never went back. I just couldn’t seem to get into Anyone Can Whistle, no matter what stars (all of them stars I love) were in it. I liked the songs Anyone Can Whistle, Parade in Town, Everybody Says Don’t and There Won’t be Trumpets; so I put them into my playlists and left it at that.

Well, last week I put my earphones on and determined that I would play both the OBC and the concert versions, back to back, and decide if I was going to delete them and just keep the four tracks I like – or would I find that my opinion had changed?

It changed.

Oh, I still don’t get it. I don’t understand satire, I guess; and I may just be dumb about this show. BUT last week I really listened to these recordings, to these performances, to the artistry of the producers and the mixers, of the musicians and the musical directors and I found out that I LOVE Anyone Can Whistle! It turns out that the man I am, now, the man I have become, really appreciates the writing, the musicality, the sophistication of both recordings. And you couldn’t get two more different recordings! Angela Lansbury is brash, brassy and belty, while Madeline Kahn is laidback, lyrical and legit. Harry Guardino’s singing is rough and macho, while Scott Bakula’s singing is lush and manly. Lee Remick’s voice is untrained, yet pure and lovely, while Bernadette Peters’ voice is trained, yet pure and lovely.

---I want to take a minute here to say some things about these actors. First of all, one of the things I always loved about Lee Remick was her honesty. It showed up in her acting and it showed up in her singing – and, as singing goes, it isn’t always good; but it is SO honest and SO lovely that I could never, never, never help but fall in love with her, once more. I have never thought anything more of Bernadette Peters than this: she is an absolute star, a great actress and a one of a kind, one and only type of talent. I have never done more than love and worship her, her talent, her beauty. I have read (chat rooms) and heard (armchair critics) mumbo jumbo about her vocal limitations (particularly during her stint in GYPSY –and just, by the way, hers is my favourite Mama Rose I have ever seen). I recognize that she DOES have qualities that limit her performances. Sometimes her propensity for making sure that her diction is perfect makes it difficult for her to sing songs that are really fast (but if you listen to There Won’t Be Trumpets on this recording, you can just go eat some crow, after). And sometimes when she is singing, you may wonder if she is going to hit that note (but if you listen to her Anyone Can Whistle, you will hear absolute control combined with total commitment to emotional content). In fact, my favourite Anyone Can Whistle recording has always been Lee Remick’s (although David Kernan’s on the Side By Side cast album is so lush and has a discarded verse that I love); but now I am going to say that Bernadette Peters’ version is justthisclose to edging out Lee Remick. And here’s the thing. Bernadette Peters doesn’t have a PRETTY voice. No. Barbra Streisand has a pretty voice. Maureen McGovern has a pretty voice. What Bernadette Peters has is a REAL voice. It is lovely and clear as a teardrop on a crystal chandelier, it is honest and heartfelt. It has integrity and dignity. I can always listen to Bernadette Peters because I would rather feel what she is singing than hear what a pretty singer is playing. The additional treat to this cd is that she has this MAGNIFICENT scene with Scott Bakula just before singing Anyone Can Whistle and she delivers her lines with her famous and absolutely inimitable timing and pathos. Dudes, she is the end. She is just the very living end. Thank God for her. Now about Scott Bakula. Have you ever seen a celebrity and thought “I’m so happy he/she is famous? I’m so happy this person has success.” Have you ever WISHED success on someone from the moment you became aware of them? That’s Scott Bakula for me. First there was Three Guys Naked From the Waist Down; then came Designing Women – from that point on, I have been wishing success on Scott Bakula. I have thrilled with each of his triumphs, as though it were my own. Add to the concert recording Madeline Kahn, the most funniest woman on this planet, during her life; one of the celebrities for whom I wept, openly, for days, upon hearing of her death. Oh, and, by the way, the entire thing is narrated by Miss Angela Lansbury – English born, naturalized American; therefore, a national treasure in two countries – and probably a lot more that I am not naming here. She is the jewel in the crown of show business and each person who meets her should get down on their knees and kiss her hand. She is our greatest diva. So HOW could I NOT love this cd?

Well that’s the thing. I do love this cd. It’s like having a new friend – TWO new friends! The OBC and the concert versions have become my two new friends in the last week because I keep going back and listening to them both. I suspect I’ll get one of my ‘things’ about Anyone Can Whistle and drive Pat crazy with each new anecdote that I get from google and wikepedia and all the (previously unread) volumes I own about Stephen Sondheim. I imagine there will come a day when Pat says to me “could we PLEASE listen to something else today?” and I will have to take Anyone Can Whistle out of the cd player.

I’ll just play it on my Ipod at the gym.

Beautiful U R

I am going to take a brief step away from my recent blogging about musical theater cds in my Ipod to post a story that was inspired by a walk this morning. When something inspires you to sit down and write a story RIGHT NOW, you can't let a little thing like a series of theme stories keep you from posting it.

Here is a story about body image, aging gracefully, self esteem and all those other great things that we, as human beings, face every day that we choose to open our eyes.

Please be aware that, within this blog, is a (tasteful and artistic) nude of the male body. It's not pornography - it's art. If you are a person who is going to be prone to being bothered by seeing a bare male backside, please stop reading now. (It is, for the record, MY backside - and I publish it here, with full permission of my buttocks.)

I was up early to do some shopping. It is something I do – awaken early on Sundays and make the run to all the stores before the crowds hit, so I can take advantage of the sales. It was a pleasant autumn morning walk down 49th Street and through WorldWide Plaza to my first stop – Rite Aid. Standing in line at the counter to pay for my Epsom Salt and Peppermint Dentyne, I saw Sela Ward on the cover of MORE magazine. I love Sela Ward. I am interested to know what she is doing these days, interested to know what the article had to say. The harsh economic time has really come home to Two-A to roost, though, and we have eschewed the spending of money on things like magazines, so I didn’t spend the four dollars on More or Sela.

After hitting the Food Emporium and the Stiles, I wandered into Duane Reade because that is the only store that carries the Dentyne cinnamon gum that Pat and I like. There, I saw the magazine stand and Sela was right out front. Since it wasn’t at the cashier’s stand, I decided to take a moment to flip through and, at least, look at the pictures (which are, of course, beautiful). Here’s the thing that happened to me, though, the thing that left me standing at the cash register, Dentyne and Sela in hand. I happened to catch the LAST paragraph of the story about Sela Ward..

“A few years ago, the director McG told Ward that she was next in line to play the villain in CHARLIES ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE if Demi Moore didn’t take the part. Moore took it, of course, and soon appeared on the cover of People Magazine wearing a bikini. ‘I’ll never forget it.’ Ward says. ‘ I was 48 or 49, on a boat trip in the Caribbean. I looked at that picture and went, “I am never going to look like that again.” I just got tired when I looked at the cover of that magazine.’ Other actresses might have cried or booked a date with their surgeon. But they’re not Sela Ward. ‘I just said “screw it” she remembers, “can I have another glass of wine?’”

NOW.

To make the entire experience even more significant, while standing there, at the magazine stand, reading those words, my Ipod had shifted from Whitney Houston’s song Million Dollar Bill to the Deborah Cox song Beautiful U R.

“Don’t never let nobody bring you down, girl
Don’t never let nobody tear your world apart
Look in the mirror and see who you are
Beautiful U R”

I stood, the fluorescents of the Duane Reade bouncing off the polished shiny white floors, enveloping me in light as I focused on the message being thrown my way by the universe. It is a message with which I have had an ongoing relationship for several years; possibly my entire life. It is a topic with which many struggle (possibly all of us – but if you have ever met a truly, genuinely, vain person – and I have – then you know that using the word ALL in this instance would be a mistake): it is the balance of loving oneself while needing the approval of an outside force. In Hollywood, that outside force is the producer – the one who wants to hire only the young because that is who he or she believes the public wants to see. That is, surely, the point of view (or at least part of) for Sela Ward and the other women (and men; but, especially the women) working in show business. In the gay community, the outside force is our brethren, the most judgmental and scrutinizing sub-grouping of people on the planet. I don’t even want to begin to think what it must be like for people working in fashion or the world of dance. Then there is the most cutthroat and ruthless place of all: High School.

Wait.

I remember. I remember elementary school and Juniour High and High School and college and all of the scrutiny and the quest to look good. That was when I was a kid. Today I am 45 and Sela is 53 and we are STILL having to deal with this issue. Clearly, it never goes away. We are born and we are condemned to a life of trying to be pretty. Well… maybe we aren’t trying to be PRETTY – but we are all trying to look like the best versions of ourselves. I wonder if this kind of pressure is felt by the communities of other countries or if it is only in America that we live at this kind of fever pitch. I see the ads for tv shows that focus on people who commit unspeakable acts of mutilation upon their very own faces and bodies, in the name of beauty. I see (occasionally) mere minutes of interviews with people who have turned their faces into a Petri Dish and their bodies into a science experiment, in the name of beauty. And they aren’t beautiful. They’re scary. I know people who (if you will pardon my vulgarity) fuck themselves up, mentally and physically, by dieting to an extreme that shocks even me; I know people who (if you will pardon my crassness) fuck themselves up, mentally and physically, by over training (and people who know me are rolling their eyes right now but I promise you – I don’t overtrain: I have seen overtraining and that isn’t me). People do these things all in the name of beauty. And for what? Whose approval do they seek? Whose attention do they seek? Whose love do they need?

I have really appreciated the recent years when magazines have written stories about the HEALTHY women in the public eye – women who aren’t afraid of having curves. I have really loved the publicity given to the women we all look at who are beautiful WITHOUT giving in to the heartsickening trend of wearing a drum canvas as their face. I have really appreciated the attention given to living healthier lives and having healthier self esteem, to learning to love YOUR SELF. I mean, that’s what it is all about, isn’t it? Aren’t we all trying to just be loved? To just be approved of?

Clearly, Sela Ward and Deborah Cox approve of themselves. They are not alone. There are a lot of people who have found that love and who don’t (who won’t) buckle under the pressure. I love those people. I tell you now, I am not one of them. Oh, I’m learning to be one of them. It is a continual evolution for me; and one I have discussed with friends and in countless blogs as I make this journey. The thing is, like many other people, I have the answers for YOUR life; but not for my own. Well. That’s not necessarily true. I am a pretty smart dude and I can see the truth MOST of the time – it is only about 30 percent of the time that I can’t clear away the haze and that 30 percent is almost always, exclusively, regarding myself. At least it is only 30 percent, though, right? Maybe even 25…

Anyway; on the subject of loving oneself, on the topic of being beautiful, on the matter of seeking approval, I find myself (continually!) studying, searching, evolving in my opinions and my behavioural patterns. I observe people, both celebrities that I don’t know and loved ones that I REALLY know, to learn what is inside peoples’ individual and collective minds. I don’t have any answers, yet; but I have questions, questions, questions – and, frankly, I think that the questions are more important than the answers. I want, I seek, I NEED to know where we are all heading with regards to this issue. I’d like to share some of my observations with anyone reading this story and I’d LOVE to hear any thoughts, honest thoughts, about this matter. Please, dear reader, share…

---I was talking to my friend, Marci, telling her about something I observed about her in the last few years. You see, she is a woman I have known awhile and I have watched her change over the years and I noticed that in the last few years she has been walking differently. She has been carrying herself differently. She is looking extremely beautiful and sexy; and she is not a kid (though I am not about to actually give her age in this story). She is a woman who has grown more sexy and whose carriage reflects a change; and I asked her what that change was. She told me that she was focusing on accepting, on loving herself as she is. She has been learning to OWN herself. She asks herself is it a perfect body? No. Is it a real body? Yes. Is it HER body? Yes; and it’s the only one she has – she had better love it. So she owns her no longer in its’ twenties body and she loves it and she walks with more pride and self confidence and THAT is sexy – THAT is beautiful. And, dudes, everywhere she goes, people are saying “YOU look AMAZING.”.

---I have noticed that my friend, Jane (another woman I have known for a lot of years), is actually at her most beautiful since, first, I met her. She is an actress in her fifties who has grown into her body, her psyche, her sexuality. I’ve watched her hairstyles and body change in many ways but I’ve also watched her personality and philosophies change and it, genuinely, affects the way your face and body look. There’s a lot to the whole Dorian Gray thing – your outward appearance is reflected by what’s inside; and as this girlfriend of mine has learned about life and who she is, as she has learned about what is important and what is just bullshit that needs to be let go of, she has become more spiritual, more knowledgeable and more beautiful. She is OWNING herself.

Ah ha. We have a theme here.

---I have a lot of gay friends (HELLO!) and they are ALL consumed by their looks. Whether they have them, whether they don’t, what are their strengths, what are their flaws; each one has a different point of view and, trust me, we have almost ALL shared them. Mind you, we have never gotten together in one mass group and talked about it, but I can promise you, one on one, we have shared these fears, concerns and annoyances. And you know what? They are all the same. We want to be pretty. We want to pretty for ourselves. We want to be pretty for the men who are looking. We want to be pretty for the men who AREN’T looking. We want to be pretty for our jobs. We want to be pretty. Pick a reason. Fish in a barrel. In the same way that the grocery store magazine scrutinize the celebrities, the gay boyz want to be pretty because they know that some man, at some point during this day, is going to scrutinize us the same way. The thing is – we are all different people. We are all different body types AND personality types AND mental types. I have friends who are tall and skinny and can’t build muscle to save their lives. I have friends who are overweight (pick the word of your choice – fat, chubby, Rubenesque – they are all the same, depending on your comfort zone) and who can’t take off the weight to save their lives. I have friends who are beefy muscular and wish they were ripped. I have friends who are lean and cut and wish they were meatheads. I have friends who have great tits and skinny legs and I have friends who have great legs and want bigger arms. The scenarios change from boy to boi, from man to Man; the particulars aren’t important – what is important is that, we are all together in this mindset. The sad part about it is this: in the gay community (I have seen it, I know whereof I speak) there is too much hatred; hatred of self, hatred of others, hatred of all. I know good looking guys who hate other good looking guyz because of what I call professional jealousy. I know regular guys who hate good looking guyz because of envy. I know good looking guys who hate regular guyz because of elitism. It is all a crap shoot. What I WISH… What I WANT… What I DREAM is that we could all just bloody love one another and be nice to each other and validate each other. Of course, I would like to see it within the gay community because that’s where I live – them’s my peeps, as it were; but it needs to be more global. It needs to be a universal theme, ok? Why .. sorry, I meant to say WHY?! Can’t we just all love one another and be a little more kind to each other and help each other learn to love, oh, I don’t know, OUR SELVES?

There’s a question for ya. Right?

---I have some friends who work in businesses that require them to look a certain way. Whether they be fashion pros, adult film industry professionals, health and fitness workers, it is a part of their job to look a certain way. I’m like that. I work, from time to time, as a trainer. I’m a trainer of the old school: I’m not certified but I have spent ENOUGH time in the gym to train people. That’s not enough for me, so I’m studying to get my certification. As a trainer (or ‘would be trainer’) I feel the pressure to look a certain way. For that reason, I work out a lot and I pay strict attention to my diet. I’ve been the subject of much derision and a many jokes but I can take the hits. My shoulders are broad. I and my loved ones know the truth: I train just enough (even taking breaks of up to a week without working out!) and I eat healthily (but not so healthily that I denied myself some cookies and cupcakes from http://www.thischickbakes.com/ recently!). That’s because I am on a quest to love myself for who I am and I have found that part of who I am is someone who works out hard and diets hard and part of who I am is someone who likes an occasional Peanut Butter Blast or Red Velvet Cupcake from This Chick Bakes. And I can do that without making myself into a crazy person. That’s not the case with everyone. A person I know who works in health and fitness has developed a kind of an eating disorder by dieting and exercising to extreme lengths to reach a certain physical goal, only to binge eat and, then, emotionally flagellate themself, once that goal has been reached. It hurts to watch. It hurts to do (I’ve done it – I don’t do it anymore). The point is, I can understand when you have to have discipline and focus for your JOB; as long as you focus (also) on the fact that it IS your JOB. That can help maintain your sanity, you know? Like most jobs, though, there comes a time when you have to take off the tie or the nametag and be yourself. That’s where you go that is, totally, safe, where you allow yourself to take off that hat of physical perfection in the name of work and be yourself – the person who can just be loved for who they are. You NEED that time to decompress and acknowledge your SELF worth. If you are lucky enough to have someone who lives with you in that place who can validate you at those times, God bless you. If you don’t, though, you must, you must, you must learn to give YOURSELF that validation BY YOURSELF.

---I was watching something on tv and I saw a famous actress who, in her youth, had been a great beauty; as an older woman she still looked wonderful but she was, indeed, an older woman. I found myself thinking about my mother (the prettiest girl I ever met) and wondering what it must be like for her… As a young woman she was beautiful in that way that Elizabeth Taylor was beautiful –devastating. Now she is a woman in her 70s with four grown children and five grandchildren. She is a grandma with the physicality of a grandma. What must that be like? I remarked on it to Pat and he replied that the aging process is PARTICULARLY difficult for women. I suppose that is true. I imagine that even women like Katharine Hepburn, Jeanne Moreau, AUDREY HEPBURN (the most beautiful person EVER, as the play The Little Dog Laughed declared), who have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of confidence, hate getting older. What about that great scene in the film The Mirror Has Two Faces, where Barbra Streisand asks Lauren Bacall how did it feel? Then she describes how she sees the gift of beauty to her mother and asks, again, how it felt to be beautiful. Bacall (a, once, legendary beauty), closes her eyes for a moment and (with heartwrenching honesty and a wealth of personal knowledge) replies, wistfully: “It was wonderful.” To be a beautiful woman and watch that beauty change, whether you are lucky enough to change with it or unlucky enough to be destroyed by it, cannot be an easy part of this life.

---My friend is a go go boy. He has spent his entire adult life building a career and a lifestyle around how he looks. He’s not a kid anymore; he’s in his 30s and he’s begun to tire of just being pretty. He has begun to resent people for not seeing all the parts of him. He wants people to know he is smart and he is funny; but he has been a beauty for so long, now, that he cannot seem to get out of the beartrap. People are unwilling to let him live outside of the box he has put himself in; and he is having difficulty breaking free of the crutch of validation that comes from being an objet du desir. It’s that vicious cycle of which we have all heard and read.

OHMYGOD!!! How do we do it? How do we traverse the delicate balance that is the tightrope of owning yourself, owning your beauty (inner and out) and feeling the validation from others? Do we work harder or do we relax a little? Do we become Tony Horton and train, train, train; or do we become Sela Ward and have another glass of wine, Shirley? That’s a personal journey, one we all must take alone. We may not be alone in life, but it’s a journey we take alone, in our heads. Speaking for myself, as someone who is on this quest (and who has been for several years) I know that, for me, the answer is to just keep moving. I actually love being middle aged (though I am not sure what middle aged is because I think that if I continue to live the way I am, now, I should live to be a hundred and ten) because it has made me smarter, more confident, more honest and sexier – oh, wait; that’s my husband I am talking about. LOL. No, actually, Pat and I seem to be lucky enough to be taking the journey together. Inside our heads, we deal with our issues with ourself and with God; but in life we have the happy companionship of a friend who is on the same path – each other; our spouses. Actually, if you look at our circle of friends (personally speaking but, also, generally speaking, for I see it all around in many other family circles I observe), if you consider that several of them are our contemporaries who have similar histories (even if, only, fractionally), we aren’t really walking the evolutionary road together. We are walking it en masse.

To that end, we are never alone. We are not alone when with our families; we are not alone when with whatever God we believe in; we are not alone when we are secure in our own skin, when we are with our SELVES. We must, first, find ourselves and love ourselves; perhaps not absolutely (I know few people who do) – but if we work at it and evolve, we can learn to see how beautiful is the person beside us, the person behind us, the person in front of us.

We can learn to see how beautiful is the person looking back at us from the mirror.

You want to hear something I have taken to saying, quit often? Usually it is to someone who is over forty who is discussing, with me, their experience of being over forty, their experience dealing with the aging process and staying happy, healthy and looking good?

"Here's to NOT aging. Gracefully."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dsgMxc5-uY

Please Note: I did not shoot the photo of Sela Ward on the cover of MORE - I simply scanned in the cover from the current issue. I DID shoot the photos of Marci (colour), Jane (black and white) and Pat (colour). The photo of my mother is from my personal collection and the photo of me was done by the great Thomas Synnamom. Deborah Cox's music video BEAUTIFUL U R is posted here courtesy of Youtube