Second trip to New York: not as many days as the first, but the days themselves are longer to make up for that. We start at 10 a.m. (after walking a few blocks from the hotel to arrive at the school where the auditions are held a little after 9 so we can sit around and talk and get our table set up and so on), go until 1 watching one person every minute and a half come on stage and either sing and do a monologue or do two monologues if they are not a singer. There’s an hour lunch break, and then Monica and Kelly went back to the auditorium while Lynne, Josh, Doug and I stayed in the room upstairs to do call-backs. Another hour break at 6, and the dance calls tarts at 7 for about 1 ½ hours, then more call-backs until about 10, and walk back to the hotel. The auditions are in 1 hour segments with a few minutes break between each. Some of them there were quite a few possible people, but some there were only one or two and by Saturday Monica and Kelly were down to sending only one or two people up and one session they didn’t call back any! Some of the kids have no business trying to be in this business. Monica blames it on the schools, the colleges taking their money for theatre studies. I guess that might be some of it, I think it is a combination of that and the kids themselves just not being realistic, or maybe getting pushed from other outside forces, parents or who knows what. I just know that there were some Simon would have a field day with on American Idol.
Saturday night we did quit a bit early and went out for food at our traditional place, The Paris, down by the Seaport. A great old building, and you can imagine the fishermen coming in for a draught after unloading their catch.
Sunday morning I walked over to the World Trade Center site, I went there last year and wanted to see if I could tell what the progress has been. There is some, buildings are started and up a few stories. There’s a church, St. Paul’s Chapel, across Broadway from the site, with old, old gravestones - from the 1700’s around it. There’s also a bell that was a gift to the U.S. from England after 9/11. I walked around the church yard a bit, and on the way out noticed a gravestone of a woman who ‘Joined the Lord’ on – September 11 – 1796. That was a little spooky. I also went back to the memorial that is on the side wall of the firehouse across Liberty Street from the site. The bronze mural is stunning, there is also a large poster with photos of the firemen lost; people have left bouquets of flowers, candles burning, notes and cards, words of encouragement. One figure on the mural is a fireman on his knees, with his hand reaching up, with two other firemen behind him, each with a hand on his shoulder. Someone has hung a rosary on his hand. That gave me shivers.
It’s a nice part of the city, way downtown. There are still some cobblestone streets, the streets are the narrow size they were back in the 1700 and 1800’s, some of the original buildings are still there. It’s slower and quieter than the more midtown areas, although probably not so much on a weekday when the Wall Streeters and all are around. There is a 9-11 memorial center, and a nice timeline of the day and afterwards on the terrace of the church, I think there was also something inside the church but I didn’t have time to look. Maybe I’ll take a trip down there and poke around sometime. When you get on one of the little side streets, walking on the cobblestones and seeing the old buildings it does take you back to another age.
And that was our second trip to NYC.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Old and new what I think
A TAX REBATE TO ‘STIMULATE THE ECONOMY’ 1/24/08
The government just keeps getting better and better. Several thoughts come right to mind on this, the first being that if they can afford to give everyone back money, doesn’t this mean that taxes are too high to begin with?
The next thought is what the hell good is $600 going to do-$1200 for a couple - yeah, right, that’ll make maybe one mortgage payment and what do they do for the next 11 months of the year?
Does everyone elected in Washington check their brains and common sense at the city limits? Seems like it, and judging from the looks of the ongoing campaigning it isn’t going to improve, at least not in my reading of the actions and comments of the ‘top’ Democratic candidates a their recent debate. I only watched a fraction of it, on the news, but that was enough to make me glad I hadn’t tried to watch it all. Going at each other like that - what are they, six years old on the playground fighting over whose ball it is. Get real, grow up and take a look at what you should be paying attention to, people! Why in the world would Americans want a leader who acts like that. What are you going to do in international situations, point fingers and go ‘neener, neener, neener’?
But I digress. We were talking about the tax rebate and the economy. We’re heading into a recession or worse. Is anyone else worried? There’s no leadership, nobody who will address the primary (IMHO) reason* for the inflation that is causing the recession.
* Oil. Plain and simple. America runs on oil (with apologies to Dunkin’ Donuts for their ad campaign). Not coffee, not empty promises, not tax rebates. Oil. America is dependent on our cars and our trucks. Americans in a large part of the country are dependent on oil to heat their homes. We love our plastic, which is made from - oil. We love our synthetic fabrics, which are made from - oil. We love our stuff, all of which has to be brought to us in trucks which use large amounts of diesel fuel, made from - oil. And that last, ladies and gentlemen, is a huge part of inflation. What do you have that didn’t travel to you in a truck? When that truck has to pay about $1.00 for each mile the wheels turn to bring it to you, who do you think pays? Not the seller, not the truck owner or driver. Eventually, you pay. More. More for your lumber to build homes, computers to write things like this, clothes made from synthetic or natural fibers, plastics and food. Plus, it costs the farmer more to grow the food because he puts fuel into his machinery to do it. It costs more for the factory to make the plastics and clothes and computers because they have to heat them with oil. And so on.
So, when oil prices go through the star-studded Middle-Eastern desert sky, Americans take it in the pocketbook.
The government, instead of puffing up their reputation with a miniscule term ‘solution’ needs to work on a long, long, long term one. Because it ain’t gonna get any better, Scooter, it’s just gonna get worse.
What is the solution? Hell if I know. But maybe if they paid more attention to what’s going on at home instead of a war that will never be won, more attention to really doing good by the people instead of what bad things their opponent may or may not have done when they were a teenager, more attention to what the average American needs are, the Grand Mysterious They could find a workable answer.
And we can help. Not buying gas for a single day - not gonna do it - because you’ll just buy it another day. But if you walk or car pool one day, now that will make a difference. Turn the furnace down a tad. Buy local grown products. Shop local and help out your neighbors. Do with less.
3/13/09:
The above never made it to the blog, although some parts of it did in another one. I’ll try to wrap it up, without getting into more political commentary.
So now one of the above mentioned finger pointers has been elected and sworn in and is implementing his plans. Are they helping? Too soon to tell. What’s the country gonna come to? Too soon to tell.
The oil prices did come down (yeah, right, gas got cheaper as I was coming back from my 7,500 mile vacation trip!), thank goodness. But with all the other crap, that one thing hasn’t meant a whole lot. Jobs being lost, business going under, people loosing homes, money (add me to that list, my ‘retirement’ investments are down by about half, not that I was ever gonna retire anyway but that’s another blog), people reacting in tragic ways.
All we can do is hope that things reverse or at least stop going down soon and that the new government’s ideas can help. And that the people have learned some thing from all of this, although I doubt it.
Above I mentioned oil as a main reason for the inflation. It is, but there are so many more. And one of them, as Pogo once said, is ‘we is met the enemy and he is us’. Yup, a lot of the general public is our own worst enemy. We want more of everything: at work more pay, more benefits – where do you think that comes from? DUH – not the company’s profits, nope, they give you more and start to charge more, so everybody has to pay more and then they want more, too, and up and up it goes. DUH.
And having to have more things. The biggest, newest, brightest, best of it all. And the big stores having to expand to try to take over the market – more, more, more. And now all of a sudden it’s less, less, less.
Where’s it gonna stop? Who knows, but we are in that recession we were worried about a year ago. Let’s hope somehow it gets stopped and soon. And again, let’s do our own little bits to help.
The government just keeps getting better and better. Several thoughts come right to mind on this, the first being that if they can afford to give everyone back money, doesn’t this mean that taxes are too high to begin with?
The next thought is what the hell good is $600 going to do-$1200 for a couple - yeah, right, that’ll make maybe one mortgage payment and what do they do for the next 11 months of the year?
Does everyone elected in Washington check their brains and common sense at the city limits? Seems like it, and judging from the looks of the ongoing campaigning it isn’t going to improve, at least not in my reading of the actions and comments of the ‘top’ Democratic candidates a their recent debate. I only watched a fraction of it, on the news, but that was enough to make me glad I hadn’t tried to watch it all. Going at each other like that - what are they, six years old on the playground fighting over whose ball it is. Get real, grow up and take a look at what you should be paying attention to, people! Why in the world would Americans want a leader who acts like that. What are you going to do in international situations, point fingers and go ‘neener, neener, neener’?
But I digress. We were talking about the tax rebate and the economy. We’re heading into a recession or worse. Is anyone else worried? There’s no leadership, nobody who will address the primary (IMHO) reason* for the inflation that is causing the recession.
* Oil. Plain and simple. America runs on oil (with apologies to Dunkin’ Donuts for their ad campaign). Not coffee, not empty promises, not tax rebates. Oil. America is dependent on our cars and our trucks. Americans in a large part of the country are dependent on oil to heat their homes. We love our plastic, which is made from - oil. We love our synthetic fabrics, which are made from - oil. We love our stuff, all of which has to be brought to us in trucks which use large amounts of diesel fuel, made from - oil. And that last, ladies and gentlemen, is a huge part of inflation. What do you have that didn’t travel to you in a truck? When that truck has to pay about $1.00 for each mile the wheels turn to bring it to you, who do you think pays? Not the seller, not the truck owner or driver. Eventually, you pay. More. More for your lumber to build homes, computers to write things like this, clothes made from synthetic or natural fibers, plastics and food. Plus, it costs the farmer more to grow the food because he puts fuel into his machinery to do it. It costs more for the factory to make the plastics and clothes and computers because they have to heat them with oil. And so on.
So, when oil prices go through the star-studded Middle-Eastern desert sky, Americans take it in the pocketbook.
The government, instead of puffing up their reputation with a miniscule term ‘solution’ needs to work on a long, long, long term one. Because it ain’t gonna get any better, Scooter, it’s just gonna get worse.
What is the solution? Hell if I know. But maybe if they paid more attention to what’s going on at home instead of a war that will never be won, more attention to really doing good by the people instead of what bad things their opponent may or may not have done when they were a teenager, more attention to what the average American needs are, the Grand Mysterious They could find a workable answer.
And we can help. Not buying gas for a single day - not gonna do it - because you’ll just buy it another day. But if you walk or car pool one day, now that will make a difference. Turn the furnace down a tad. Buy local grown products. Shop local and help out your neighbors. Do with less.
3/13/09:
The above never made it to the blog, although some parts of it did in another one. I’ll try to wrap it up, without getting into more political commentary.
So now one of the above mentioned finger pointers has been elected and sworn in and is implementing his plans. Are they helping? Too soon to tell. What’s the country gonna come to? Too soon to tell.
The oil prices did come down (yeah, right, gas got cheaper as I was coming back from my 7,500 mile vacation trip!), thank goodness. But with all the other crap, that one thing hasn’t meant a whole lot. Jobs being lost, business going under, people loosing homes, money (add me to that list, my ‘retirement’ investments are down by about half, not that I was ever gonna retire anyway but that’s another blog), people reacting in tragic ways.
All we can do is hope that things reverse or at least stop going down soon and that the new government’s ideas can help. And that the people have learned some thing from all of this, although I doubt it.
Above I mentioned oil as a main reason for the inflation. It is, but there are so many more. And one of them, as Pogo once said, is ‘we is met the enemy and he is us’. Yup, a lot of the general public is our own worst enemy. We want more of everything: at work more pay, more benefits – where do you think that comes from? DUH – not the company’s profits, nope, they give you more and start to charge more, so everybody has to pay more and then they want more, too, and up and up it goes. DUH.
And having to have more things. The biggest, newest, brightest, best of it all. And the big stores having to expand to try to take over the market – more, more, more. And now all of a sudden it’s less, less, less.
Where’s it gonna stop? Who knows, but we are in that recession we were worried about a year ago. Let’s hope somehow it gets stopped and soon. And again, let’s do our own little bits to help.
Week in NYC
Well, we spent our week in the ‘Big Apple’ for auditions. People ask, ‘what did you do’ ‘did you see any shows’ – answer ‘nothing’ and ‘no’.
Audition days go from getting up at 7 a.m. (two people in the room to shower and all), to about 9 or 10 p.m. by the time we get done with talking over the people seen that day to see if we want to call them back or not.
Some times we have done a show, a few years ago we went to ‘Wicked’ on Friday after a week of auditions – bad move, we were all too brain dead to appreciate it. So now we plan show trips for different times than auditions.
‘Did you do anything’ – well, this year our schedule was different than the usual travel on Sunday, audition Monday through Friday, travel on Saturday – we traveled on Wednesday and the next Wednesday, auditioned Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday and had Sunday off. Monica and Doug visited friends, Lynne had brunch with a friend and slept, and I went to the ‘International Center for Photography’ and saw an interesting show of fashion photography; some great photos of 'stars' from the 1920's and 30's like Carol Lombard, Kathryn Hepburn, Amelia Earhardt, some great photographers works - what a difference in not only the clothes, but the photos and how the clothes are displayed from then to now - back then it was all about the elegance, style, now - well, some of the photos I couldn't tell what it was about and some I didn't want to know! Walked around and then went to the zoo in Central Park. Didn’t ride the carousel, but I did smile at the animals – they have penguins, I love penguins – and smile more at the kids looking at the animals. What a neat little zoo that is. Penguins, puffins, sea otters and sea lions, polar bears, a whole ‘rain forest’ house full of birds - that was some noisy, let me tell you - along with some spiders, lizards and snakes, some sort of monkeys, I don’t remember what particular type, black headed swans, and I’m no doubt leaving some out. Some of the things the kids were getting most excited about were the ducks and geese – oh and turtles, a pond full of turtles (the hardware store here in town has a little indoor pond with turtles in and the kids go nuts for those, too). I was sitting on the ledge around the turtle pond and a little girl came up and was looking for them, so I pointed her to one in the water right next to us and her eyes got huge and she said ‘oooh!’ Wasn’t it great to be the age when a turtle makes you go ‘oooh!’?
Had a nice dinner on Sunday night, even though we gave up our newly traditional one at Carmine’s because there were only three of us, everyone else either was busy or sick, and with only three people there’s no sense going to Carmine’s unless you can do a lot of doggy bags and we couldn’t because of being in the hotel. Carmine’s does way too much food!
Saw a bunch of good people (about 550 or 600 and some of them we saw twice, with call backs) and even more not so good ones, and some that were good but just not for the shows we are doing this summer. Saw some friends from past seasons. Told some stories, caught up on some news.
The weather was good, so Monica and I walked to and from the studio, about 20 blocks, which was a nice ‘airing out’ from sitting in the room all day long. We order lunch in because there isn’t time to go out and have it, and after trying a couple of places that someone in the group complained about each day we made Tuesday ‘GYOFL’ Day (Get Your Own Flippin’ Lunch) and everyone liked that, especially me not having to listen to complaints.
Too many people, try to walk down the street and there’s always someone to dodge around who isn’t going to move aside or slow their path for you; too much noise – at 3 a.m. a couple of mornings I got woke up by people yelling outside, could hear them even on the 10th floor, sirens and of course that wakes me up every time. Twice they stopped outside the hotel, the one time Monica said ‘those sound awful close’ and I said ‘yeah, they’re right out front’. Don’t know what it was but nobody told us to leave the hotel so we didn’t.
Came home and now we have to do it again this Wednesday, not for as long this time, though. And in not so crowded and hectic a part of the city.
New York City. Nice place to visit, I guess. Sure wouldn’t want to live there – and I did for a while a long time ago. Nope, not any more.
Audition days go from getting up at 7 a.m. (two people in the room to shower and all), to about 9 or 10 p.m. by the time we get done with talking over the people seen that day to see if we want to call them back or not.
Some times we have done a show, a few years ago we went to ‘Wicked’ on Friday after a week of auditions – bad move, we were all too brain dead to appreciate it. So now we plan show trips for different times than auditions.
‘Did you do anything’ – well, this year our schedule was different than the usual travel on Sunday, audition Monday through Friday, travel on Saturday – we traveled on Wednesday and the next Wednesday, auditioned Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday and had Sunday off. Monica and Doug visited friends, Lynne had brunch with a friend and slept, and I went to the ‘International Center for Photography’ and saw an interesting show of fashion photography; some great photos of 'stars' from the 1920's and 30's like Carol Lombard, Kathryn Hepburn, Amelia Earhardt, some great photographers works - what a difference in not only the clothes, but the photos and how the clothes are displayed from then to now - back then it was all about the elegance, style, now - well, some of the photos I couldn't tell what it was about and some I didn't want to know! Walked around and then went to the zoo in Central Park. Didn’t ride the carousel, but I did smile at the animals – they have penguins, I love penguins – and smile more at the kids looking at the animals. What a neat little zoo that is. Penguins, puffins, sea otters and sea lions, polar bears, a whole ‘rain forest’ house full of birds - that was some noisy, let me tell you - along with some spiders, lizards and snakes, some sort of monkeys, I don’t remember what particular type, black headed swans, and I’m no doubt leaving some out. Some of the things the kids were getting most excited about were the ducks and geese – oh and turtles, a pond full of turtles (the hardware store here in town has a little indoor pond with turtles in and the kids go nuts for those, too). I was sitting on the ledge around the turtle pond and a little girl came up and was looking for them, so I pointed her to one in the water right next to us and her eyes got huge and she said ‘oooh!’ Wasn’t it great to be the age when a turtle makes you go ‘oooh!’?
Had a nice dinner on Sunday night, even though we gave up our newly traditional one at Carmine’s because there were only three of us, everyone else either was busy or sick, and with only three people there’s no sense going to Carmine’s unless you can do a lot of doggy bags and we couldn’t because of being in the hotel. Carmine’s does way too much food!
Saw a bunch of good people (about 550 or 600 and some of them we saw twice, with call backs) and even more not so good ones, and some that were good but just not for the shows we are doing this summer. Saw some friends from past seasons. Told some stories, caught up on some news.
The weather was good, so Monica and I walked to and from the studio, about 20 blocks, which was a nice ‘airing out’ from sitting in the room all day long. We order lunch in because there isn’t time to go out and have it, and after trying a couple of places that someone in the group complained about each day we made Tuesday ‘GYOFL’ Day (Get Your Own Flippin’ Lunch) and everyone liked that, especially me not having to listen to complaints.
Too many people, try to walk down the street and there’s always someone to dodge around who isn’t going to move aside or slow their path for you; too much noise – at 3 a.m. a couple of mornings I got woke up by people yelling outside, could hear them even on the 10th floor, sirens and of course that wakes me up every time. Twice they stopped outside the hotel, the one time Monica said ‘those sound awful close’ and I said ‘yeah, they’re right out front’. Don’t know what it was but nobody told us to leave the hotel so we didn’t.
Came home and now we have to do it again this Wednesday, not for as long this time, though. And in not so crowded and hectic a part of the city.
New York City. Nice place to visit, I guess. Sure wouldn’t want to live there – and I did for a while a long time ago. Nope, not any more.
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