Born On This Day- August 22nd... Dorothy Parker

"3 highballs & I'm St. Francis of Assisi."

As a screenwriter in Hollywood in the 1930s, she irritated Samuel Goldwyn with her stream of caustic remarks.

Goldwyn complained: "Wisecracks, I told you there's no money in wisecracks. People want a happy ending."

Parker: "I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions & billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending." 

"One more drink & I'd have been under the host."

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I played a wonderful character named- Banjo, inspired by Harpo Marx, in a play – The Man Who Came To Dinner, that was based on a real life incident in the life of Algonquin Round Table regular- Alexander Woollcott.

I usually over-research my character work as an actor & I was sent into an Algonquin Round Table jag that lasted for decades. I read everything I could by & about these interesting, talented & witty friends & colleagues during one of NYC’s richest periods. I have books about & by Alexander Woollcott, Edna Ferber, Robert Benchley, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kauffman, Herbert Ross & S.J. Perelman, but Dorothy Parker was the personality that engaged me the most. I believe I had read everything by her by the time I was 21.

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks."

When I lived in NYC in the 1970s, my handsome, sexy, neurotic, born in NYC boyfriend- Stephen (he looked like the young Frank Langella. I wonder if he now looks like present day Langella?) took me on a Dorothy Parker's Manhattan tour one autumn day, with stops at her girlhood home on the Upper West Side, the Algonquin Hotel, Woollcott’s home- Wits End, the Waldorf-Astoria, the old offices of the New Yorker, & the restaurant- 21.

She led an interesting & difficult life, with a troubled childhood, 3 marriages ( 2 to the same man & 1 to a homosexual), & several suicide attempts, but her her caustic wit, talent, wisecracks & sharp eye for urban sophisticates & their foibles endure.

She has been portrayed on film & TV by Dolores Sutto in Hollywood (1976), Rosemary Murphy in Julia (1977), Bebe Neuwirth in Dash & Lilly (1999) & most interestingly by Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs. Parker & The Vicious Circle (1994). Neuwirth was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance & Leigh received a number of awards & nominations, including a Golden Globe nomination.

Parker was an early defender of human & civil rights. She left here estate to the NAACP. Parker's ashes are buried at that organization’s Baltimore Headquarters. She had suggested that her epitaph read- “Excuse my dust”

"You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

Born On This Day- June 18th... Berenice Abbott

If you were to click on the label at the bottom of my posts you would discover that I have a very real passion for Photography, whether it is formal portraiture, commercial work, art photography, or found snapshots. I have a sizable & thought provoking collection of vintage photographs of men being affectionate, which I like to share with readers.

My passion for photography + my keen interest in architecture brings me to today’s birthday- Berenice Abbott. Abbott was a celebrated photographer of NYC architecture. She shot using a Century Universal Camera which produced 8 x 10 inch negatives; this large format camera was the instrument that Abbott used to photographed NYC with diligence & attention to detail. Her work has provided an historical chronicle of many now destroyed buildings & neighborhoods of Manhattan.

Abbott by Man Ray 1925

Abbott by Hank O'Neal 1979

During the Great Depression, Abbott was hired by the Federal Art Project (FAP) as a project supervisor for the Changing New York project. She would take the photographs of the city, but had assistants to help her both in the field & in the office. This arrangement allowed Abbott to devote all her time to producing, printing, & exhibiting her photographs. By the time she resigned from the FAP in 1939, she had produced 305 photographs that were added to the collection at the Museum of the City of New York.

Self Portrait 1937

When she first arrived in NYC, Abbott shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with writer Djuna Barnes, philosopher Kenneth Burke, & literary critic Malcolm Cowley. She pursued journalism, but soon became interested in theater & art, inspired by her friends Eugene O'Neill & Man Ray. Abbott first became involved with photography in 1923, when Man Ray, looking for somebody who knew nothing about photography & would do as he said, hired her as a darkroom assistant at his portrait studio in Montparnasse. Abbott: "I took to photography like a duck to water. I never wanted to do anything else." Ray was impressed by her darkroom work & allowed her to use his studio to take her own photographs.

In 1935, Abbott fell in love & moved into a Greenwich Village apartment with the art critic- Elizabeth McCausland. They were a couple for 30+ years until McCausland's death in 1965. In the early 1960s Abbott & McCausland traveled US Highway # 1 from Florida to Maine, with Abbott shooting the small town & automobile-related architecture. The project resulted in more than 2,500 photographs. Not only was Abbott a photographer, but also an inventor & innovator. She developed the distortion easel, which created unusual effects on images developed in a darkroom, & the telescopic lighting pole, known today by photographers as an "autopole," to which lights can be attached at any level.

Shortly after McCausland’s death, Abbott underwent a lung operation. She was told she should move from NYC because of the air pollution. She bought a rundown house in Maine, remaining there until her death in 1991. Abbott continued to work after her move to Maine. Her last book was A Portrait of Maine in 1968.

The Chrysler Building Turns 81 On This Day- May 28th

I am zany about architecture & design, & certain buildings & structures really grab my attention & move me, among them (these are structures that I have actually visted): the Woolworth's Building (NYC), the Duomo in Sienna, the Space Needle, the Hollywood Sign, the Boston Public Library, the Brooklyn Bridge, Chateau de Versailles, Church of San Spirito (Florence) The Cliff Dwellings of Mesa Verde, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, The Flatiron Building, Freeway Park (Seattle), The Golden Gate Bridge, the Customs House (Portland), Leaning Tower of Pisa, Lovejoy Fountain Plaza (Portland), Lovell House (L.A.), Mount Vernon (Virginia), MOMA (NYC), Paris Metro Entrances, Piazza del Campo(Sienna), Piazza of San Marco (Venice), Rockefeller Center, Santa Maria Novella (Florence), San Simeon (California), San Stefano (Venice), Sears Tower (Chicago), Seattle Public Library, Seagram Building (NYC), Saint Mark’s (Venice), Statue of Liberty, Stonehenge, the Louvre, the White House, Transamerica Pyramid (SF), the Custom House (Venice,), Washington Monument, Watts Towers (L.A.), Capitol Records Building (Hollywood), Shaker Barns, Covered Brudges, Tuscan Farmhouses, Yurts, Fairie Structures at Collin’s Beach- Sauvie Isalnd, & St. Johns Bridge (Portland).

My favorite man-made structure in the world is The Chrysler Buliding in NYC. At the beginning of the 20th century, the race for the tallest building in the world was on & the Chrysler Building was the first building to top the then tallest structure, the Eiffel Tower.

The Chrysler Building was in a race with the Bank of Manhattan (40 Wall Street) for the distinction of being tallest building in the world. It seemed certain that the Bank of Manhattan would win the race, with an expected height of 927ft against 755ft for the Chrysler building, but the spire of the Chrysler building was constructed in secret inside the tower.

Just a week after the Bank of Manhattan had reached its top, the spire of the Chrysler Building was put in place, making it 318 meter (1045ft) high, thus beating the Bank of Manhattan as the tallest building in the world. It would not keep this title for long, a year later the Empire State Building was erected.

The Art Deco Chrysler Building features gargoyles that depict Chrysler car ornaments & the spire is modeled on a radiator grille. The building's Art Deco interior is even more magnificent than its exterior. The marble floors & the Art Deco patterns on the stylish elevator doors make the Chrysler Building one of New York's most beautiful towers.

Annie Leibovitz attempting to get that perfect shot

When I lived in Manhattan in the mid-1970s, I never grew tired of looking up & I never was less then thrilled when I caught a glimse of this stunning tower. Like most of the structures on my list, viewing them was made more special by watching the Husband’s reaction to expereincing these wonders of design.

Born On This Day- May 15th... American Artist Jasper Johns

I have a passion for 20th century American art, & I have always been fascinated with the 1950s, when these geniuses produced their astonishing works while closeted, but whose gayness was really an open secret: Montgomery Clift & James Dean, Paul Cadmus, George Platt Lynes, Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, James Merrill, Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Lincoln Kirstein, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Ned Rorem, Langston Hughes, Philip Johnson.

Jasper Johns was a Southern Gentleman from South Carolina. In 1953, after a stint in the army, he moved to NYC with the notion of becoming of an artist or writer. Within just a few years he had created the iconic- Flag, & White Flag & within a half a decade he would have 4 paintings in the permanent collection of MOMA. Within a decade, he would be considered the greatest living American artist.


Jasper Johns fell in love with fellow artist-Robert Rauschenberg, who became an inspiration to the younger man. Rauschenberg: “We gave each other permission.” Spurring each other on creatively, Johns painted many works of familiar objects: numerals, letters, maps, flags, letters, that captivated the art world, when NYC was the center of all things art. Johns & Robert Rauschenberg were lovers from 1955-1961, the era of their best & most important work. They had living/working lofts on the same building & went freely between their spaces. Although the  men lived & worked together, it was Johns who received the most acclaim.

Jasper Johns: “I don’t want my work to be an exposure of my feelings,” He painted conventional subjects, which left the critics to ponder the explanation of his rough brushstrokes & saturnine surfaces. Johns’s work is about tension between knowing & not knowing, the explained & the unexplained. His paintings carry a secret.

His 1955 work-Target With Plaster Casts consisted of 9 wooden boxes with hinged doors, each box held of a body part. One of them was a detailed penis. A representative of the Museum of Modern Art, asked I if it would be acceptable if that particular box stayed closed? Johns: “It would be all right to keep the lid closed some of the time but not all of the time.”

In NYC, Johns met musical composer John Cage & his partner choreographer Merce Cunningham,a significant contributor to the modern dance world concert stages. Johns collaborated with Cunnigham’s work by designing sets & costumes, & became an artistic advisor to his company. Johns, Cage & Cunningham collaborated in 1973 on Cunningham’s piece- Un Jour ou Deux. These 4 gay men, never displayed explicit homosexual content in any of their works.


Johns & Rauschenberg split up because of the discomfort of being recognized as a couple outside of their circle. Rauscheberg: “What had been sensitive & tender became gossip” . Johns recalled the time he was reading Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,& Rauschenberg stated: “One day they’ll be writing about us like that.” Johns was not pleased by Rauschenberg’s comparison to the lesbian couple.


Their breakup was so bitter that they both left NYC, & they both returned to the south for an extended period. They didn't speak for more than a decade. In 1961, as the relationship was ending, Johns produced a painting- In Memory of My Feelings, Frank O’Hara, taking the name from a poem by O’Hara about gay love & the price paid for suppressing it. The poem's first line: “My quietness has a man in it.”. Johns became reclusive, & moved to an estate in  Connecticut. He almost never gives interviews. Johns’ & Rauschenberg’s relationship was the deepest & most important of their entire lives. Rauschenberg died 2 years ago this week

Robert Rauschenberg: “Jasper was soft, beautiful, lean, & poetic. I have photos of him then that would break your heart.”

Avedon

"All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth."

Richard Avedon

Self Portrait

What do Jean Genet, Jimmy Durante, Brigitte Bardot, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jacques Cousteau, Andy Warhol, & Lena Horne have in common? They are just a few of the many personalities caught on film by photographer Richard Avedon. For 50+ years, Avedon’s portraits have filled the pages of the country’s best magazines. His stark imagery & brilliant insight into his subjects’ characters has made him one of the most important American portrait photographers.

I am a fan photography, with a special weakness for 20th century photographers. I find myself returning to various images over & over. I have always been captivated by Richard Avedon's ability to tell a story in a deceptively simple photo. I always wanted him to do the cover for my early album from 1970- Candy Coated Codine, Cognac, Consolation & Cowboys.


Avedon was among the first to challenge the conventional boundaries between studio photography & reportage. Some of his portraits: a young Bob Dylan standing in the rain, Marilyn Monroe caught in a vulnerable moment, Andy Warhol & his Factory crew, are the most iconic of the 20th century.

His daring style rejected conventional poses & instead captured both motion & emotion in the faces of his subjects, catching the intrigue in a single honest moment.


From his breakthrough Paris fashion work in the 1950s; his portrait of American counterculture in the 1960s & 1970s; his Reagan era series, with an emphasis on ordinary people living in the western United States; & his portraits of the nation's most influential people, his work live on.

Along with his work in the magazine industry, Avedon has collaborated on a number of books of portraits. In 1959 he worked with Truman Capote on a book that documented some of the most famous & important people of the century. Observations included images of Buster Keaton, Gloria Vanderbilt, Pablo Picasso, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Lloyd Wright, & Mae West.

In the early 1960s he began a series of images of patients in mental hospitals. Replacing the environment of the studio with that of the hospital ,he could recreate the genius of his other portraits with non-celebrities. The brutal reality of the lives of the insane was a bold contrast to his other work. In the 1980s & 1990s he would mover from his celebrity portraits to a series of studio images of drifters, carnival workers, & working class Americans.


Richard Avedon was born on this day- May 15th, in 1923 in NYC to Russian Jewish parents; he died in 2004 of a cerebral hemorrhage in San Antonio, Texas, where he was on assignment for The New Yorker.

Born On this Day- May 4th... Impresario Lincoln Kirstein

I know more about dance & it’s history than most civilians because my boyfriend in college was/ is a dancer- the fabled Walter Kennedy. Because of him, I have an interest in dance & the Husband & I enjoy dance concerts. If I could have any talent, it would have been to be able to dance like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly , Bob Fosse, or Baryshnikov. I am also a student of life in NYC in the 1940s- 1970s, & today’s birthday gay is an absorbing figure of that epoch.

He was a writer, impresario, art connoisseur & major 20th century cultural figure in NYC. Lincoln Kirstein's assorted attractions, ambition & attention to high culture, along with a small fortune, gave him a circle of accomplished friends: George Platt Lynes Jared French, Katherine Anne Porter, Barbara Harrison, Gertrude Stein, Cecil Beaton, Jean Cocteau, Walker Evans, & Sergei Eisenstein among many others.

Like my infamous sex diaries, Kirstein kept records, beginning in summer camp in 1919 until the late 1930's, making note of enjoying sex with men: Harvard undergraduates, sailors, street boys, in the showers at the 63rd St YMCA. He enjoyed long affairs with dancer Pete Martinez, artist Dan Maloney, & conservator Jensen Yow. Casual sex frequently grew into longterm friendships.

Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein by Pavel Tchelitchew, Portrait (1937)

In 1941, he married Fidelma Cadmus, the sister of one of my favorite artists- Paul Cadmus. Kiestein & his wife had an amicable but stressful relationship until her death in 1991. Some of his boyfriends lived with them in their East 19th townhouse; His wife was enormously fond of most of them. The NYC art world considered his gayness an "open secret," although he did not publicly acknowledge his homosexuality until 1982.

Kirstein was the primary patron of his wife’s brother, buying many of his paintings & subsidizing his living expenses. Cadmus had difficulty selling his work through galleries because of the erotically charged depictions of working class men, which provoked great controversy.

Kirstein's tastes were clear & confident. He was an advocate for American arts. A man of culture, commitment & courage, he is best known for making possible the career of the choreographer George Balanchine in the United States. He dedicated himself to classical ballet in the USA for 60+ years. He was also a prolific writer on the subjects of dance & art, a poet, a passionate art collector, an organiser of cultural events, & an adviser to government.

Kirstein by Walker Evans (1930)

In Venice in 1929, while researching El Greco, he happened upon on Diaghilev's funeral. The event had a profound effect on young Kirstein. He studied the history of dance & took ballet classes. He came upon the notion of bringing a distinguished choreographer to found a ballet tradition in the USA. He was able through her to secure an introduction to George Balanchine, the choreographer whose work he most admired.

Kirstein founded & financed the School of American Ballet, as the center for Balanchine's work. Kirstein would remain the board chairman until 1989. He was also the backbone behind Balanchine's companies: the American Ballet Company, The Ballet Society, & the NYC Ballet, where he served as general director until 1989. Kirstein founded a touring group- Ballet Caravan, in order to stage ballets by American choreographers on American themes, including Eugene Loring's, Billy the Kid, one of several works with librettos by Kirstein.

Kirstein was instrumental in the development of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, where the NYC Ballet was in residence. Not limiting himself to dance, he was a founder of the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre at Stratford, Connecticut.

During WW2, Kirstein served with the US Army in England, France & Germany. In 1945, he discovered & supervised the recovery of the huge collection of art looted by Nazis.

In his later years, Kirstein struggled from depression, & paranoia. He destroyed the studio of his friend Dan Maloney, & sometimes was in a straitjacket for weeks at a psychiatric hospital. His illness did not affect his professional creativity until the end of his life.

Kirstein involved himself in the civil rights marches in Alabama in 1965. He was also a firm supporter of Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem from its earliest stages.

Lincoln Kirstein by Jamie Wyeth (1965)

Kirstein requested that there be no religious service when he died, & that no religious words be spoken as his ashes were scattered across the pond near his country house. There were a only dozen mourners, & the wind blew some of the ashes back in their faces. He had lived that kind of a life.

Born On This Day- May 4th... Artists & Gay Icon Keith Haring

Someone stole my beloved Keith Haring Swatch watch. I think I know who it was, but when queried, they denied any possibility that they were responsible for it having gone missing. I saw the same one on EBay for $1600. The Husband: “you couldn’t get $1600 for that watch. You loved that Swatch into a state of being 'very used'. I wish I had $1600, I would buy you a new one.”

For most of the 1980s, I had prints of Keith Haring drawings & paintings, torn from Interview Magazines & displayed on the fridge. Unbelievable, there is a Haring, held by a Warhol magnet on my 2010 stainless steel refrigerator this morning. Some things just don’t change. The display face on my I-phone phone is a Keith Haring barking dog.

Keith Allen Haring was born May 4, 1958, in Reading, Pennsylvania, & grew up in Kutztown, a small Pennsylvania Dutch farm community. As a child, he fervently drew cartoons & gradually progressing to more complex compositions. He saw a display of Andy Warhol's work when he was in his teens, & was impressed by that artist's flat lines, his use of pop icons & mundane objects, & Warhol’s concept of mass-produced art. Warhol's elevation of the commonplace into art would be the crux of Haring's art.

He moved to NYC in 1980, to be at the center of both the art world & the gay community. He began to create his own graffiti of ambiguous looking animals & a human figure on all 4s, in the city's subways. Haring was employed as an assistant to gallery owner Tony Shafrazi, who gave him his first major exhibition in 1982.

During the mid-1980s, Haring's work brought him wealth & celebrity. His fans included Yoko Ono, Dennis Hopper, & even Andy Warhol himself. Madonna, explains that his art had such a vast appeal because "there was a lot of innocence & a joy that was coupled with a brutal awareness of the world."

Haring was among the generation of gay men lost in the first wave of the AIDS epidemic. He was diagnosed in late 1988, but continued his art until the very end, when he could no longer hold a pencil or brush. Haring's bold lines & figures carry poignant messages of vitality & unity. His legacy made an impact on late 20th century art.


Keith Haring was 31 years old when he died in NYC in 1990. He would have been 54 years old today. I cried this morning thinking about writing this post: for Keith being gone too soon, too young, for my loss of innocence, for my missing Keith Haring Original Swatch.

Until his death Keith Haring was devoted to creating cultural awareness about the disease & other gay rights issues. The Keith Haring Foundation was established in 1989 to assist AIDS related & children's charities, & still maintains the archives of his work. Haring generously contributed his talents to art workshops with children, created logos & posters for public service agencies, & produced murals, sculptures, & paintings to benefit health centers & disadvantaged communities. His foundation continues his legacy indefinitely. He leaves me a vision for the future.

The missing Swatch. If I left it under your bed in the late 1980s, may I please have it back?

Haring by Annie Leibovitz

"My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can. Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man & the world. It lives through magic."

Born On This Day- April 28th... Cabaret Great Blossom Dearie

I am going to become a recluse. I can feel it coming on. Under the new austerity program, I have to diminish my participation in 2 of my favorite activities: cocktail sipping & shopping, & I look so damn feeble, I figure… why not just stay home? I think I am going to spend the summer at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, receiving only the occasional guest, although I would love for any of you stop by for a glass of wine or a libation in the garden.


On the positive side, I am taking on the monumental project of dealing with my CD collection. The husband recently moved an extraordinary piece- a 15 foot long merchant's table with 20 drawers, European pine from the early 19th century, from the den to his studio. This major piece of furniture has long been the home to my music collection. I have decided that since I deal with mostly downloads in the new century, I would move the CDs into storage in my dressing room & free up the many drawers for his art supplies & found objects.


I like to look at each CD & think about why it is the collection & what it means to me, why the artists matters, & what moved me about the music in the first place... or else it goes.


Today is the birthday of a wonderful artist from my collection that was famous for being a bit of a recluse & guarding her privacy. I saw her perform at NYC's Danny’s Skylight Lounge, a number of times in the mid-1970s, at the very apex of her talent.

Singer, pianist & songwriter with an independent spirit, Blossom Dearie had a career that blurred the line between jazz & cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs, she rarely raised her sly voice, & she confided song lyrics in a playful style with layers of insinuation. But, just under her fey mask was a needling wit. It brought a breezy sophistication to all of her songs. If you listen closely, you can hear the caustic contempt she brings to her signature song- I’m Hip by Portland’s very own- Dave Frishberg. Mr. Frishberg wrote another of her classics- Peel Me a Grape.




All 6 of her albums on Verve- Blossom Dearie (1956), Give Him the Ooh-La-La (1957), Once Upon a Summertime (1958), Sings Comden & Green (1959), My Gentleman Friend (1959) & Soubrette Sings Broadway Hit Songs(1960) are cult classics. Check out the Vereve remix albums with the Brazylian Girls remix Blossom Dearie - doing Just One of Those Things. The last song Ms. Dearie recorded was -It’s All Right to Be Afraid, a comforting ballad dedicated to the victims & survivors of 9/11.


The jazz pixie with a little girl voice with a bit squeakiness & pageboy haircut was a fixture in New York for decades, she died in 2009 in her Greenwich Village apartment of 50 years. She was 84 years old.

The Wonderful Life Of Mercier Philip Cunningham, Born On This Day- April 16th

Walter Kenndy is a University Professor of Dance, & he was a principal dancer with the internationally acclaimed Lewitzky Dance Company for 20 years. Because of him, I know more about dance than most civilians, yet I always feel a bit awkward when I do posts on dancers & choreographers. He may wish to weigh in.

With his partner in life & art- John Cage, Merce Cunningham, born on this day in 1919,  created some of the most memorable dance pieces of the 20th century & beyond. He is considered to be one of the world’s greatest choreographers. Cunningham ranks with Isadora Duncan, Serge Diaghilev, Martha Graham & George Balanchine in giving the public the chance to rethink the essence of dance & choreography.

Cunningham met Cage soon after he moved to New York from Washington State, where he was discovered by Martha Graham. His first solo concert, in 1944, was in collaboration with Cage, & the couple remained together until Cage’s death in 1992.

Cage on the left with Cunningham in the late 1950s

Cunningham formed his own dance company in 1953. The company quickly became known for innovation & established itself as an important contributor to the post-war New York dance scene.

Robert Rauschenberg worked as the company’s stage manager, & collaboration with artists-Richard Serra, Jasper Johns & Sol LeWitt continued into the new century. As late as 2007, Cunningham & Rauschenberg continued topremiere new pieces.

Cage was as influential in the world of serious music as Cunningham was in dance. The couple were an artistic punch that slammed through the conventions of post-war America. They experimented with chance encounters of dance, music, & structures.

Cunningham never stopped challenging himself. That he also challenged the rest of us is our enduring good fortune. Cunningham continued to dance into old age. At 80, he danced with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Cunningham gradually relinquished day to day management of his dance company. On July 26, 2009, he died peacefully in his sleep in his Manhattan home.

The Oak Room Closes

WCK3 texted me: "I can't believe you have not posted about the Oak Room closing". I must admit, up to the minute as I attempt to be, I can't be on the Internet or watching TV 24 hours of the day. This scoop slipped past me. I immediately searched for an account of this announcement.

Oak Room at The Plaza

WCK3 most likely felt a special sentiment for this NYC spot. On December 24, 1976, we had attended the theatre & after a rousing good time seeing The Royal Family (Rosemary Harris, George Grizzard & Eva Le Gallienne), as we came out of the theatre we treated to big fat, perfect, magic, stage worthy snowflakes that had been falling as we had witnessed theatre magic. It was like stepping on to a stage set of NYC at Christmas. The streets were mostly empty & the city grinned at us like it had been lit by a baby pink spotlight.

Some guy I picked up at The Oak Room at The Plaza

We decided to walk home to the Upper West Side & as we crossed Central Park South, I suggested ducking into The Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel. We prolonged the evening with cocktails & nibbles at the famed dining room.

A warm glow has fallen over you readers... but, WCK3 was a bit confused. The Oak Room at the Plaza (now condos) still exists. The Oak Room that is being shuttered is the bar & cabaret space at my beloved Algonquin Hotel. Part of the room’s history includes a link to the famed Round Table whose acerbic members included Dorothy Parker & Robert Benchley. The literary salon first met there is 1919.

Andrea Marcovicci at the Oak Room at The Algonquin... known to steal my material

The ghost of Dorothy Parker is still sipping her martini, but the space that has been the toast of the Cabaret world for 35 years, with regular gigs by: Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, KT Sullivan, & Karen Akers, is finished. Andrea Marcovicci sang her last sad song on the tiny stage. This only leaves The Carlyle as a top notch, A list cabaret in NYC. Is this style of music, great singers swinging the Great Standards, ready to be boarded up also?

I have a special place in my heart for the room that goes beyond the Algonquin Round Table Gang. I had planned on shocking the show biz world with the resurrection of my act: Steve Sings Sad Songs for the Soused
Sweethearts. Here was my abandoned Set List for the much anticipated return of my Supper Club Show:
1. Whip My Hair
2. Sister Morphine
3. The Crane's Wife (Decemberists cover)
4. Back In Baby's Arms
5. As Tears Go By
6. A Wonderful Guy
7.Straight To The Top
8. Do Do Do
9. I Enjoy Being A Girl
10. Mean To Me
11. Prisoner Of Love (Kitty Wells cover)
12. Alone When It Rains
13. A Small Day Tomorrow
Encore Medley:
Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
Wild Horses
Horse With No Name
One Trick Pony
Black Horse & The Cherry Tree
Bring On The Dancing Horses
(featuring the cast of War Horse)
Final Encore:
Let's Stay Together in a duet with surprise special star: Barack Obama

The Encore for Steve Sings Sad Songs For The Soused Sweethearts

Bebe & Me

When I lived in NYC in the mid-1970s, & I was studying at HB Studios, I was living with my friend- WCK3 ( who was studying at Julliard) & I working at ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers). This was a fabulous job as a “music monitor”. I had a small cubicle in the ASCAP building, with a huge window that looked out at Lincoln Center & a smack on view of the Chagall tapestries at the Metropolitan Opera House. It remains one of my favorite jobs of all time, & one of the perks was frequent house seats for Broadway musicals.

The big musical of the moment was a little thing called- A Chorus Line, but my own favorite current broadway show was the somewhat less popular- Chicago. I loved this show, directed & choreographed by Bob Fosse & I saw it when ever I got a chance. It starred Chita Rivera, Jerry Orbach & Gwen Verdon. At some point,Gwen Verdon fell ill, the victim of swallowing a feather from her costume & she was replaced for 1 month by someone named Liza Minnelli. I was so excited to see Liza up close & personal. ASCAP secured, for me, 2 tickets for her 1st night in the role. WCK3 could not attend, but he suggested that I bring his friend & classmate at Julliard- Bebe.

I felt bad that I had been taunting Bebe, because she shared a name with the Seattle Zoo’s famous gorilla. Beebee & BoBo were a very famous gorilla couple at the Seattle Zoo, & WCK3’s friend had to suffer through my gorilla jokes. I was glad to have a date for Liza’s Chicago debut, & Bebe seemed to have forgiven my ribbing. We had a great date at the theatre, with drinks at Joe Allen’s after the show. I wish that I had been portentous at the time, about my date was Bebe Neuwirth. I would loved to have told her that she would someday go on to win a Tony Award as Velma Kelly, in the most successful revival in Broadway history- Chicago (She would also be the 2nd Sheila in that other show- A Chorus Line): “Hey Bebe… someday, you will win a Tony award for this show & you will go on to be a big Broadway & TV star (winning 2 Emmy awards for her take on Dr. Lilith Sternin on Cheers), how about a kiss? She was a swell date. I regret not trying to make out with her at the end of our evening.

Things turned out pretty well for Bebe. Last year she has starred with Nathan Lane in The Aadams Family on Broadway. Bebe never thanks me in her award speeches, although I was the perfect date, footing the cost of the tickets & the drinks, & every bit the gentleman. Today is Bebe Neuwirth’s birthday. I will never forget our date.