Ben Stiller and Lee Klein both born november 30, 1965 at the Jeff Koons opening at David Zwirner May 8, 2013

Ben Stiller and Lee klein at the opening of Jeff Koons “Gazing Ball” at David Zwirner May 8, 2013

Jackie Mason Being Shown the Dress Kim Kardashian wore while with the Baby Bump in the Window at Bergdof’s

Matthew Broderick at “Nice Work if You Can Get It” Stage Door

Matthew Broderick signing at Nice Work If You Can Get it Stage Door October, 2012

Pup Fiction: Maury Povich and His Dog

So yesterday I was waiting at the famed Dakota apartment building for a group from Ontario to step on and be their guide.  The A and C trains had been weird lately and so I decided to take the A from 207 to 59 and then catch the 1 tain uptown and walk over, but I just missed that train as I arrived at its Columbus circle platform after subway lines.  The overhead sign said that the next train would be in twenty minutes and that would leave me late for my 8:15 am date.  So I got out and walked along CPW to the Dakota.  I was going to stop for a bagel and butter and coffee but with the multiple blocks  I did not.

So soon I was leaning against the thick black rail before the empty moat of the  Dakota watching dogs being walked by their owners into the park.  A few minutes passed and a dog was in a frenzy making its way by itself several dog owners pulled their pooches out of its path. It looked to be an Irish Setter (but this blogger can not be entirely sure).  Soon one of the uniformed Dakota doorman recognized the canine which was obviously running home and wrangled it in making it stay, apprehended.  Then soon out of the park followed a man in a blue and white jacket bespectacled who turned out to be Maury Povich.

Maury leaned down to lecture the dog and take the dog toy the dog had poached from some other dog and then made off like a speeding carriage horse broken free form the cab.

Maury Povich at the Dakota lecturing his dog and taking away a rubber toy he does not know the origins of

A few moments later a smiling Maury walked his dog back into the park and the group took so long in getting to meet me that I was still there when Maury emerged again from the park still talking to his canine saying “you broke out of your collar” as if expecting a response.  Great stuff!

p.s I always list Maury and ex Connie Chung as former residents of the Dakota to tourists upon passing.. Obviously he is still there so in part I have been wrong.

Supreme Sonia Sotomayor at the Opening of Enemy of the People with Richard Thomas on Broadway

United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor at the opening of Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen on Broadway

Broadway on Broadway September 2012

 

Ed Asner from the cast of “Grace” Speaks

Spiderman, Reeve Carney Sings

Hostess Kathie Lee gets a visit from Hoda

2222- The Price of the Tim Tebow Sandwich and how a Jackpot Slipped through my Hands like a Dropped Pass

Well a while back as Tim Tebow  came on the scene in the Metropolitan area as the supposed back up to the less then peak performing Mark Sanchez, and in honor of his arrival from Denver the Carnegie Deli paid tribute to him in the form of the first non-kosher sandwich in the Deli’s some odd 75 year history.

  I thought to describe this as an edible of note to the hordes of double-decker customers some of whom were surely enamored of the very publicly spiritual quarterback formerly of Denver, some who were just fans of food and some who would find humour in the story.

I described it to no end: the ingredients or the layers i.e, 3.5 pounds of corned beef, pastrami, roast beef, american cheese, lettuce, and tomato on white bread.  And then the price of $22.22.

I described it so much lust overcame me and finished one night late this blogger raced over to mangia in the famous eatery for the first time ever.   He ordered the sandwich with Dr. Brown’s black cherry soda and the customary free pickles and cole slaw (some of which you see in the pic above).   The towering culinary monstrosity turned out to be no competition for him and he downed to applause from an adjoining able upon its total consumption.

Later in Brooklyn (and still to this very day) this second story mc said in following up with Big e. Smalls from Jay Z. “
Biggie Biggie Biggie  can’t you see
Sometimes your words just hypnotize me”  …. I would and still do say I hypnotized myself into eating the Tim Tebow sandwich, of course describe the ingredients, and then name the price and then state that I had begun to play 2222 in the pick 4 in the lottery.

Sporadically I did play the aforementioned same digit, getting more and more into the sequence and the past experience , though sometimes it turns out the number sells out because the repeated number doesn’t need to be boxed (what a deal).

I had played the combo recently stopping at a traffic island gas station plaza rest stop convenience store lotto point of purchase.  It was sold out for two drawings running and I had to prod the sales clerk who spoke very little English to sell the first slot it was available for to me.

I did not win and the number repeated did not come up right away after.  So by now you probably guessed I am playing on a regular basis especially when coincidence and presence of mind strike,, The next time it really struck hard was after finishing with a group of geriatrics from the South East of the United States on Restaurant Row (west 46th street between eighth and ninth avenues in Manhattan) their tour leader said the triple digits 445 in describing the address of their hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey simultaneous to my saying the same three digits which are the first three numbers of the exchange of the number to call the tour guide supervisors and it hit me as I was picking up my car to play this and another number (lately they had been coming one off the mark in the next day’s first drawing and there are two) at the same gas station in the middle of the parkway on the way to the gym.

Absence of presence of mind had me not buy or even check the 2222 sequence of which I had become such a devotee as I explained why I had chosen these numbers at the point of purchase.  Wouldn’t you know it the next day 2222 came in to the tune of $5000.

[post script it is possible that the numbers would have been sold out by the time I would have purchased them as a block though there is no way to find that exactly out they were sold out by the time the drawing was held: do I thus have the power to dismiss the process of endlessly torturing myself?}

(Bishop TUTUTUTU)

(Lottery Salvation or Eternity?)

Arthur and Into Nevada to go to Arizona

So this blog as it progresses has interposed very recent photos and happenings as the backtrack of  travel log and notable scenes continues.  We last left off at the first Fashion’s Night this inter-generational bus baby sitter worked his way through and now we find our self driving past the set of “Arthur” the remake starring Russell Brand as the titular drunk.  Buses passed the famous bull Arturo di Modica redone in double in paper mache by the movie production team as Luis Guzman and Brand as Arthur and his chauffeur dressed in Batman and Robin driving a bat mobile crashed into the grand sculptural bovine and handed it a giant severance package.

A short time later before leaving for the West this inexplicably behind schedule blogger was able to check off eating at the Bee and Thistle bed and breakfast in Old Lyme , Connecticut so close off of 1-95 on his frequent journeys to the motel 6 in Niantic that this establishment being in one of the famed haunts of the Connecticut Impressionists such as Childe Hassam and Theodore Robinson that he just had to stop  He remembers having the wasabi tuna from this menu http://beeandthistleinn.com/our-sample-grille-menu but it was so long as far as tasting and remembrance go ago he remembers little else except for the huge array of art in the abound and the somewhat snooty staff.

Then finally after a long year of travel consuming frequent flier miles and long talks of the west from others doubling the refracted light which appeared on his search engine term results in the form of Boynton Canyon in Sedona which is said to have a vortex he just had to venture forth.

The easiest thing to do was to fly into Las Vegas and to travel south from there and so he did leaving JFK after seeing a raft of backpackers and skiers.  In Vegas he saw that on the electronic call board in the airport casino-hotels were no longer represented by push square illuminated buttons of white light and so he called motel 6.  It was about forty dollars on East Tropicana just where he had to drive down to get the road passing out of Vegas towards going south past the Hoover Dam and into Arizona.  So he booked and took the shuttle bus to the all in one place every brand of rental car pick up terminal and was given a Mustang convertible  (whose roof he would be afraid to reopen for the entirety of the trip- lest his belongings blow away).

So after driving over and checking into to his believe it or not deluxe room he began to walk the strip.  He went first over now in the nighttime to the MGM Grand where CSI the experience was already closed wander around and then walked until where he could find a decently priced drink,  Finally he settled into a loud music included outdoor venue which he seems to think hosted several midget Elvis impersonators and then crossed a sky-bridge over Las Vegas Boulevard to check out the Cosmopolitan hotel and the rest of the new Atria hotel shopping complex with ad infinitum glass installation by Dale Chihuly (how unexpected?).

So the next morning after coffee he drove out and didn’t start taking pictures until Hoover Dam where driving the bridge over had him almost ———-.    H e had to take the tour of the wonder so often seen in the movies and he received a call from his mothers office asking where he was and he said “way more than six feet under”.  Anyway later he got back in his car after learning all about Elwood Mead and the accidentally man-made lake named after him when the Colorado River was damned and kept going south until he reached the turnoff for Sedona.

Then going into town on the winding drop he was again ——– as cars beckoned him to move as they moved around him and honked as he made it to the first fringe of forest and stopped and walked by beautiful red rock formations and thick pines not to mentioned abandoned structures which were like outpost bungalows before driving all the way to slip rock state park watching all having fun on the water before booking a night at riverside lodge under the stars.  It was the Briar Patch inn  right there under the stars with a DVD library and a jacuzzi hot tub in the room and a great desk staff.  So all this way for a bit of healing and the first dream I had was about work..

…..It started off with Matthew Broderick on a tour bus getting dropped off and promising the tourists that he would return when the dim witted dispatcher Patel appeared telling the bus it had to go butwhat did he know from Matthew Broderick whom we were waiting for and then  who appeared but the big tour guide boss who started yelling at him but the dreamer dreamed so hard she depixilated dispersed and disappeared.  Later though Patel reappeared as a queenly Thai general in uniform in some quadrant of Bangkok bitching.  Previous to going to sleep though I found a great Mexican restaurant next to the rocks lit but the sun which must have made Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning dream so hard when they were residents in this town.

But that was recalled the morning after waking the first night at the lodge of two and on the second day the first of two at the lodge.. The first order of business on the second day was to venture out to Boynton Canyon of course. After finding parking he walked the long walk of course into the canyon through firs just the desert floor then woods the first part against fencing including a resort then he climbed up a hill and when some people cam up they seemed like they were in bad bad mood so he asked why and they said .. we are from Antwerp and we are loosing the diamond cutting market to Dubai (I still use this on my NYC tours today).

Later driving back I saw a art movie theater for the Sedona Film Festival and what were they showing the Banksy Movie “Please Exit through he Gift Shop” and for that day only. A brilliant piece introducing tot he world to the madcap Brainwash with a cameo by the painter Ron English one of the great American artistic wits.

I found a great Mexican restaurant in Sedona ovelooking the Red Rocks and sunset and of course I was driving had to limit my margarita intake to one,

To The Daughter of Phoebe Klein- (nee Berkowitz)

Hello,

Your father was Bill Baker a Catholic man from the Philadelphia area

Your mother’s parents Louis Mayer and Beatrice Berkowitz

had the marriage between your parents annulled and sent your mother to Japan

on the way back  from picking your mother up at the airport your grandfather Phoebe’s father died of a heart

attack

I knew all of this and never told my father Sheldon Klein all the following years

then you showed up

Phoebe told me about your appearance and said if I told my father she would never speak to me again

I said nothing

she introduced you to our mutual sister but not to me

said sister told my father

and my father yelled at me

I am tired of playing the victim in this affair

so I am stepping out of that role and unveiling the facts

(Mel Gibson directed her method of operation so well)

THE ICE ROAD TRUCKER POLAR BEAR

With the infamous Ice Road Trucker High Rowland aka “Polar Bear” from the History Channel Program for Whom I played tour guide

Here in New York while making a series of promotional appearances for the network Polar Bear and the Mrs had time for a tour.  I took the  opportunity to tell him about the time I drove to Niagara Falls right into a blizzard and experienced the Lake Effect in the guise of Cyclading snow while a hysterical Australian nurse demanded I pull over to the shoulder (what happens when you pull over to the shoulder during a blinding blizzard a similarly blinded sixteen wheeler runs you over).