Monthly Archives: February 2019

Whoa, what's this?  "Vegas Diary – Part 1?"  Didn't I post "Vegas Diary – Part 1" on this blog a few weeks ago?  Yes, as you confirmed if you just clicked that link.  So what's the deal here?

Simple:  This is Part 1 of a new Vegas Diary.  After I was in San Jose and Santa Cruz, I Southwested it back to Las Vegas for a few more days of writing in a cheap room on the Strip, walking around a lot, keeping weird hours and, of course, running into hookers.  Yes, I have a hooker story this time and it'll be in Part 3.

So I stayed in that town until all eyes focused on this year's Super Bowl and my plane home took off just before the kickoff.  I thought I'd get a nearly-empty airport and flight but as it turned out, everything was as jammed as usual.  It's just that everyone was watching the Super Bowl on every piece of technology on which someone could watch the Super Bowl.

I spent most of this trip alternately writing in the room and taking long walks. Friday evening, I had a wee bit of a scare: My iPhone stopped working as a phone. No one I called could hear me nor could anyone who called me hear me. I couldn't go two more days there without a working phone so I jumped on the Apple Store website and found an open Genius Bar appointment at the location they have in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace.

I walked over there, they took me early and I walked out fifteen minutes later with my phone working properly. All it took was opening it up, cleaning out some dust where the microphone is and then doing a factory reset. Shoulda thought of the reset myself. I might have spared myself the long, long trek through that mall. I also might have spared myself a slice of real disappointing pizza.

On my way outta that endless corridor of merchants, I passed the Caesars Palace food court and spotted a stand for DiFara's Pizza. Do you know about DiFara's Pizza? If not, go up to five long-time New Yorkers and ask them where to get the best pizza in town. You might get five different answers, each from someone who'll tell you you'd be f'in' nuts to go anywhere else. But at least one of those answers if not all will be DiFara's Pizza — either of its two locations in Brooklyn.

In the Midwood store, a man hailed as a true artist of the pizza — Dom DeMarco — made every pizza himself by hand for decades. In the last few years, he's trained an assistant and also trained whoever runs the DiFara Pizza in Williamsburg. The standard is said to be as high as ever and five months ago, Dave "One bite, everybody knows the rules" Portnoy went there and gave it his highest rating. (Here's the video. Some of his remarks on the ethnicity of the neighborhood will not endear him to you.)

I have never been there. Why? Because from Times Square (where I usually stay) to the original DiFara's is over an hour on the subway, whereas it's 17 minutes to my fave N.Y, pizza place, John's of Bleecker Street. Mr. Portnoy gave DiFara Pizza a 9.4 and he gave John's a 9.3. Is the longer ride worth pizza that might (might, mind you!) be a tenth of a point better? I say no…but I've long been curious.

So I had to check: Did the DiFara's in Caesars have any connections to the one in Brooklyn?  Yes.  Signs proclaimed they were one and the same, promising the same recipe developed by Mr. DeMarco.

I wasn't expecting 9.4 pizza.  All I wanted was better pizza than you usually find in a food court…and what I got there was not unlike Little Caesar's.  Well, why shouldn't it be?  I was in Caesars Palace.  But I don't think that's what all those New Yorkers rave about.  That was the only real disappointment of the trip.

Not long ago in this post, I told a tale from back in 2013 when I was in Las Vegas with a lady I liked a lot. The other day, I told a friend the story of how that lady and I got to Vegas that weekend and the friend said, "Oh, you've got to tell that part on your blog!" So here is that part on my blog…

On Tuesday, May 28 of that year, I flew back to Indiana for meetings on The Garfield Show, which I was then working on. Muncie, Indiana is where Garfield's creator Jim Davis lives and works and during the thirty some-odd years I've been involved with The Cat, I've occasionally had to fly back there for planning meetings. The Garfield Show was produced and animated in France and some of the key people from there were also headed for this conference in Muncie — a much more difficult trip for them than it was for me.

So on 5/28, I flew Delta to Memphis, changed planes and continued on to Indianapolis. I rented a car there and drove to a Hyatt near the airport where I spent the night. The next morning, I took the rental car back to the airport and exchanged it for one that worked better, then drove to Muncie, Indiana, stopping en route at a great, not-there-anymore barbecue place for lunch. Later that day, I checked into a motel in Muncie and that evening, Jim, his wife Jill, some of the folks from France and I dined at a country club where Jim's a member. No, we did not have lasagna.

Thursday, May 30, I checked out of the motel, then spent all day at Jim's studio discussing vital Garfield matters. We all went to dinner at a local restaurant that evening where again, we did not have lasagna. I then drove back to Indianapolis and checked back into that Hyatt by the airport for the night.

The next day, I was not flying home. I was flying to Las Vegas to spend the weekend there with this friend of mine. She and her current beau might be happier if I didn't give her name here so we'll call her Kathy. We're still friends. We're just involved with other people now.

From here on, much of this story is me bragging about the rest of the travel arrangements I made. It will all sound trivial and No Big Deal to you but at the time, I was insufferably pleased with myself at what I'd been able to configure. Keep in mind that none of these flight numbers correspond to current flights and the date of this was Friday, May 31, 2013. Here was the dual itinerary for that day…

• 1:30 PM EDT: Mark arrives at Indianapolis International Airport. He turns in his rental car, checks his baggage and secures his boarding pass for Flight 619 on Frontier Airlines, scheduled to depart at 3:41 PM.
• 3:41 PM EDT: Mark's flight takes off from Indianapolis, heading for Denver International Airport.
• 3:00 PM PDT: Kathy arrives at San Francisco International Airport, checks her baggage, claims her boarding pass, (etc.) for Virgin Air Flight 910, scheduled to depart at 4:45 PM.
• 4:20 PM MDT: Mark's plane lands in Denver, Colorado and he changes to Frontier Airlines Flight 787 which departs at 5:00 PM.
• 5:00 PM MDT: Mark's flight takes off from Denver, heading for McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
• 4:45 PM PDT: Kathy's flight takes off from San Francisco, heading for McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
• 5:53 PM PDT: Mark's flight arrives at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas at gate D16.
• 5:55 PM PDT: Kathy's flight arrives at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas at gate D18 which is next to gate D16. They are just far enough apart so an airplane pulling into one will not prevent another plane from pulling into the other.
• Though they are flying in from different cities on different airlines, Kathy and Mark arrive at adjoining gates at almost the exact same time.

I don't know about you but I think that's kind of romantic. I imagined us running towards each other, her hair bouncing as she runs, and we embrace there in the airport. I knew it wouldn't actually work like that. For one thing, I'd be toting a heavy carry-on with my laptop in it. But doesn't it sound like one of those glorious reunion moments you see in movies? I decided it would be a personal triumph if I could pull it off; if we would achieve simultaneous arrival.

Before the day, I e-mailed Kathy a detailed plan along with her ticket info. I think she thought I was kind of looney but that was some (not all) of the basis for our whole relationship. At least, I hope not all. She was willing to go along with it and she followed her instructions to the letter. Virgin Air did nothing to foil my scheme. They took off on time. They landed a few minutes early. They did everything right, which is probably why there's no more Virgin Air.

On my end, it wasn't so simple.

I got to the airport in Indianapolis right on time, only to be informed that my flight had been rescheduled. Instead of leaving at 3:41, I was told it would be 6 PM and the fellow at the ticket counter suggested it might be even later. It was one of those cases where the plane on which I'd be flying was in another part of the country where there were delays due to weather. During the day, it went from one city to another and another and another before it got to Indianapolis and the problems were between the first two cities.

I asked the man, "Has Frontier considered investing in a second airplane?" He chuckled and said something like, "Oh, if only we could afford it."

Since I was now going to be getting to Denver at least two hours and forty minutes later than planned, what would happen to my connecting flight to Vegas? I asked him that and he said, "You'll miss it." I believe this man has since gone to work for hotels.com under the name Captain Obvious.

He informed me that since they weren't sure when I'd get to Denver, they couldn't (or wouldn't) reschedule the second leg of my journey. Once they knew, they would figure it out…and I should discuss this with the attendant at the gate when I arrived there.

"But I will get to Las Vegas tonight," I said in a voice desperately in need of reassurance. "We'll do our best, sir," he replied. It was that unlikely. I asked about other flights that might get me there that evening. There didn't seem to be any on Frontier and when I set up my laptop at a table in the airport food court and checked online, there didn't seem to be any on any other airline.

The food court was where I would wait and I had a lot of waiting to do…and rethinking. Like, the hotel room in Vegas was in my name. Could I arrange for Kathy to check into it without me and my credit card?

I sent Kathy a text message explaining that my genius plan (ha!) had run into a few problems but she should get on the plane and await further instructions. There would be some on her phone by the time she landed in Vegas, I told her. I really hoped there would be but at that moment, I had no idea what they would be, hopefully not "Find another guy to spend the weekend with."

I turned back to my laptop and buried myself in a script. Every so often, I'd glance over at the flight board that announced arrivals and departures. Flight 619 was now scheduled to leave at, fittingly, 6:19. A check of the Frontier schedule (available online) indicated that if it arrived in Denver on time, I might (note the ominous italics) catch a flight that would get me to Vegas just after Midnight. Maybe.

But then the 6:19 departure turned into 7:05. Then ten minutes later, it was 6:19 again. Then 7:22.

Around then, I was distracted by visitors. The producers from France — the one I'd met with in Muncie — spotted me there at my table in the food court. Their plane back to Paris was delayed, too. We sat and ate bad pizza and talked for around an hour and a half. Around 3:35, we said our goodbyes (again) and they headed for the international side of the terminal to wait there. Realizing it was about the time I expected to be aboard my flight to Denver, I turned to check on the latest departure time for Flight 619…

…and it wasn't there. Nowhere on the flight board was it listed. I hauled out my cell phone and used an app called Flight Board to see what it said…

It said Flight 619 to Denver was Now Boarding.

I replicated several "takes" from Tex Avery cartoons, leaped up, packed my laptop in about fifteen seconds and sprinted down a corridor to the departure gate. As I sprinted, I heard my name being paged and handily mispronounced, followed by "Last call for Flight 619 to Denver!  The doors will be closing!"

"Not without me," I yelled to the amusement of those I was running past. I got in just as a flight attendant began the speech about how to inflate your life jacket. And just before they ordered us to turn off our cell phones, I sent Kathy an e-mail: "Back to original plan!  Everything OK!"

When we landed in Denver, I checked Flight Board and it said that her flight out of S.F. would be taking off on time. My flight out of Denver took off on time. Halfway there, our pilot informed us we'd be arriving in Vegas eight minutes early. When we landed there, before we were allowed to deplane, I checked Flight Board again: Her flight was landing ten minutes early. I was on the right side of my plane to see a Virgin Air jet taxi into the gate next to us.

I'd done it! We were actually arriving simultaneously!

I could hear the love theme from the movie The Apartment swelling within my head as I got off at Gate D16 and began running towards Gate D18. Before I reached it, I spotted Kathy, stunning in a yellow dress. She was running (well, walking) towards me with a grin that was too wide to fit into the overhead compartment. I probably had the same look on my face.

As we came together, I threw my arms around her, whacking her in the back with my laptop. She didn't mind…much. And just at that most romantic of moments, she said the exact same three words to me that I said to her, again perfectly in sync. We both said, "Where's a restroom?"

This has been, I swear to you, a true story.

Recently when Fox did their "live" performance of the musical Rent, they would up airing a dress rehearsal recording instead. But, feeling that some aspect of a show announced as Rent: Live should be live — and because they had that live audience coming in, expecting to see something — they arranged to do a live add-on concert at the end, reprising some of the numbers.

My buddy of more than half a century, Joe Brancatelli, urged me to take a look at this brief moment from this concert. It's "Seasons of Love" with Keala Settle singing the hell out of her end of the number. And I urge you to take a look too…

I link to columnist William Saletan often because he's real good at taking evidence that is right before our eyes and noting that this statement does not jibe with that statement and that other statement over there contradicts both of them. Here he is reporting what Virginia governor Ralph Northam has been saying about that racist photo that seems likely to end his political career and certainly his term as governor.

This is one of those cases where you can take your pick: He should resign for reasons of racism or just for colossal lousy judgement. There's also that ineptness he's demonstrated the last day or so for crisis management. His press conference this morning may stand a long time as the Gettysburg Address of Self-Destructive Press Conferences. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

• The ghost of Al Jolson says he's just realized that wasn't Al in all those photos.

• I've never watched a Super Bowl but I may start tomorrow if I can't find anything else on TV that doesn't have Chris Christie on it.

As we've discussed, I was in Santa Cruz last Wednesday to sign stuff at my buddy Joe Ferrara's bookstore. The night before, I was in San Jose and I went to the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. In this case, the art being performed there was the musical Something Rotten.

I first saw a different, Equity touring company do this show in L.A. in December of 2017 and I liked it a whole lot.  This current troupe is traipsing from town to town — sometimes only for a night or two — all across the U.S. They open in Tucson next Tuesday.

Sometimes, I see a show like this and I can't help but think, "People this talented ought to be able to make a living doing shows without spending their lives on buses." The brutal life of Renaissance times they were singing about might be nothing compared to playing that show on a Wednesday night in St. Louis and getting to Muncie in time to do it on Thursday night there. How they pack all those sets, props and costumes and get them set up in the next town is beyond me.

But maybe some of those players enjoy the adventure. And maybe some of them feel as a friend of mine did when I asked her about a string of one- and two-nighters she did once in a roving band performing Grease. She said, "I would rather live six months like that and get to perform almost every night than spend those six months doing office-temp work because I can't get a job acting in town."

This production of Something Rotten was was pretty darned good for a non-Equity production with several folks who I'm sure would not have been outta place when this musical was on Broadway. Maybe not everyone but several.  A scan of their credits in the program indicates that a lot of them have done this kind of tour before so they knew what they were getting themselves into. Maybe I'm wrong to think they don't love every minute of it.

The San Jose Center for the Performing Arts is a big, oddly-constructed place. It was obviously built to house musicals (mostly) but somehow, no one thought to build an orchestra pit under the stage. It's in front of it instead, distancing the audience from the performers who are on a rather tall stage. In order for them to be able to see the conductor, they had to elevate him on a platform…and then they installed a wall around the pit so the audience couldn't see the conductor except, occasionally, his hands.

I somehow wound up in the center of the first row so there was this wall in front of me and I had to look up and over to see the actors — and I could only see them from about the shins up with the wall blocking the rest of them. When someone fell down on stage, I couldn't see them at all.

I think I was the tallest person in the front row. The lady next to me said she could only see of the performers from about the waist up. Still, she loved the show. Everyone did, including me. I just don't get what the guy who designed that theater was thinking.

So it comes out that an old school yearbook of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has in it a photo of a guy in blackface posing along with a guy in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

Northam's immediate response is to release a statement saying, "Earlier today, a website published a photograph of me from my 1984 medical school yearbook in a costume that is clearly racist and offensive." He does not identify whether he is the guy in blackface or the guy in the Klan hood.

Amidst demands for his resignation, Northam now says he is thinking maybe he isn't in the photo because he can't recall for sure if he ever put on blackface makeup or a Ku Klux Klan costume…and who among us could remember a thing like that? Are you absolutely certain you never put on blackface makeup or a Ku Klux Klan costume? I can't recall precisely when but it wouldn't surprise me if I'd done it a dozen times.

Northam says he is willing to let facial recognition scanning check him and the photo out to prove he is not in the photo. And of course, facial recognition scanning is infallible on people wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods. Do I have this right?

See that guy on the couch? That's our friend Frank Ferrante not portraying Groucho Marx, See that lady on him? That's a splendid actress (also, a friend) Dreya Weber. They're currently appearing in Ken Ludwig's play A Comedy of Tenors at the historic Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. It's there through March 3 and if I could get back there to see it, I would.  The whole cast, I hear, is terrific.

Frank also directed this production of Mr. Ludwig's raucous farce comedy. When correctly performed, as the reviews all say it is, it's one of those shows where things happen at such a rapid pace, you're afraid to take your gaze off the stage for two instants. (Ludwig will be part of an onstage talkback after the performance on 2/20.) Boy, would I like to see this…when it's warmer. It's 23° in Philadelphia at the moment.

Don't worry.  Frank is not abandoning Groucho for long.  He has a day off from the play on 2/25. Anyone else starring in a play that frenetic — playing two roles, in fact — would spend that day sleeping. Frank's throwing sanity to the wind and doing his acclaimed An Evening With Groucho show that night on the same stage. Tickets for both can be procured here.

Like I said, I'd love to see it but I may get no closer than watching this 90-second "sizzle" reel. One assumes the other 5,910 seconds of the play are equally mad…

William Saletan disproves Donald Trump's repeated claim that most Americans support the building of The Wall.  Trump will never admit it, of course.  For Trump, there is no proof possible that he is wrong on some supposed fact or that he does not have the majority of the nation solidly behind him.

Saletan doesn't mention it but a lot of those who did support The Wall at the time of Trump's election did so under the belief that Trump had some way to force Mexico to cut a check for the entire cost of the project.  I'm in favor of a lot of things until I see what I'm going to have to pay.  And yes, the case can be made that Trump didn't explicitly say Mexico would make a direct payment (except he kinda did) but a lot of people sure thought that was the idea.

A question I'd like to see him asked is: "You keep saying The Wall is desperately needed.  Is it so desperately needed that the U.S. should foot the full cost even if there's no chance of Mexico paying any of the cost in any way?"

And another is: "Would Donald Trump the real estate tycoon commit to fund a project if he knew as little about it as we know about what The Wall will cost, what it will be made of, what it will cost to acquire private real estate to build it on, who will build it, when approximately it will be completed, what will be the ongoing costs of upkeep on it, etc.?"

Shin Lim. Boy, this guy is good…

I haven't done one of these lately because just about every website is turning into a Trump Dump these days. But for the many of you who read no other website but this one…

• In the coming showdown over budget negotiations regarding The Wall, there are three possible outcomes. At least, that's how Jim Newell figures it. He explains how Trump will like none of them. My guess is we will wind up with no real bucks for his wall but Trump will fiercely try to spin it as a total victory for him and insist, "I got everything I wanted!"
• Fred Kaplan notes that just about everything Trump is saying about U.S. security and conditions overseas is being contradicted by departments within the executive branch and people that he appointed. Isn't it comforting to know that in matters relating to war and international relations, either Trump is dead wrong or his intelligence departments are?
• And as Alex Ward explains, Trump is dealing with this discrepancy by lying about what those departments are saying.
• Congress is voting to stop Trump's plan to withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria and Afghanistan. As Kevin Drum explains, this kind of translates to "We should stay there forever." I have two thoughts about this. One is that this may be one of those outlier matters where Trump is right (or mostly right) and those opposing him are wrong. The other thought is just that John McCain would be so happy.
• Max Boot doesn't think Trump is taking the right approach with Syria and Afghanistan. So there's the other side of that argument.
• When employment numbers under Obama looked good, Trump insisted the numbers were fake and that unemployment had never been higher. Now that the steady drop in unemployment under Obama continues, Trump insists those numbers are very real and that the "fake news" is that the press is not reporting how successful he's been. Emily Stewart has more.
• Jonathan Chait takes us through the curious thought process of those who deny the revelations to date of the Mueller investigation. Not just a river in Egypt.

And here are some recent thoughts from Frank Rich about Howard Schultz, the upcoming State of the Union address and other topics. For more Trump Dump stories, consult almost any other website on the 'net.