Secret: What I am baking Sunday afternoon...

Someone I am immensely fond of is having a birthday on Monday, so Sunday I am baking my specialty...

RED VELVET CAKE!!!

Don't tell.

Last Chance for, um, Climax...

Tonight and tomorrow are the closing performances of Happy Endings presented by Blue Coyote Theater Group at the Access Theater. I would recommend it simply for Tracey Gilbert's Mrs. Santa Claus alone, but there are many great reasons to see this silly, touching evening about the lives of sex workers (one of whom, Joe Curnutte, achieves the difficult task of showing how talented he is by playing a go-go boy who is completely talent free). Smarttix is handling the billets. Go!!!

Also, on Sunday evening the Coyotes are throwing an "Afterglow" party/fundraiser. You can check it out on their website.

Virtually Me:

So, I was online picking up a few things at Land's End when a pop-up screen asked the unexpected "would you like to try something on?" My interest was piqued. Why yes, Land's End, I'd like very much to try something on, but how could I possibly do so? Here's how. I was asked a bundle of questions. Not just my height and weight, but the shape of my eyes, the narrowness or fullness of my lips, the circumference of my "seat". My favorite animal. Okay, that was just the security question. I hit go, the site churned for a moment or two, then the virtual Tim appeared, shirtless in cute tightie whities. Then I was offered hundreds of garments to dress the virtual me in. For someone who loves to try on clothes I've no intention of purchasing in the dressing room mirrors of smart shops (okay, Club Monaco), it's a dream come true! Is it self-indulgent? Is it weird? Is it kinky? You got me. But it's totally irresistable! And the kicker: the virtual me is a doll! I'd date me in a New York minute.

"No Greater Love: A Passion Play"

For those of you who take your Lenten Seasons seriously (as do I), the Xavier Company is about to embark on a tri-state tour of "No Greater Love: A Passion Play for the Lenten Season". According to the flier, it is "a vibrant musical drama that celebrates the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ".

I haven't seen it, but best-bud the Peter Proctor is playing Jesus and my much-adored Abigail Taylor is also in the cast which includes Nikki Casserli-Healy, Lena Cigleris, Marvin Joshua, Marian Lizzio and Michael Santora. I don't really know Michael yet, but his voice is gorgeous.

It was written by Janeen Stevens and is directed by Carol Ferrone with music direction by Gerard DeMan, Jr. Several performances occur over the coming weeks. This Friday evening the piece will play it's sole Manhattan engagement at St. Francis Xavier Church, 46 West 16th. Admission is free, but I suppose there is probably an offering.

Great kids!

Here are a couple of pics from the Young Disciples trip yesterday to the Nursing Home. Left to right, they are Devin, Terence, Suzana, Chrisitan, another Devin. Atop: Suzana, sporting her new "do-of-the-islands", connects with an Esplanade resident.

A great morning...

Sundays I rise and travel down to the West End Collegiate Church where I lead the kids choir. This morning I took a small group of them to the Esplanade Nursing Center to sing for the elderly residents. What a great experience! The kids did three numbers then worked the room. They chatted up a delighted group of retirees (one of them 98 years old!) and created such a sense of joy. I could not have been any prouder. It was a privlege.

Great subway read...

Grab yourself a copy of Boze Hadleigh's "Broadway Babylon". It's funny and bitchy and written in tiny spurts that make it the perfect subway read. Jimmy gave it to me for my birthday. And it's endorsed by Rosie O'Donnell!

Little Timmy’s Oscar Predictions

I've a long, distinguished history of winning Oscar pools. Take heed, those venturing into the ugly, uber-competetive world of Oscar Guessing Sunday night. I say:

BEST FILM
I predict: No Country for Old Men
I would choose: Juno
I’d have nominated: I’m Not There

BEST DIRECTOR
I predict: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
I would choose: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I’d have nominated: Todd Sayles, I’m Not There

BEST ACTOR
I predict: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will be Blood
I would choose: Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
I’d have nominated: Gordon Pinsent, Away From Her

BEST ACTRESS
I predict: Julie Christie, Away From Her
I would choose: Julie Christie, Away From Her
I’d have nominated: Amy Adams, Enchanted

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
I predict: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
I would choose: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
I’d have nominated: Elijah Kelley, Hairspray

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
I predict: Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
I would choose: Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There
I’d have nominated: Romola Garai, Atonement

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
I predict: Juno
I would choose: Juno
I’d have nominated: Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
I predict: There Will Be Blood
I would choose: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
I’d have nominated: Sweeney Todd

BEST SCORE
I predict: Atonement
I would choose: Atonement
I’d have nominated: Once

BEST SONG
I predict: “That’s How You Know”, Enchanted
I would choose: “Falling Slowly”, Once
I’d have nominated: “Without Love”, Hairspray

Who saw the moon?

It may not have been a total eclipse of the heart, but it was neat. Spooky. Sexy. A little dusty. It made me want to write a song.

PP and a Grammy darling...

I wandered up to 191st Street last night to dine with the Peter Proctor and company (Shari, Marie, David). PP is one of the best cooks going and he didn't disappoint --- marvelous chicken filets, decadent creamed rice, heavenly veggies. Pink lemonade!!!

Shari and Peter started discussing Mrs. Proctor's penchant for fine footgear and the rest of us laughed to the point of hyperventilation. We retired to the living room for American Idol (Peter is a complete American Idol dork) where PP launched into a running monologue about singers who should be seen and not heard (Tina Turner), those who may be tolerated but firmly discouraged (Taylor Dayne) and those who should simply be killed (Cyndi Lauper, Janis Joplin). Then, out of the blue, Mr. Proctor leaps to the floor and begins his impersonation of Amy Winehouse and her backup group doing "Rehab". It may have been one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed. I woke up this morning still laughing.

There are two photos above. One is Amy Winehouse and one is not.

The highlight of my Presidents Day...

I had a marvelous Presidents Day. I gossiped with friends on the phone. I drew. I read. I watched junk TV. I didn't go near the piano. And the highlight --- late afternoon I ran a warm, deep bubble bath, scented with vanilla and almond. I poured a Makers Mark and water. I took the lid off a fresh pint of Ben and Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. I lowered my naked frame into the tub and soaked and drank bourbon and ate ice cream for an hour... it was bliss.

The pic is Martin van Buren, bless his heart.

David and happy endings...

When you have loved someone, lived with them, shared their bed and their dreams, you can only see them apart from other people. So, even though I have already blogged about Happy Endings now at the Access Theater (see below), David Johnston can only be viewed on his own.

David both acts in and wrote for the anthology evening about sex workers. First the actor. David is effortlessly funny. It is one of my favorite things about him. In Blair Fell’s short play, Beauty, He portrays a lonely man enamored of an abdominally chiseled go-go boy (an excellent Joe Curnutte). He is vulnerable, silly, touching and understandable. The strangest thing about Beauty, though, lies in the fact that the piece oddly echoes David’s own wonderful yet unproduced Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?. The similarities are weird. All the same, David is great.

Then, David the playwright. I know David’s writing well. Perhaps not as well as his mentor, Chuck Maryan, but well. I have seen David’s plays, read them and reread them. With the short piece Yes Yes Yes he has broken through a wall.

David is clever clever clever when he writes, but he often uses that to hide himself rather than reveal himself. Generally he is uncomfortable with people knowing what he is feeling. He is well read and has used his knowledge of literature sublimely in his dramatic endeavors. Cow romps freely though Greek mythology. Bush Carol: Xmas of Evil casts Scrooge as Dubya with Carl Rove as Henry Higgins and Laura as Lady MacBeth. His conversance in Turgenev serves him well in Conversations on Russian Literature. But David’s dependence on what other people have written has been something of a hindrance thus far to his own voice.

Whether he means to or not, Yes Yes Yes reveals David tellingly. In it a beautiful go-go boy comes on to a shy john because he knows the difference between “Ulysses’ and “Finnegan’s Wake”. David is a man who longs to be found beautiful because he can quote freely from “The Master and Margarita”. In Yes Yes Yes he achieves his dream: that someone he finds physically beautiful will find him intellectually beautiful.

The personalization of artist and material has not been David's strong suit before. He is working on something new called, I think, The Rapture Project. I hope he uses what he accomplished with Yes Yes Yes to make it the marvelous opportunity it could become.

Happy Endings indeed!

(Above: Tracey Gilbert, R. Jane Casserly, Phillip Taratula in Pulling Teeth; Joe Curnutte, James Paul Ireland, Carter Jackson in Yes Yes Yes; David Johnston, Curnutte in Beauty.)

I traveled Thursday night to Tribeca to see the newest offering by Blue Coyote Theater Group. Happy Endings is a smooshed-together evening of short plays by nine playwrights all dealing with whores and whoring. The results range from devastating to delightful. Who knew what the Tooth Fairy had to do to raise all that cash?

Director Gary Shrader (one of four) and actor Joe Curnutte have devised a rather ingenious throughline that gives the piece an arch and an ample helping of heart. Curnutte appears three times as the same character, but in each subsequent piece filled out and embellished. In the opening Beauty (playwright Blair Fell) he is the non-speaking object of lust: a shirtless, talent-free go-go boy. Later, in AIDS Reveal (Stan Richardson), he gains voice, attitude, and a boyfriend who may just have poisoned him. In Yes Yes Yes (David Johnston), the evening’s closer, he becomes a man who surprises and excites. That’s a neat, um, trick.

A bit over a year ago BCTG did The Standards of Decency Project, a similar multi-playwright commission intended to push audience buttons. It didn’t but it was cute. They attain their goal much more effectively with Happy Endings.

The shocks of the night (there are two) both happen in AIDS Reveal. One is delivered with eerie rationale by Robert Buckwalter. Playing a trapped, married man in rural America whose boytoy has HIV, he ruminates on how he might deal with his wife and newborn child. I was chilled and sickened and horrified. The other? Nudity seldom shocks. But in the right context it can be very powerful. In the same piece, a businessman played by Khris Lewin has just been informed on the phone that the escort who has barebacked him the night before has HIV. Lewin rises from a desk, fully clothed but with his fly open and his crotch completely exposed. The image has a vulnerability that really startles.

As with all such multi-playwright evenings, the pieces aren’t equally effective. Of the plays, the most disturbing is Peep Show (Christine Whitley), the worthiest of expansion AIDS Reveal, the best Yes Yes Yes.

The rest? Tracey Gilbert continues her campaign to become my favorite actress. This woman is one of the most versatile talents going. I remember her feisty defense attorney in Busted Jesus Comix. The horrified best friend in Paradise. The mourning daughter in Funeral Home in Brooklyn. The girl can act. I mean like Holly Hunter can act. She appears twice in Happy Endings, once heartbreakingly and once hilariously. I say no more. Except that my favorite moment of the night is “You’re drunk”… Brian Fuqua, a wonderful actor (Saturday With Martin, Bush Carol) camps it in his own material, a playwriting debut, for The Guest. Even playing fey and competing with naked, humpy boys, Fuqua is the sexiest thing goin’ all night. And the dude can write! How did this upstart, first-timing bastard do it so well? He must be killed.

Other things I liked? Phillip Taratula playing two hilariously diverse characters… the manic horniness of Matthew Trumbull (I love actors who kick the ceiling off over-the-top)... a hare-pulling knock-down drag-out fist fight… Jane Casserly in a role I wish I had played (there’s another dame can act).

And there is David.

Yeah, my ex both acts in one piece and wrote another. That’s a forthcoming blog.

So, well done, Coyotes! Hope it, um, makes ‘ya.

The Ledger/Dykes Fuss

A few years ago I had the limits of my taste for personal expression tested attending a presentation of the work of performance artist Mike Diana (his life was the inspiration for playwright David Johnston's Busted Jesus Comix). Bottom line: a dude gets to say what a dude wants to say.

Much blogging has occurred this week since a tour operator named James Dykes announced that his company, Rich and Famous Tours (which offers celebrity siting jaunts across the city) would include a new haunt: the building in which heartthrob Heath Ledger recently died.

Such a fuss! The story was picked up by the NY Post (ick!) and Dykes has reportedly received a bucketload of indignant hatemail.

The buses roll by the Dakota about a thousand times a day to show eager tourists where John Lennon was shot. A gay themed tour makes a standard of pointing out the Campbell Funeral Parlour where Judy Garland was mourned.

Do I feel a need to see the facade of the building where a sadly doomed young hunk died? No. Can I respect that a slew of heartbroken fans might want to? Absolutely. I have visited the graves of James Barrie, John F. Kennedy, Shakespeare, Gypsy Rose Lee, Dorothy Day and Mother Goose.

How is it different?????????

"My First Mistake"

I guess as my lyrics go this is my best Valentines Day offering. It's from The Conjuring. Let me know if you want an mp3.

"My First Mistake"

The Conjuring

Timothy Mathis

Kakie

I LOVED ONCE.
ONLY ONCE
BUT SO
MUCH I THOUGHT MY
HEART WOULD BURST
OR BREAK.
I SAID:
"STOP. TAKE IT SLOW.
IT'LL KEEP.
LET IT GROW."
AND THAT,
THAT WAS MY FIRST MISTAKE.

COULDN'T THINK.
COULDN'T COPE.
TOO OBSESSED TO SLEEP AND
TOO PERPLEXED
AWAKE.
SO THE WORDS WOULDN'T COME.
WHEN YOU
CAN'T SING YOU...
HUM.
AND THAT,
THAT WAS MY NEXT MISTAKE.

FUNNY HOW THE TIMES GOES BY SO FAST
FUNNY WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THINGS YOU
TAKE WHAT YOU CAN GET.
I TOOK WHAT I COULD GET
TILL MY MOMENT HAD PASSED.
THAT'S THE WORST
AND THE LAST.

SO GO FLY.
HAVE YOUR DAY.
LOVE IS
WORTH THE CHANCE AND
EVEN WORTH
THE ACHE.
I LOVED ONCE.
ONLY ONCE.
BUT THAT WAS
MY FIRST
AND NEXT
AND LAST
AND BEST
MISTAKE!

Speaking of Valentines Day, Nancy LaMott, and John...

I absolutely ADORE this story, just shared with me by my friend John. It's perfect for Valentines Day. From a 2005 article in The New York Times regarding how people ask their loves to share their lives:

When John Higgins took Robert Montagnese to see the singer Nancy LaMott perform at the Russian Tea Room a few years ago, he thought he would quietly ask for his boyfriend's hand during a song he had requested. After she finished "Listen to My Heart," Ms. LaMott silenced the room and boomed "Well?" into the microphone. "He said yes," came the response, and Ms. LaMott said, "Ladies and gentleman, yet another gay couple providing an example for how straight men should behave."

For the record, that was over 16 years ago and John and Robert are currently in the midst of building their dreamhouse weekend home. They've become my new heroes.

A new guilty pleasure (I'm so ashamed)

Damn my friends.

Last year it was best bud Peter Proctor (yes, the Peter Proctor). He introduced me to American Idol. Three notes out of Melinda Doolittle's mouth and my spring was booked.

This time it's worse. Jimmy and another Peter (Mannion) have brought me up to speed on... Dante's Cove.

Part soap opera, part occult thriller, part fashion shoot, part soft-core porn, Dante's Cove can boast really bad acting with really worse writing with reeeeeaaaaally beautiful people. In the opening episodes, haunted but charming guest house Dante's Cove (somewhere on the coast on Northern California) had a smattering of heterosexual tenants. Evidently they caught on to what was happening in the other rooms, because they all vanished without so much as a goodbye.

So it's all pretty gay now, pretty awful, and pretty irresistable.

Interesting note: Evidently requirements for casting included rock-cutting abs and the absense of a last name. The three leads are played by Gregory Michael, Charlie David and William Gregory Lee.

DC power couple David and Michael are in the photo above.

Love to you on Valentines Day

All,

May your day be filled with beauty and love and spirit and blessings. Big Smooch!!!

Tim

Timothy

YoungTim

Timmer

Little Timmy

Mr. Mathis

Timber

Studboy

...and all the other things you people call me

Nancy LaMott

There is simply no voice as intimate, as true or as lovely as Nancy LaMott’s.

Having died much too young 12 years ago, Ms. LaMott has become iconic in the world of singers for the simple unadorned readings she gave of well-worn lyrics. Listen to her interpretation of “Moon River”. A lyric about longing and the unattainable becomes, in Ms. LaMott’s powerful talents, the surprised discovery of connection.

A tribute on Tuesday evening at Barnes and Noble Lincoln Square celebrated the release a new double-CD set of unreleased material and a companion DVD follows Ms. LaMott’s sometimes funny trajectory from saloon belter to artist. Hosted by David Freidman, her longtime producer and composer of several of her most popular songs, Lucie Arnaz and Kathie Lee Gifford sang tributes and shared delicious stories (these ladies are classy broads – I was very impressed by both).

But the evening belonged to Ms. LaMott. A clip from an Algonquin appearance shortly before her death is overwhelming. Singing an inspired medley of Cole Porter’s “Out Of This World” and “So In Love”, her ability to discover startling truths in lyrics and personalize them is absolutely stunning. I attended with a newish yummy friend John and an even newisher yummy friend Bill. At songs end all three of us were dripping tears. We repaired immediately to the bar at the Hotel Empire to recover.

Everyone has their favorite Nancy LaMott tracks. Mine? “I Have Dreamed”. “The Lady Down The Hall”. “Something Like You’ve Never Had Before”. “We Can Be Kind”. Too many others.

For years the Nancy LaMott story has centered on the tragedy of her death. I am so glad the time has come to celebrate her life!

Beer Goggle Tuesdays at Blue Coyote

The boys at Blue Coyote are cranking out another hit down at the Access. The previously mentioned Happy Endings is all about sex workers with pieces by Blair Fell, Matthew Freeman, David Foley, Brian Fuqua, David Johnston, Boo Killebrew, Stan Richardson, Christine Whitley, and John Yearley. The cast includes Robert Buckwalter, R. Jane Casserly, Joe Curnutte, David DelGrosso, Laura Desmond, Samantha Desz, Brian Fuqua, Tracey Gilbert, James Paul Ireland, Carter Jackson, David Johnston, Khris Lewin, Adam Rihacek, Alexis Suarez, Phillip Taratula, Matthew Trumbull, and Dash Vada. The four coyotes thesmeves, Kyle Ancowitz, Robert Buckwalter, Gary Shrader and Stephen Speights direct.

On Tuesdays the show starts at 9pm preceded by Beer Goggle Tuesdays drinks with beer and wine for a buck. Sounds like fun!

Tuesdays at 9pm, Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm
February 12th - March 1st at Access TheaterTickets: $18 via Smarttix

For the Super Sunday record...

Another Win Win.

Eli Manning or Tom Brady? How do you pick between perfections? Of course, you always like to see the local team win. Last year, when the Indianapolis Colts won, I welled up at the end of the game just knowing what it meant to my mother.

For those of you who live at the bottom of a deep well, Tom is on the left, Eli the right. Eli won.

For the Super Tuesday record...

I went with Hillary. But I love Barak too. Win Win.

Peter doing Marsha Marsha Marsha...

I love this shot of Peter Proctor (yes, the Peter Proctor) rehearsing as Marsha P. Johnson in Sylvia So Far.

Marie's cutie-pie bf, named...

of all things..

DAVID!

The married Proctors

As in Ms. Shari and Peter. Shari picked the restaurant (which we all loved). Peter spent the evening trying to defend his description of calimari as a shellfish.

Marie and Me

Ralph's Ristorante, Sylvia So Far post-reading. The lovely Marie Gouba (so good as "All the Street Trash") and me.

I wish I liked "Jerry Springer: The Opera"

Critics adore it. Friends quote from it freely. An old friend (David Bedella, above) won an Oliver for it.

I hoped, seeing it in person at Carnegie Hall, that I would finally "get it". The BBC production left me cold, but some things must be experienced live.

No such luck. I don't even like the music! Ah well, David was great.

A new "Sunday"

(Above: Daniel Evans and Jenna Russell in the imported revival of Sunday in the Park with George; Bernadette Peters as Dot in the original production.)

I wanted to love the new revival of Sunday in the Park with George. After all, the friend who took me the first time years ago thought paramedics were going to have to be summoned at intermission --- I was practicaly hyperventilating. When all the suffering and sacrifice and wasted love comes together into a thing of permanent beauty... it pushes every button on my console.

So the somewhat disappointing revival now at Studio 54, via London, let me down as often as it delighted. I had heard it was a marvelous, inspired rethinking. Much of it, though, simply struck me as something of a budget tour production. Daniel Evans is excellent as George, Jenna Russell less so as his muse, Dot. It's tough going up against the memory of Bernadette Peters. Ms. Russell is talented, compentent, creative in choices, just lacking the zap that makes a star turn a star turn. Also uneven are the design's much-publicized projections. Sometimes they are glorious, sometimes just cheesy.

There are moments, though, when I shivered with thrill, none moreso than the very final moment --- a new one --- breathtakingly put over by Mr. Evans. I won't tell. But it is gorgeous.

I need my birthday to be over!!!

My friends started to do the birthday do with me fifteen days ago. Last Tuesday the actual day arrived and yesterday the festivities came to an end. I am so tired I am practically dropping off at my desk.

But man, I have WONDERFUL friends. What a blessing!

I'll tell you about Sunday in the Park when I have a chance.

Where did January go?!?!?!?

Time do fly these days.

Anyway, after a week of being roundly feted, my birthday continues all weekend long. Date tonight, brunch tomorrow followed by the matinee of Sunday in the Park with George, birthday dinner with my beloved Lori tomorrow night, church Sunday morning followed by drinks at Suite!

I love my birthday.