They Stand Alone

Put on a coat and tie for lunch yesterday at the famed restaurant "21." I recently read an article about the Washroom Attendant at 21 being one of the best in the NYC. He didn't disappoint. His patter went something like this:

"Hello, young man...I don't even remember being as young as you are...You see, I crossed the Red Sea with Moses...I knew Adam...I warned him about Eve...I said the same thing to Kobe...Did either of them listen?" Hilarious! Oh, lunch was real good too.

Saw two one-person shows yesterday -- Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays" in the afternoon and "Whoopi" in the evening.

700 Sundays is about Crystal's relationship with his Mother and Father and family of characters. It's good, but dragged on. At one point the audience thought it was over and stood for a standing ovation but Crystal silenced the crowd because there was "more." Oy!

Whoppi's show actually had signs posted outside the theater warning the audience that the show contains "strong political satire." Hello! Are we such a nation of idiots that that's really necessary. (Probably, yes.) Well, Whoopi let it rip from the get-go and I loved it. It was very political and Whoppi had the adoring audience in the palm of her hand. Yesterday's New York Times reported her show was having trouble selling tickets. Last night's show, at least, looked sold-out to me. I like the symmetry that this show is presented in the same theater, the Lyceum, as her original star-making show 20 years ago.

(The Lyceum is also famous because the original owner of the theater had an apartment above the auditorium with a secret peephole looking towards the stage. He used to reach through and wave a hankie at his wife when she was overacting on stage.)

Dinner was at "Nanni" on the recommendation of Karen Kapler and Joe Schneider -- it's one of their NYC favorites. My dinner was excellent and the tiramasu was THE BEST I've ever had.

But "the cherry" for the day was meeting Renee and Harvey Rose for a drink at Sardi's after the theater. They'd been in Baltimore for a family wedding and came up to see "Avenue Q." Renee's been taking some medication and reported that she slept through the first act, but really liked the second one. That's kind of ironic because from what I've heard, it's normally Harvey who takes the $80 nap.