Tony, Dan, Paul, and I caught a matinee of If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet, co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal in his Broadway debut, today. If I had read about it, I had forgotten that Jake speaks in a—rather credible—British accent.
I liked the play more as it went on and even more so after the four of us talked about it postshow. The New York Times' Ben Brantley thought the staging of the play, with rain, a flood, and flingable furniture, overwhelmed the play, but I thought it enhanced rather than diluted the drama.
Paul really liked the play. Tony liked it better than me. And Dan least of all. He had some trouble understanding the actors, especially Brían F. O'Byrne as George.
Afterward, we got an early dinner at Nizza. Our waitress was terrific, but my meatballs were overly salty. I would have preferred it to have been the other way around.
Everyone else enjoyed his food without reservation. Here are Paul and Dan.
***
I spent last weekend at the Gerbers' house. The 'phews didn't come to visit us in the city last month because they didn't have a full weekend free, so it was really great to see them.
Saturday night was Tracey/DC: Gerbstock 2012, David and Tracey's annual rock-and-roll fundraiser.* I kept wanting to call it Gerbfest, I guess because the music was more like this than like this.
The big star of Gerbstock this year was Randy Jackson. No, not that one. This one. I recited the following dialogue to the 'phews: "Is it the Randy Jackson?" "It's a Randy Jackson." "Good enough."
RJ and a keyboardist did some songs on their own. And David jammed with his friends on a lot of AC/DC, of course, and Led Zeppelin songs. (RJ looks a bit like Robert Plant nowadays.)
AC/DC was one of Tracey's favorite bands growing up. We were all trying to come up with a name for next year's Gerbstock that incorporates David's name. I asked Tracey who the lead singer of Whitesnake was. "David Coverdale," she said. "David Gerberdale!" I said.
Earlier that day, Matt and Mike and I had caught Wreck-It Ralph. The guys had already seen it but wanted to see it again. I thought it was loads of fun. I enjoyed all of the video-game-character cameos, and the story was very clever.
Dad had driven up for Gerbstock. And Tony was supposed to have come on Sunday to help us put up and decorate the Christmas tree. (Dad drove home fairly early on Sunday because he was filling in at his old job for a couple of days starting on Monday.) But Tony had been up all night passing a kidney stone, so he stayed put in the city. My poor little guy had accidentally gotten glutenized at Gobo while eating dinner with a friend a couple of weeks prior. He detected the gluten right away and spit it out, so his symptoms weren't too bad. The kidney stone was one of the last manifestations of the problem.
Here's the Gerbers' tree, which is usually overloaded with ornaments because the nephews want to find a space for all of them, and there are really too many to fit. There's a Hanukkah present underneath it because we're multicultural, bitchez.
***
For three days during the last week of November, the Standard Hotel sported rainbow lights to commemorate the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Here's a photo I snapped that Tuesday.
*To which I'd never been invited before. I'm not saying that out of bitterness**; I'm just explaining why I'd never blogged about it. Tracey said she didn't think I would enjoy the music. I really did, though. Heavy metal isn't my favorite type of music, but everyone was very talented, including my brother-in-law.
**Well, maybe a tiny bit. :-)
Comments