Wonderful World Beautiful People | johnozed

Late posting tonight. But I have a good excuse, no really I do! Bill and I went out for his birthday today. I had off from work today. Just 2 more days of real work then I guess I’m on the dole.

Today I slept in, until 10:00 and got myself together and set about running errands. I had a schedule to follow since we had tickets to a Broadway show, In The Heights.

Bill had laundry to be picked up so I did that for him. I ran into Stine and Alexander who was fascinated by a string on a tree. Also stopped by the Guitar Bar where I lent Jim Mastro the Brian Eno biography I just finished.

It was a beautiful day once again, no rain. I headed into the city and wandered around before meeting up with Bill at 6:30.

I was early and so was Bill. That was nice. We walked around Times Square before heading into John’s Pizzeria on 44th Street. It’s the midtown branch of the John’s Pizzeria on Bleecker Street.

This is a nice place, high ceilings and loads of tourists. Good pizza though. I really like the stained glass ceiling.

I also spoke to the waiter and told him it was Bill’s birthday and had 2 slices of chocolate cake, one with a candle on it. No singing from other customers just me and Bill doing a quick run through. A few pints of Guinness were involved as well.

I was lucky and surprised that I was able to keep Bill out of the loop with regards to the show we were seeing. A few weeks ago on PBS we watched a documentary on the making of In The Heights, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2008.

There’s nothing quite like seeing live theater and this was a very special show. We both loved the documentary but I didn’t think about getting tickets for the show until last week.

I get email subscriptions for some Broadway ticket discount groups and In The Heights was having a special. Orchestra seats for about $50.00 a ticket which is quite a bargain these days.

I had seen the commercials for In The Heights on TV and you can feel the emotion of it’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in the ad. Maybe it’s because he just won the Tony, but hey, the guy followed his dream which took him to the Great White Way.

He’s not in the show anymore but his replacement Javier Munoz did a very good job

Did a better job than Paul Simon’s The Capeman too. Also Justina Machado is in the play, she played Fernando’s wife on Six Feet Under. Man, she could sing!

Just a great, fun and moving show. Gets close to cliché but doesn’t cross that line. In fact there were one or two times I found myself getting misty during some songs.

Really a well done show that both Bill and I enjoyed very much. Bill also thanks the many friends that sent him birthday greetings.

A nice walk to the bus terminal where we both helped a little old lady across the street. Really, we did. Another splendid day, all for Bill which was quite nice.

So far we’ve seen shows both on and off Broadway for the past three years. In 2007 we saw Passing Strange at the Public Theater. That was really good.

Last year we saw Xanadu which was a lot of fun and also a thrill having seats on stage. We’re doing our bit keeping theater alive, as are the thousands of tourists roaming around. If you get a chance, see In The Heights.

Or visit Harpy in the heights, and I’m sure he will do his interpretive Anglicized version of it. You might have to ask nicely. Or merely ask.

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Well today has been a most pleasant kind of day. Last night was a pretty good night as well. Juan had conked out on the couch and when Bill came home he just moved into the bedroom while Bill and I watched the endless stream of Michael Jackson videos and reports.

It was entertaining and called for some good discussions about Michael. How good looking he was as a young man and then- what the hell happened? In that mug shot from 2005 he looked like Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford.

It’s a shame he hated his face so much. Just looking at him during the Off the Wall era he is freakin’ adorable.

We got Juan up in time so Bill could go to sleep and then I kicked his sleepy butt out. No fire detectors going off, all was well.

Woke up around 10:00, did a lot of walking around Manhattan with Juan yesterday plus coming down from my ecstatic adventure on Friday night lead to a very good night’s sleep.

Bill was off to church. He did mention on Friday night walking in the parade with his church on Sunday and in my condition I was very surprised, but yesterday I decided to do it.

To my chagrin last night he decided not to join the parade. It’s his mother’s birthday today (Feliz cumpleanos Elena!) and he wanted to spend time with her after taking her to church. That was more than fine with me.

I got up and had some coffee and went out for the papers. More Michael Jackson videos and reports as well as the print media coverage. I did go out again and walked to Tunes to pick up something for Julio’s birthday.

My first intention was Dark Was The Night, but they didn’t have it in stock. Instead I got a used copy of Bob Dylan’s Tell Tale Signs. I burned a copy of Dark Was The Night, and since I missed Stine’s birthday last month I burned her a copy of The Essential Michael Jackson, figuring since she’s European she probably liked him a lot more that Julio.

Hopefully I’ll get the discs to them tonight. Bill is napping. We’re going to go out for dinner in about a half hour, and then we’ll walk over to the river to watch the fireworks for NYC Pride 2009. It’s the first year that Bill and I didn’t march or do anything in a while.

And this being the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising you’d think we would have done something, but we didn’t. We’re tired. Not to make excuses but we have participated in demonstrations throughout the year.

I did have a last minute thought about joining the Gay Bloggers contingent, aptly numbered as Section 8, but it was too late to motivate. Instead I rode about 5 miles around Hoboken which was good.

I’m going to have to wake Bill up in a few minutes so we could go out to eat. I may be posting some pics later so have a peek in a few hours to see what the world of Hoboken looks like tonight.

Or don’t.