September 11, 2008

• 9 to 5 & 9-11

  Labor Day Weekend, 2001.  Claudio and I celebrated our birthdays in Chicago, as we had many times before.  It was a beautiful weekend…one of the last good ones of summer.  After that I flew to New York for a few days, and then to Portland, Oregon on September 10, 2001. 

  I was going through some old papers from work the other day, and found this.  It was posted in the elevator of my hotel in Portland on the morning of September 11th. 

  

  The following year, I returned to New York City for the one year anniversary.  I spent the morning alone, in Times Square and in Battery Park taking
  pictures.  It was a bittersweet anniversary.  On one hand the city was
  still grieving immensely.  On the other, they had reached the one year
  mark and survived.  Everyone was on edge though.  Diane, Hugo and I
  were having lunch outside at Cafe St. Bart’s.  It was an extremely
  windy day.  At one point, the wind picked up a huge pile of pamphlets
  from an open window of a fairly tall building and they went flying through the air like shrapnel.  A few people in the
  crowded cafe started screaming and that’s all it took to start pandemonium.  People began
  running and leaping under tables.  It only lasted a few seconds, but it still
  gives me goose bumps to think about.  Imagine….simple paper flying through
  the air!  Later that afternoon Cindy and I tried to keep it light by
  attending a matinee of Hairspray.  After the show, Harvey Fierstein and
  the rest of the cast related their stories about that day.  There were
  many notables in the audience (Larry King and his wife were directly in
  front of us), and suddenly this huge Broadway theater filled with
  strangers, some famous, some not, became an intimate storytelling
  venue.  It connected us all.  The images from that day were moving:

  
  I took the center photo in the summer of 1997 while sailing around the island of Manhattan in my boss’s boat.  It was a picture perfect New York day.  One I’ll never forget. 

  On a cheerier note, tonight we went to see another musical.  This time it was the preview of 9 to 5 before it heads to Broadway.  It starred Allison Janney (from The West Wing) in the Lily Tomlin role, and while she was pretty good, the show itself needs work before it opens in New York.  (Funny coincidence.  I saw Hairspray in NYC on 9/11/02 and few years later, saw it with Mike & Marcelo in LA, and Bradley Whitford from the West Wing was there.)  The gal who played Doralee was the spitting image of Dolly Parton, both in looks and voice.  It was almost too much of an imitation though.  There was nothing really original in any of the performances aside from a few modern cultural references for humor.  I was a bit disappointed overall, but I got special tickets for only $20 and it was worth seeing for that price.  (Plus it was Vivek’s first musical!!)  The acoustics were terrible and they had some technical problems and had to close the curtain for ten minutes.  (The same thing happened on opening night I read, but that night Dolly Parton was there, and got up and gave an impromptu concert!)  The dialogue was very difficult to hear, and the cast needed work on their staging.  The set was pretty cool though.  There were definitely a few standout songs, but I wish I could have heard the words better.  In addition, the girl next to us was SO drunk (or worse) that she really ruined the whole first act for me.  At one point, she needed to leave because she was going to be sick.  She got up on her chair, hiked her skirt up to her underwear and climbed over the seats!  A real class act.  (Whoever said LA isn’t a theater town?  LOL.)  It kind of put me in a bad mood for the remainder of the show (even though she missed half the first act!).  Here are a few photos from tonight, and a video of the title song from the closing number, “9 to 5“.  Sorry for the poor video quality.  We were up in the nosebleed section !

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
  Note the applause at about 1:10 when the actors are describing their characters lives 30 years in the future and Doralee calls George W. Bush, a sexist, egotistical, lying hypocrite (just like Franklin Hart).

  

  • 4:42 am
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