Dateline – Seattle, Washington

So this is 62… Doesn’t feel a lot different from 61… or 58. It does feel significantly different than 44. The joints hurt more. I’m not as able to adjust positions rapidly and getting up and down from the floor is much more of an adventure than it was in the past. That’s what a generation’s worth of time will do to you. In another generation, should I survive that long, I will be experiencing my 80s and that seems like completely foreign territory and something about which I do not want to spend time contemplating at this phase of life. I may be here, I may not. If I remain on this side of the dirt, I hope my mental faculties remain relatively intact even if the joints have completely given way. I’ve been adjusting around those for quite some time now.

Seattle continues to roll out the red carpet in terms of terrific weather. High 70s/low 80s, sunny, no humidity to speak of. I’ll take it. So far I’ve had a lovely walk around Green Lake with Debbie Douglas and Thomas E. Davis, lunch on Lake Union with Lauren Marshall, a night at the opera (Barber of Seville) with Paula Podemski, brunch with my editor and publisher Steve Peha, and a birthday dinner en familie (most of whom are not on Facebook with the exception of my father Alyn C. Duxbury). It’s been a lovely time and I’ve been able to do some decompressing away from the every day pressures of UAB, Birmingham VA, and all of the other things that keep me on my toes in my usual day to day life.

I have had something over 500 birthday well wishes so far today. I read and respond to them all. I do this because every name as it scrolls by means something to me. Someone I shared a stage with either once or multiple times over decades. Someone I worked with and beat my head into the wall with the continuing unsolvable problems of geriatric medicine. Someone whom I shared educational experiences with from elementary school forward. Someone who helped me through the difficult times of widowerhood with the gift of presence either in person or on line. Someone whom I have never met but whom social media randomly threw together and who has become a touchstone of one sort another. Someone who is an international opera name. Someone who has no fame outside of their personal circle of acquaintance. Someone who once meant the world to me until our lives diverged. Someone who is a casual acquaintance at best. They all make up this crazy quilt tapestry of life and every year when the greetings pour in (made easy through the tools of social media) I reflect at least a bit on the fact that maybe my existence and my work has meant something on some small scale. Now if only a few more of you would buy one of the books. It would make my publisher happy.

Enough navel gazing on my part. It will all roll around again in May of 2025. Maybe not with a surprise phone call from my best friend from childhood Brock Hanson whom I had not spoken to in three or four decades but who called me out of the blue this morning with birthday greetings, but with something equally unexpected. I was talking this morning to my publisher about next steps with the writing career. How do I get the next book to flow in a brain dump so that it can be properly organized into something reasonable. Should I think about a warts and all memoir which includes all the things left out of The Accidental Plague Diaries (of which there are many). Should I move forward with turning APD into a theatrical monolog and test it out. No firm decisions were reached but there are things germinating and maybe something will start falling out onto paper. Watch this space.

Covid continues to evolve as all life does. The latest variants, which have been dubbed with the highly improbable name of Flirt (which I assume is an acronym for something but I’m too lazy to google and find out exactly what) are spreading as they are out competing the omicron JN.1 variants from this past winter. Wastewater studies show Flirt is spreading but how far and how fast is unclear as we’ve dismantled all of the rapid response systems that gave us epidemiologic data in real time. Hospitalizations and deaths do not appear to be going up at this time so we’re probably still in a reasonable holding pattern. It very much remains out there. I continue to advise vaccination as those with full vaccination status are 85% less likely to require hospitalization and are far less likely to develop long Covid. My niece missed my birthday dinner this evening as she currently has it. She’s fine but we decided it was best that she not be around my 91 year old father or my sister who, to our knowledge, has never been infected and would like to remain that way.

The rest of the news, on this joyous day, remains relatively depressing. The left wing continue to show that they have no idea how to differentiate a religion, a citizenship, or a political stance from each other suggesting a lack of critical thinking skills. The right wing were busy applauding a candidate who appears to have been endorsing cannibalism at his most recent rally which also suggests a lack of critical thinking skills. In all those years of writing Politically Incorrect Cabaret, I could never have made any of this up. Perhaps I should, like Miss Havisham, retreat into my abode with my memories and an avoidance of the modern world. I’ll just skip all the rotted food.

Tomorrow promises more merry sunshine and some time with my sister in her garden which should be soothing. Tra la!

Dateline – Seattle, Washington

It’s a gorgeous sunny day today in Seattle, so I am, of course, sitting inside and working my way through various projects. I should get out and enjoy the weather a bit so I’ll go for a walk later this afternoon. The biggest problem is no car and most of my favorite local walks are not convenient to public transportation. I suppose I can Uber if I’m feeling a real need.

I’m here for a few days to see the family. My nonagenarian father, the only one that’s come around so far, appears to be in reasonable shape. Geriatrician that I am, I worry about falls but assessing his mobility and gait last night and this morning, I’m not overly concerned. He’s doing well with a walking stick and a scooter for distance. The other family members will likely surface in the next day or so and we’re having a gathering on Saturday for my birthday which should bring everyone together for an evening.

I’m not sure what to make of turning 62. It’s not one of those nice round number milestones, but it does mean that I could apply for my social security should I so choose (not doing it for a few more years though…) It also means that this year marks my 40th year in medicine with all of the changes I’ve seen (most not necessarily for the better) and that I will have spent half of my life as medical school faculty (having received my initial appointment just after my 31st birthday). All that of course gets me contemplating what has all of this meant and how do I make sense of the last four decades. But then my brain hurts and I start thinking of other things.

I should be getting together with my editor/publisher this weekend to talk about the new book. I know what it needs to say and what the central themes and arguments are and pieces of it are arranging themselves within my brain. I just haven’t been motivated to do the brain dump to paper yet or something like that. I’ve written a few bits but nothing that could yet be shown to anyone. I figure I’ll hit the right moment and it will all fall out relatively rapidly. That seems to be the way I work. In the meantime, I have theater projects, a couple of legal cases, and an educational program that needs revising to keep me occupied.

Can’t say much about Seattle yet as I haven’t seen a lot of it other than Sea-Tac airport, the light rail and Aljoya Thornton Place. Seems to be about the same as it was when I was here in the fall. It’s been something over 35 years since I left and it’s not the city of my youth in any way, shape or form but, as I have no particular inclination to return (I could afford a semi-detached garge at current real estate prices) I’m not going to fuss too much. You can’t go home again. Neither you nor it have stayed the same.

I did something today that I very rarely do. I arranged my day so that I could get home mid afternoon with every intention of taking a nap. I very rarely do such things but I wasn’t feeling 100% today and it seemed like a good idea. I suppose, with my next birthday in just over a week marking the earliest that I can take my Social Security, I am simply entering the band of life that encompasses afternoon naps, lamenting for the way things used to be and yelling ‘get off my lawn’ at the neighbors’ children. I won’t be doing much of this latter as it is a condo building and the lawn is somewhat negligible. I’m also a generation younger than most of the residents so children are few and far between other than the occasional visiting grandchild or great grandchild.

Alas, when I returned home, my terrace was full of Hispanic construction workers doing various things that required banging, blowing, and occasional mariachi music from a portable radio. At long last additional progress is being made on the retiling project that started something over 18 months ago. My terrace, and one other in the other building, are continuations of the pool deck and, in doing the repair prep work, various previously unknown complications regarding building drainage were uncovered and the whole thing has been hurry up and wait for months and months. The big issue has to do with drainage and rain run off. Design flaws channel far too much water off the building and onto my terrace where it does not go down the inadequate drainage system, but rather seeps through the deck and down into the parking garage below. As none of the residents of Arlington Crest has any interest in living in Surfside II, repairs must be made. Even if it did cause me to miss my nap. I’m going to bed early to make up for it. I know, I know… First world problems…

I have put both UAB and the VA under notice that I plan to retire from clinical work in the late spring of 2027. We shall see if they use the next three years wisely to prepare for an outpatient clinical program that does not have me shouldering most of the burden and soldiering on day after week after month after year. These plans could change, but after all of the events of the last decade, especially the catastrophes of the last six years, I’m tired and feel that it’s time to be put out to pasture. I think I’ve earned it. I’ll stick around as emeritus faculty if they’ll let me but that will not include any regular scheduled patient care. That doesn’t mean people can’t call me up for the occasional sage advice.

Rehearsals have started for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I have the utility character track meaning five or six characters in one scene apiece – pretty much all vital to the plot and requiring a different look and sound. It’s going to be another one of those shows where I spend most of my time changing clothes. Fortunately, all of those years of Politically Incorrect Cabaret have made me king of the quick change. We’re just starting into staging so I don’t have a complete idea yet of what all I have to do. The ensemble is composed mainly of talented kids in their late teens and early 20s (musical theater BFA students from the local programs who are on summer hiatus). I trust the director is smart enough not to try and force me to keep up with them. They could be my grandchildren at this point. The audiences at Virginia Samford Theatre really don’t need to see me up there shaking my sixty something year old bon bons and trying to pretend that I haven’t become a Paw Paw.

I poked around the latest Covid news earlier this evening to see if there was any news worth passing on. There really isn’t. It’s still very much with us but numbers have continued to fall over the last month or so as the weather has warmed up. The death rate is about half what it was in January and February which is good news. If you call 500 people dying per week rather than 1,000 people dying per week good news. There don’t appear to be any new wide spread variants of concern and there seems to be some argument as to the formulation for this fall’s booster. Whatever they decide, I’m going to get it around Labor Day (presuming it’s available) so it’s in my system before I leave on my big trip for the year (South America – more details later).

The political news from all over is bad. It sort of makes me itch to do another edition of Politically Incorrect but I really feel that my generation is too old and needs to pass the torch down to the Millennials and Gen Z. Perhaps I can talk one of the ensemble kids that it would be a good idea to run with a Berlin style cabaret show with elements of street theater and agitprop. The local news is mainly about fighting back against the worst impulses of Alabama’s legislature and governor regarding book bans and downright cruelty to gender minorities. Apparently they haven’t figured out that those who would ban knowledge in any form are never on the right side of history. My take on it is that with Dobbs having overturned Roe vs Wade, the powers that be have needed to quickly find a new social crusade to keep the rank and file in line and gender minorities presented an easy pivot as they would have grave difficulties fighting back. I wonder sometimes if the Republican party has read any histories of the 1930s but then I realize of course they have. But they don’t read them as cautionary tales, they read them as instruction manuals.

Tonight’s an off night before the performances of ‘Opera Unveiled’ this weekend. In the opera world, because of the vocal demands on the soloists, there’s always a day off before a performance so Opera Birmingham usually has tech/dress Sunday to Wednesday, is off Thursday, and then performs Friday evening and Sunday matinee. The chorus doesn’t have a lot to do this concert (but it is nice to be back on stage singing with old friends again – the usual gang hasn’t been on stage together since Tosca in 2019 due to the Pandemic and the need to restrict the size of shows for health and budgetary reasons). Only one of our selections is difficult, the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore (it’s the big chorus the Marx Brothers destroy in A Night at the Opera if you want context). Verdi pitched the whole thing too high for the basses and there are some very weird counts on a couple of the entrances. There’s only twenty of us singing with the entire Alabama Symphony Orchestra so it also has to be a real sing out Louise moment. The other two numbers we are singing are the Habanera from Carmen (and barking out Prend garde a toi over and over isn’t especially taxing) and the Brindisi Libiamo from La Traviata which is an old chestnut and at least in a key that basses can sing relatively easily. If you’re not doing anything tomorrow evening or Sunday afternoon, come on over to DJD Theater at ASFA – tickets available at the door. The soloists are spectacular.

Rehearsals are beginning for my next theater project, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, this weekend. I’ll have much more to say on that later as it starts to take shape. I saw the Broadway production back in the day. I don’t think the stage show is the greatest thing ever written, but it’s fun and has a stellar cast, some of whom I haven’t worked with in years and am looking forward to getting reacquainted with and some of whom I’ve been in shows with off and on for decades. Virginia Samford Theatre has upped its game this past season and I’m happy to be a small part of that.

I’ve been reading through various health news stories over the last few days and a couple of them have caught my eye. The first came out Monday when the Biden administration finalized new rules for nursing homes regarding minimum staffing. Skilled nursing facilities are supposed to offer 24/7 safety and monitoring for people unable to care for themselves due to various medical conditions and disabilities. Since the Reagan years, they’ve operated under a Reagan era nebulous rule that states that they need to have ‘sufficient staffing’ to offer care without really defining what that means. As of Monday, we now know that this is defined as a minimum of 3.48 hours of direct care per resident from nursing staff (lower than the 4.15 hours suggested by a Medicare report of a few years back).

The trouble is that more than 80% of the nursing homes in the country won’t be able to meet this metric and a lot are way behind it. (I think the average these days is something like 2.1-2.4 hours of direct care per resident). The rules are giving the industry years to catch up (and hire the hundred thousand or so new employees that would be needed to meet these numbers) but the industry lobbying groups are already on the warpath about unfunded mandates and are beginning the assault on congress and public opinion to get these changed.

The pandemic has changed everything about the long term industry. The workforce which provided a steady stream of employees was decimated by a combination of retirements, people moving up into better paying vacated positions, women leaving the workforce for family needs such as child and elder care, and some employees figured out new ways of economic existence that didn’t require back breaking work at just above minimum wage. With the collapse of the workforce, the owners of skilled nursing facilities have been forced to raise wages to attract and retain anyone and salaries are up about 30% since 2020. This is putting a dint in profits (the majority of homes being owned by for profit chains that are often under the control of hedge funds and the like) and requiring even more employees to provide minimal levels of care is going to greatly exacerbate the red ink on the quarterly balance sheets.

Where this is all going to end up, I do not know. But it’s happening at a time when the lead edge of the Baby Boom will hit the age of eighty in eighteen months or so. The chance of needing long term care starts to rise exponentially at that point in the life cycle and many Boomers, especially the women, have fairly weak social safety nets which would allow them to remain at home. The combination of widowhood and divorce means that about half of women over 75 live alone and they have far fewer children to take them in or support them than previous generations. And their children are far more likely to reside at a distance. It’s all headed for a perfect storm (which is one of the myriad reasons I plan on retiring in a couple years. It’s not going to be pretty).

The other story I’m following is that of the H5N1 avian flu. It’s not yet of significant concern but, if it were ever to leap into humans, it could cause major havoc as it has a very high mortality rate. There has only been one human case in Texas in the current outbreak which has spread from birds to dairy cattle in that state but in the 865 cases reported world wide over the last twenty years, the mortality rate was 53%. There doesn’t appear to be much danger of human to human transmission currently and bird to human or cow to human requires significant contact so unless you’re involved in commercial farming, I wouldn’t worry. But there’s always that slim chance. Like when a flu virus jumped into a pig farm in the midwest in March 1918, spreading to military barracks and promptly being shipped off to World War I causing what became known as the Spanish flu. (It was called the Spanish flu because Spain, not being involved in World War I, was reporting accurate casualty totals – most of the rest of the developed world was hiding the true caseloads for purposes of morale and war planning so it looked like Spain was an outlier and the source to the general populace when it had nothing to do with it).

What worries me is the politicization of public health and the gutting of statues by red states in the wake of the pandemic. Should it make the leap to human / human transmission in Texas, I don’t believe for a minute that a political system controlled by the likes of Greg Abbot and Ken Paxton will deal forthrightly with the problem and will almost certainly not allow public health officials to do what would need to be done to stop the spread. And a H5N1 pandemic could possibly bring down our civilization given that it’s about 1000x deadlier than the usual influenza A and B that circulate. But I’m not going to invite trouble. I’m going to think happy thoughts. Or at the very least find something mindless to watch on TV before bed.

It’s a negative energy weekend. It’s now 2:30 on Saturday afternoon and I still haven’t been able to make myself do the things I was going to make myself do this weekend. The must accomplish list is done including studying up on audition sides, a church stewardship committee meeting, and the inexorable tide of back progress notes. But the non-urgent pile of getting some work done on the new book, writing a movie review, and breaking the back on a new legal case remain relatively untouched while I lie here watching old episodes of Bones and staring out the window at the overcast. I’m not sure if the lack of energy is physiologic aging, psychologic coping or just plane laziness. Probably a combination of all three.

I have been in a bit of a melancholic state since returning from New York this past week. Every time I go up there, there’s this piece of me which wonders ‘what if’. I had a couple of opportunities in life to relocate to the tri-state area but I never took advantage of them for one reason or another and it’s too late now. I suppose with retirement I could find a tiny little studio pied a terre somewhere and come and go as I please but I know how I would want to live in that city and I doubt my retirement income would support that. Perhaps its best that it remains something I dunk myself in every year or two to refresh.

My upcoming audition is for ‘Sunday in the Park with George’. I don’t expect to get it. After some score study, it’s pretty clear from the tessitura that Steve did not have bass-baritones in mind when he set the keys. Still, it’s good practice to get out there and put myself up against the better people in town. Sometimes I get cast, sometimes I don’t. I’m competitive but when it comes to musicals, I remain on the B list. I just don’t have the training at a young age that so many others have had. My current voice teacher has done wonders and my technique and abilities are coming back post pandemic lay off but at nearly 62, I’m not going to be winning any vocal competitions. I’m relatively happy with my aging character man niche. I get lots of opportunities and usually have something lined up to work on. I counted it up. Since reinvigorating my theater career as a performer twenty years ago, the count is 11 plays, 29 musicals and operettas, 13 cabaret/revue shows, and 14 operas. I’ve lost track of the number of choral concerts.

I wonder sometimes how much longer I’ll be able to perform on stage. Memorizing lines is harder. My sight isn’t what it once was making wandering around backstage in the dark somewhat hazardous. I can’t move as quickly, get up and down from the floor like I once did, and my balance is leaving me. These are all normal aging things which tell me I’m unlikely to spend another twenty years on stage. I’ll have to retire, other than select projects, at some point. There’s still a lot of shows and roles on the bucket list and some of them may come my way, some won’t. Fortunately, the casting pool in Birmingham for my age and type is relatively small so I have a shot at a lot of things. I’m always up against the same guys. At least we’re all friends and I admire their abilities immensely so I never feel slighted when one of them gets the nod over me. The fact that I get the callback and get in the room to compete with them is enough.

I have to start working on a geriatrics educational program put out by a company that helps people pass board exams. I’ve worked on this before. It generally requires me to go over updated materials on various elder care topics and then video record lectures. The company likes me because I can do a forty five minute lecture in a single take, remain entertaining, digress on a few tangents which demonstrate the practicalities of the material under discussion but bring it back where it needs to be. Comes from many decades of public speaking. The public speaking and lectures on aging I did in my thirties were my training ground for performance. I figured out very early on that if you were going to be speaking about aging, dementia, death and dying, and other such uplifting topics, you’d lose the room in five minutes if you didn’t develop techniques for holding peoples’ attention including humor and a certain charismatic delivery. It was Tommy, after attending a couple of my speaking gigs in 2003, who told me I needed to get myself on stage. I owe that piece of my life. Which is the piece that has kept me sane through all of the disasters of the last decade, to him.

It’s the sixth anniversary of his death this next weekend. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago, but I, like everyone else, has this distorted perception of linear time due to the effects of the pandemic. It was six years. I’ll be spending the day performing with his beloved Opera Birmingham in their gala concert ‘Opera Unveiled’ at the Day theater at ASFA. That seems somewhat appropriate. I spent a lot of time backstage at the Day with him as he did the wigs for Red Mountain’s summer shows including Les Miz, Mary Poppins (back again this summer), The Little Mermaid, Newsies, and so many others. I can’t walk into that space without seeing him in his blacks and his apron and his mouth full of wig pins getting everyone ready. He actually stage managed the very first performance in that theater when it opened. It was a concert by Angela Brown – ‘A Sistah’s Guide to the Opera’. A picture from a celebratory dinner after the dress is the cover photo on his Facebook page and there are the two of us, Angela, and others caught in a moment of happiness and triumph. I’ve never had the heart to take his Facebook page down. It’ll probably be there forever. And that’s OK with me.

Dateline Manhattan –

Sorry there was no update yesterday. I came back in after a double show day and just didn’t feel like writing anything so this will cover yesterday and today. Both days were pretty much about attending theater as that was the point of the weekend getaway. I’ve had other New York trips with other goals but this one was mostly about butt in seat at Broadway theater taking in some of the newer shows. After a couple of trips in the last few months, I’m starting to get caught up but there are a few of the long runs that I’m still missing like Moulin Rouge! and Six.

Saturday morning, I headed off on my own for a few hours. First stop was brunch with David Pohler catching up on life and things theatrical in the city. He then headed off to his tech rehearsal and I headed out. The weather was vile so a walk in the park was off the table so I turned my ramble into a walk through Macy’s Herald Square. I hadn’t been in for a few years. It hasn’t changed all that much other than, like in every other department store that remains open, it has become harder and harder to actually find a sales associate when you’ve made your selection. I bought myself a sage green linen blazer that was marked down about 70%, I don’t change size that much so I have a wardrobe that stretches back over decades, despite a lot of culling over the years. I therefore don’t have to buy a whole lot of new clothes these days. There’s enough in there for me to put on a new outfit everyday for at least six months (although I would run out of underwear).

I then met Patti at the Schoenfeld theater where we saw the matinee of the new musical version of The Notebook. I’ve never read the book (or anything else of Nicholas Sparks;’ – not interested) and have never seen the film. I did have a basic idea of the plot however as it’s one of those ubiquitous pieces of pop culture referenced by those of a certain age. The show has an excellent cast, is well designed and directed, relishes in its sentiments, and is undone by a ho-hum score. There’s not a song in it that sticks more than three minutes after it’s finished. I can see several of the leads garnering Tony nominations (especially Maryann Plunkett and Dorian Harewood) and it taking home direction and design nominations as well. And there’s a lovely use of water effects and an Act II rainstorm on stage that elevates the material.

Of course, the show with its themes of aging and love and loss, speaks to me given both my professional life and also my personal one. I know what it means to lose a partner in life – and I could very much read my parents story into the modern day sequences. I will admit I cried several times. It’s one of those shows that requires tissues. I just wish it had had a better score. If it had a Richard Rodgers or a Frederick Loewe writing the score, it would likely have left me a weepy mess as I usually am at the end of Carousel. Whoever put it together doesn’t follow theatrical superstition. It has a cast of thirteen.

Between shows, Patti and I got together with Ginny Stahlman Crooks and Stephen Crooks Felis for Mexican food and beer. More conversations regarding theater, reminiscences of Birmingham days, and thoughts about future travel plans together as part of the infamous Alabama Seven. (There is talk of Paris as a group in a year or so). Then, they headed off to Kimberly Akimbo while Patti and I headed to the revival of The Who’s Tommy at The Nederlander theater. I had seen the 1990s production that Des McAnuff directed back in the day. I remember sitting next to Steve as the lights went down and the electric guitars started up at top volume and his turning to me with a big grin saying ;’Oh this is going to be different’. We both loved it. This new production, with McAnuff again in the director’s chair, takes a somewhat different approach to the material than the last, especially in terms of the visual design with has a very stark black and white feel, only using color for certain elements or to enhance mood. It’s different but it works. The young man in the title role is a sensation, abetted by a large cast constantly in motion in an incredibly cinematic staging that must have taken weeks of rehearsal to perfect between performers and moving set pieces and lighting effects and onstage camera work.

This morning, we had a leisurely breakfast before heading uptown to church at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church on the Upper East Side. Old UU friend Lois Gaeta, having relocated to NYC, is now attending regularly so Patti and I joined her for service and then for lunch after together with a couple of her church friends, Miles Chapin and Julie Brannan. I have known who Miles is for many decades as he played a small, but crucial role in the film version of Hair back in the late 70s and that film was definitely one of the cultural touchstones of my late teens. How interesting to have a meal with him nearly half a century later. (Theater folk will likely know of his brother Ted, as well.)

Our matinee was the new musical version of Like Water for Elephants starring Grant Gustin of “The Flash’ fame. I liked the show but can’t say I truly loved anything about it. There’s nothing seriously wrong with it, it just doesn’t grab you in any particular way. The circus staging with a half dozen acrobats mixed into the ensemble is great but the physical production is otherwise a bit on the cheap and I was quite disappointed in the animal puppetry. I guess I have been spoiled by the likes of War Horse and Life of Pi. Performances are good, but nothing is a standout, not even Gregg Edelman as the older version of the protagonist. Again, as in The Notebook, we’re doing a memory play although the storytelling is a bit less clear with this one with our older narrator bopping from present to past through some very uneasy transitions.

And that completes the theater portion of the long weekend. We fly home tomorrow, however, as the flight isn’t until after two, we’re going to go to the Museum of Broadway in the morning before packing and heading to Laguardia. I may or may not bop back in with an update tomorrow. And so, with the sun disappearing behind the buildings of Hudson Yards, we bit farewell to New York. Tune in next month when our destination is Seattle.

Dateline – Manhattan

It was a sleep in kind of morning as there was no where to be at any particular hour. So coffee in bed (it’s nice to travel with someone who will do that for you) together with today’s Wordle and catching up on various emails and other on line things before dragging ourselves out into a blustery Manhattan morning. Cloudy with wind and rain squalls racing up the avenues. We hiked over to Herald Square and past Macy’s in search of bagels and breakfast sandwiches and then decided to spend the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as it really wasn’t the weather for anything outdoorsy. So off to Times Square (relatively uncrowded at noon in rotten weather) and to catch the subway to the Upper East Side.

I’ve been to the Met a few times over the last decade or so but Patti hadn’t been in many many years so I let her pick and choose. Some time in the Egyptian wing, some time in the American wing, but mainly with the 19th century European paintings as she wanted to see the Impressionist galleries. All of the usual suspects were there and I kept thinking of the famous Dr. Who episode where Vincent Van Gogh learns what he has meant to posterity. That’s why I wrote the books. I don’t expect them to be terribly successful in my lifetime but I do hope that a future generation can use them as a window into this really peculiar historical moment we all lived through.

Back down to Grand Central for cocktails and an early dinner with David Pohler and Vickie Rozell (who happened to be in town this week). David and Vickie met this past summer when we all went to ABBA Voyage together in London and it was time to introduce Patti to new interlocking circles of theater friends. I’m busy calling her to the dark side and making her into a true theater person. She recently worked backstage on a show in Birmingham (her first) and really enjoyed it so I think I have her nearly hooked.

Tonight’s show was the revival of Merrily We Roll Along with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe. I had seen it back in January when I was last here but Patti wanted to see Daniel Radcliffe on stage and it was very definitely a show I didn’t mind seeing again. I wrote relatively extensively about it when I first saw it (you can go to the blog and look it up if you feel the need). The show holds up, continues to have a very special place in my heart given my love for Sondheim and how I belong to the generation for whom the show was originally written forty plus years ago. I cried during ‘Old Friends’ as it takes me immediately back to the early 80s when Vickie and I and Craig Mollerstuen were our own Frank/Mary/Charlie trio. We’ve managed to hang together without rupturing the friendship over the decades. I don’t see it ever breaking. I also cried during ‘Our Time’. I defy anyone who has ever been a young person full of dreams of possibility making it through that scene dry eyed.

And so, to bed… as Pepys would say.

Dateline – Manhattan

And so the long weekend of fun, frivolity, and theater commences. I had planned on sleeping in this morning as my flight wasn’t until 11:30 but work had other ideas and my phone blew up with texts regarding a sick patient starting around 6:45 am. You can let your immediate colleagues know when you’re off on vacation but there’s no real good way to inform the entire health system and it’s usually easier to deal with issues yourself rather than try to pass them off to covering people who have no idea as to what the nuances of the situation may be. I did manage to calm it all down before, 8:00, took some time to snooze and luxuriate and have a large breakfast and then headed off to the airport in an Uber to meet up with Patti Steelman, my partner in crime for the weekend.

Off we jetted to Laguardia without incident, landing amidst intermittent showers and ribbons of fog. The new terminal at LGA is complete and very nice. Much better than the dodging of construction zones that’s been going on out there over the last decade or so. Bags grabbed and into a cab to Manhattan to the Ritz Carlton at 28th and Broadway, much nicer than I can usually afford courtesy of Patti’s bonus points. We are ensconced on the 29th floor in a very nice room with a view of the Empire State building, that is if you stand in the window and crane your neck to the left.

We opted for dinner in one of the hotel restaurants, Bazaar (chef Jose Andres who did not appear to be actually on the premises, just lending his name) which was a Japanese/Spanish fusion tapas place. The food was interesting and very good. I had scallops and chicken croquettes. Patti, being vegan, did not but has an excellent mushroom ramen and a cucumber salad. Then off to the subway and uptown to Lincoln Center for Turandot at the Met with Christine Goerke, Roberto Alagna, and Angel Blue. Patti has never really been to the opera before so I figured the Met with a full Zeffrelli extravaganza would be a reasonable introduction.

Turandot holds a special place in my heart as it was the first opera in which I appeared on stage. I’ve probably told this story before so, if you know it, you can stop reading here, but it bears repeating. It was fifteen years ago, January of 2009. Tommy had joined the Opera Birmingham chorus several years previously. I had been appearing in musicals in character roles for roughly five years and begun to become known as an actor who could sing a bit. I left all of the serious music – opera chorus, symphony chorus – to Tommy. he was well trained and had years of experience. I did not. He had begun rehearsing Turandot with the opera chorus in the fall of 2008 for its January performance. I wished him well. I wasn’t involved in anything particular at that point and was probably playing catch up with work (and putting my packet together for promotion from associate to full professor).

We got through our usual marathon of holiday activities that year and Tommy was very excited about the arrival of the principal cast (Lori Phillips, Roy C. Smith, Veronica Chapman-Smith, Corey McKern, Corey Trahan, Tracy Wise and maestro Joey Mechavich). They came into town the first week of January for the final three weeks of rehearsal/production. However, there had been some sort of miscommunication. There was supposed to be a chorus of forty plus but only a chorus of twenty had been prepared. Major musical disaster and the opera began to call everyone in town with music/theater stage experience. ‘Hi… what are you doing the next three weeks? Can you learn Italian? Ever wanted to sing in an opera?’ I got one of those calls. When Tommy got home that evening, I told him about this very odd call I had gotten inviting me to join the opera chorus and that they must be mistaken because I couldn’t possibly sing opera. He told me nonsense and that I should definitely do it. So, the next day, I turned up at rehearsal, was handed the chorus score to Turandot and plunged in.

I was totally lost the first week. Fortunately, my old friend Randy Mayo was playing the mandarin and singing the chorus bass line so I did what I have done many times over the last couple of decades – Listened to what he was doing and tried to do the same thing. Things got better but the pick up nature of the chorus (and the orchestra – a whole other story) led to some rather frayed nerves on stage and in the pit. More than a few doors were slammed backstage at the Alabama Theater. There was no time to really do proper staging rehearsals for the chorus as every spare minute had to be spent drilling music (I never did learn most of Act III other than the right vowel sounds). So the show basically became large groups of gray clad Chinese peasants rushing on and off left and right on cue, like a large gray curtain that would envelop the stage for the choral moments.

The show went up, was a good deal better than anyone expected and I was hooked. Fifteen years later I remain in the Opera Birmingham chorus (next appearance at the end of the month in Opera Unveiled – a concert of opera’s greatest hits). I’ve been a Chinese peasant, a Scottish noble, a dissolute Italian Renaissance courtier, a priest, a drunk, an Egyptian soldier, and a gypsy, singing in multiple languages. Opera. There’s nothing like it.

And we’re back around to birthday week. Today would have been Tommy Thompson‘s 59th birthday and Saturday would have been, god forbid, Steve Spivey’s 76th birthday. The fact that they were three days apart on the zodiac has always left me a little bemused. I’m a Taurus as bull headed as they come and they were both Aires. No wonder there was always much butting of heads in the household over this or that. It kept me on my toes and life interesting. Now there’s no one to butt heads with except the cats and while they can get argumentative, especially if kitty treats are not forthcoming when they expect them, they don’t really rev my emotional self up in quite the same way.

I suppose its fitting that I’m going to spend dead husband birthday weekend in New York sitting in Broadway theaters. Those early 20th century temples to Thespis are among my happiest places. And I spent many happy evenings and matinees with both Tommy and Steve attending shows over the years. Steve loved going to the theater. He would completely lose himself in the show. As he had no background in theatrical production, he never critiqued, he just let the material take him for the ride wherever he was going. He was equally fascinated by Shakespeare, Noel Coward,, Les Miz or something that was just not very good, like Steel Pier. (We went to the very first preview of that one and both turned to each other in the middle of the first act going ‘who the hell is that’ after the unknown Kristen Chenoweth walked off with the show opposite Jim Newman). He found every joke funny and laughed heartily. He was mesmerized by various coups de theatre. He usually came out of the theater and walked with me down 7th avenue stating it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

Tommy, on the other hand, had been around theater and music since childhood and knew entirely too much. He only felt something succeeded if it completely transported him away from his reality and very few shows managed that for him. The two I recall off hand being the original productions of Rent and Light in the Piazza. He fell in love with both of them, the former as he felt that it captured his life from his formative twenties and the latter because it appealed to his sophisticated musical tastes. I’m a sucker for big old fashioned musical comedy. He was not but would indulge me. If there wasn’t a death or two and at least a bittersweet ending, he just wasn’t all that interested. When it came to local theater, he had a maxim. He wanted to see everyone he knew on stage and yet see no one he knew on stage. There were performers here in town who could do that for him but not many and I wasn’t among them. He would usually tell me, after seeing me in something that he wasn’t involved with, that I was ‘adequate’ and that I would ‘keep getting better with more experience’. Some of the best performances I’ve given have been after his death so I hope he’s peered down and at least paid attention.

I’m vaguely caught up in the work department. At least I don’t feel like I’m snowed under and have a plan in place to balance everything from now through the summer. I met with my accountant this afternoon and submitted the taxes and got good news regarding refunds so I can now start thinking about what I am going to do for my big 2024 trip this fall. I’ll call up my travel agent, give him a budget and we’ll start shaking the trees to see what falls out. The next few years are going to be limited to one big trip a year due to work constraints but I’m starting to think that I’m going to take a little money from my retirement accounts and plan some sort of big blow out trip for the year I hang up my shingle. And then two to three trips a year after. I’m still taking applications for travel companion.

The one thing I’m very behind on is the new book. I’ve got lots of ideas buzzing around in my head but haven’t been able to capture much yet on paper (or in electrons as I tend to write on my trusty laptop – an item that I think I should replace as it’s now six years old). I figure when it’s ready, I’ll start to vomit it forth and it will come relatively quickly. That seems to be the way I work. Nothing,…nothing…nothing… then thousands of words pouring out in a matter of days. But I shall not be writing such things on my long NYC weekend. I shall be enjoying good theater, good food, and most of all good company. Expect travel updates to begin shortly.

Four more sleeps (and three more work days) before my mini-vacation to NYC with my friend Patti Steelman. The tickets are all purchased for an opera, two new musicals, and two revivals (one of which I have seen before). It should be a good time, even if the forecast is for rain this next weekend. Rain doesn’t bother me. I’m a Seattlleite who has walked, hiked, played soccer, and shot off Fourth of July fireworks in the rain during my Wonder Years. Just wear a rain jacket and go on about life as usual. I will report on the city and the theatrical offerings in my usual fashion so be prepared for some more frequent posting.

This last week was psychologically a bit hard. One of the more difficult aspects of my job is the need for me to walk through very difficult decisions and journeys with my patients. Something eventually goes seriously wrong with everyone and I sometimes find myself having to help someone I’ve known for decades as a patient or sometimes as a friend, through devastating health news or a sudden decline due to a fall and an injury or a rapidly accelerating dementia. I’ve been able to do this over the years because I’ve lived a life with its tragic moments and had to learn caregiving from a practical rather than a theoretical perspective during those two years that Steve was so sick. My choice of specialty allowed me to place a certain distance between myself and my patients. They were of a different generation. They were parental or grandparental figures, not peers. This was reinforced as so many of my friends and acquaintances brough me their parents or other special senior adults over time.

Now, nearly forty years after I first entered the rarified world of American medicine, I have aged. More and more of my patients are within a few years of my own age, some are younger. It’s harder for me to insert that distancing and instead I have to take a brutal look in the mirror and recognize that I too cannot do all of the things I once did due to the relentless body and brain changes that age brings to us all. This is why I’m seriously contemplating retirement and have set a date. My physical and mental health need some decompression and there is none forthcoming in the trenches of outpatient medicine. The demands go up, the respect goes down. As I rapidly head towards my later sixties and seventies, it’s time for younger people to step up and take care of Generation Jones. I just have no earthly idea of who those people are going to be or where they’re going to come from. Geriatrics as a career choice remains in free fall.

One of my oldest Birmingham friends died unexpectedly this past week. Barry Austin was someone that Steve and I got to know in our first year here. Our routine, before Steve’s health declined. was for us to go to the downtown YMCA after I finished work and before dinner a couple of times a week. Barry was on that same schedule and we would often chat. He never made a big deal out of his legendary local theater career and I wasn’t involved in the performing arts scene of Birmingham at all other than as an occasional patron. Steve’s illness, death and the aftermath took up most of 2000-2003. Barry and I saw each other socially a few times during that period but I don’t have much recollection of it due to my high stress levels and mistaken feeling that I would soon be departing Birmingham and head back to the west coast. Tommy and I got together in 2003 and started to throw ourselves into theater the next year and I got to know Barry again after having not seen much of him for a while. He was always, gentle, kind, humorous, and dedicated to giving the best performance he could craft. We started to move routinely in the same social circles and much to my surprise I started to share the stage with him over the last decade or so. We were both cast in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang this summer and I was looking forward to being able to spend some more time with him. Not to be.

I wonder sometimes if I’ll drop dead for one reason or another in the next few years. I hope not. My to do list is way too long and my family won’t be able to make heads or tails of my affairs. The will is done but i want to take a few months at retirement to really put everything in order and make it as easy as possible for my siblings and nieces who will probably be saddled with much of the legwork. I have some ideas about how to use my estate to benefit the local music-theater community but I have to get into retirement living and get a sense of money flow before executing any of them. Here’s hoping I hold together for another three years. There’s no guarantees. And my division has a long history of having faculty retire and then developing health related disasters within the next year and I would rather not join that club.

Next week should be easier and, if nothing else, I’ll get the taxes on Wednesday and have some clue as to what sort of vacation I can afford to take this fall. I’ll sick my travel agent on it once I know if it’s a refund or a payment year. It can go either way. I’m in one of those weird places where a few hundred dollars more of income knocks me up a tax bracket and all of a sudden I owe thousands more. I have no particular aversion to paying taxes (its part of the social contract and I believe in pooled resources doing things beyond what we can accomplish as individuals) but there are times that they can be murderous on the cash flow.