worst ... blogger... ever!

This may be what my loyal readers (both of you) are calling me.

It's true, I've been inattentive to the needs of Love Minus Zero these days. Life happens and all. Explanations? Not too many persuasive ones, really. The dayjob has been busier than usual (yadda yadda yadda). The audition roller coaster has been really fast and steep the last few weeks - the very few of you who know the deal know why I don't write about that stuff here (or even talk about it except with people on the inside. I mean, people in the biz, not those pesky voices in my head.) My personal life has been, you know, personal.

One big thing on the horizon is that my parents are visiting. Some of you will have received this, but for the amusement of those of you who haven't, here's a semi-mass email I sent out to some of my friends and colleagues in Nuevo York:

Hope all are doing well and enjoying this beautiful slice of time between summer and fall!

Ok, this is one of the weirder appeals you'll receive from me...

My parents are visiting new york next month.

"What?!" you say, "mick's parents are actually going to be in new york?"

It's true. For the second time in the many years i've lived here, mom and dad are facing down their fears of the big city and staying with me for a long weekend, october 4-7. And a big weekend it is: my dad turns 60 on october 5; and as if that weren't enough, the folks will celebrate their 40th anniversary on the 21st. Exciting, huh?

SO - we want to do some special stuff. And they get to decide what that means.

One thing it means is playoff baseball. This excites me muchly, but alas, my entry in the mets lottery was not selected for the divisional series. (Don't despair, lottery advocates - i'm still potentially eligible for the league championship and world serieses, but that doesn't help with the birthday/anniversary visit effort.) Stub hub and other legalized scalpers do offer these tix, which is probably what i'll end up doing, but i wanted to see if any of you out there have access to corpo-tix or anything like that. I'm not looking for a freebie or a discount, though i will admit that i'd like to avoid scalpers.

I know, i know, it's a long shot.

Special fun new york thing number two is broadway's Wicked.

"But mick," you say, "why would they want to spend all that money to sit near the back of a 2,000-seat theater, to see a show that is touring all over the country, and will probably continue to tour for years?"

I don't know, people. They're my parents - leave me alone.

But then, while you're leaving me alone, can you check and see if the CFO of your company is friends with the nederlanders, or stephen schwartz is your cousin, or your boyfriend is the house manager or something like that. Again, not looking for freebies, but if i'm gonna spend $100+ a ticket, i would prefer to get good seats.

See - told you it was going to be a weird appeal.

And even if you have no contacts in the world of major league baseball or broadway, please contact me so that we can be in the same room at the same time sometime soon! There are beverages to be shared and conversations to be had...

oxox
cheers,
mick

To update this situation - a couple people came through on the Wicked tix. But they are silly expensive, and i think what we're going to do is try the $25 'lottery,' (you get a number, and if they pick it you can buy seats down front for $25) and if we win that, great, and if not they'll see the show on one of its innumerable tours.

Still on the hunt for Mets playoff tix (and at this point, the Mets are in a serious fight for a place in the playoffs in the first place). There's a side story there having to do with StubHub, but for now suffice it to say - AVOID STUBHUB! Shout it from the rooftops folks, they are evil, horrible people who should be professionally boycotted and socially shunned.

Ahem. I'm ok. I'll write down that story another day maybe.

Full Weekend

This was a busy, action-packed weekend. Maybe not as relaxing as some weekends in recent-ish memory, but i'm not complaining. Had a good time, and got some stuff done.

Friday: after work, met with marianne, lisa, amye, dan and rashmi at a bar for some happy hour action and catch-up conversation. After which i walked with rashmi to meet some of her friends at a bar by madison square, then we rolled down to soho - they had a fancy dinner at l'ecole; i caught the end of leah siegel's show over at rockwood music hall on allen st. - v/good, as always (though that room is too fucking small!) Then i subwayed up to morningside heights for katie's housewarming party - which was very fine indeed. The apartment is great, the guests were fun (j.p. and sherin were there) the food was remarkable (especially a mushroom pate that was really mouthwatering, and a plate of brownies made with hot pepper that snuck up on you in a slow-burning, extremely delicious way) and of course the hostess (and hosts!) were scintillating.

Saturday i finally went to see 'journey's end' in the afternoon; not my favorite time of day to see straight plays, but it was damned good. Go see it before it closes next month. But be warned - it kicks you in the gut. Mary jo made the mistake of traveling by cab on the day of the big dance parade on 5th ave, and barely made it to the belasco on time.

After the show i literally had to RUN to an audition on 8th ave. - set my phone to vibrate at me at 4:35, stuck around until the curtain started lowering at 4:38 then hightailed it to 36th and 8th for a 4:55 audition. Not something i recommend, but i made it. I found later that i missed out on an unusually moving curtain call. Small price to pay. Then i walked down to chelsea as it started to rain to meet up with mj again. She was going to introduce me to bikram yoga, but the rain and the aftermath of the show swayed us to chill at her place instead. Then sherin came into town and we had some italian food before heading out to williamsburg to see the band easy anthems at matchless. They were really good (as was the pseudo-80s power pop/art rock band before them, whose name i can't remember, to my shame) and we were joined by terry, jackee and j.p. That part of town is SOOOOOOoooo hipper-than-thou, but they do have some fun stuff going on.

Sunday i slept in a bit, then did laundry and grabbed some bagels and lox. Mmmmm... bagels and lox... Read part of the paper, checked out email and such, listened to the 'new' elliott smith: called 'new moon' it's a compilation of outtakes and alternate versions, which description does not do anything like justice to what an amazing record this is. One of the most important songwriters of his generation; we all miss him muchly.

Then rashmi came out and we played a set of tennis, then cleaned up and went into town for the grand unveiling of happy sunshine kung fu flower, which rocked the house. Good, forceful, funny satire nicely done to a packed house in a club setting - in your face and below your belt all at once. Glad to have been involved in an earlier incarnation, aim to return to the ninja fold when the union sitch gets worked out. But for now, they are going strong and a swell time was had by all (though there were some rumblings about the offensiveness factor, i don't know how one could do a show like this without some of that.) My main complaint was that after we used up our comp drink, the featured beer cost 9 bucks. Ouch.

So, yeah, full weekend.

Gutenberg: The Musical

In amongst a busy day of unpleasant auditioning, helping beth take some stuff to the salvation army, having lunch, running errands, and coming home to brutal and unexpected audition rejection, i had the pleasure of seeing gutenberg: the musical with some friends. Astounding. Hilarious. Shockingly good, if you like musicals or (especially?) if you don't.

Now off to a caffeine-fueled rehearsal...

Movie Week

This week i saw three movies in three different commercial cinemas in three days. Don't know that i've ever done that before, certainly not for a long long time.

Tuesday was factory girl with jessica, about which i've already written. Wednesday was blood diamond, which i saw with kelly, beth and sherin. Good movie, heart in the right place, maybe didn't live up to the hype. Emotionally manipulative, fairly implausible at times (man it's lucky that our leading men are so good at dodging bullets - both of them; and those journalists sure ended up in the middle of a lot of gunfire fights), but a well told important story of a horrific and brutal situation in africa that is humanity's shame (or should be). Last night was pan's labyrinth with dawn. First rate film in some ways, but i must say it was emphatically NOT for dawn - jqln, wish you and jeffrey had been able to join: you definitely were the folks to see this flick with. Dawn is fab, but this was a graphic film with very very brutal subject matter (fascist spain in 1944) and she is more about looking at the positive side of things. The design work was bitchen, as were the fx and makeup. And del Toro paints the screen and tells the story quite well, just with many intentionally cringe-inducing moments.

Along the way i got a new hairdo, and beth and i sent a message to one of our college theater advisors in honor of her 70th:


Happy Birthday Leila!

Finished matthew pearl's the dante club today. Worthwhile read in the historical fiction/mystery vein. Will discuss it with lori's book club in a week and change; looking forward to the discussion.

Finally broke down and started sending out dayjob resumes. Well, hell. And of course several auditions - a shakespeare-heavy week, replete with interesting convos with other actors. Now that's some work i want to be back on the inside of: x your fingers that one of the shakespeare festivals hooks me up in the next season or two.

Tonight, i'm watching yet another movie, but this one on dvd solo at home (kelly rolled out this p.m. after another extended audition visit) - the unbelievable truth. This will be the first time i've watched adrienne since, well, you know...

Isis

Still in full-out audition mode. Hitting them like i mean it on a regular basis; something good will come eventually by sheer persistence, presumably. Economic realities look like i may have to go the dayjob route pretty soon (blah, i know, but it's one of those things that you have to do to get through this life).

And on another note:

Written beneath a statue of Isis in Sais - "I am everything that was, that is, that shall be... Nor has any mortal ever been able to discover what lies under my veil."

Which strikes me as being pretty fucking cool.