Best Historic Meeting.

Tonight Claire met Claire and Evan and I were there to say that it happened.

To commemorate?  Supper at Parm.  Among the things eaten:

Brussels Sprouts

Meatball Parm Platter with Baked Zitti in Gravy.

Root Beer Float Ice Cream Cake. a dessert special.

I think Parm gets better every time I go.  What a treasure to have up the street from me.  And how lucky I am, too, to have my mom for a temporary roommate.

Best Part of Oscar's Night

Was watching these two Youtubes, first: Hugh Jackman's opening number from the 2009 Oscars, which somehow I'd never seen before. What was I doing Oscars time 2009?  I must have been late to a party somewhere.  So now I'm super late to this party:

Second: Dan Harmon and company accepting an Emmy for writing that opening:

I thought I didn't care about opening numbers or acceptance speeches, but tonight the internet taught me they both can be done well.

Best Long Island Style Wedding Bash

Saturday night we celebrated Claire and Evan's New Year's Eve Wedding with a Long Island Style Wedding Bash in Woodbury (that's a town out on on Long Island).  Halfway there I realized I had left my camera at home.  Great, Brigham, just great.  Most photographable event in ages and you show up with nothing but your iphone?  Oh well, let us proceed and I will do my best to illustrate and recount.

Good establishing shot for a wedding celebration: Photo of your place card.

Tablemates!

Additional tablemates

Additional tablemates, cont'd

After hors d'oeuvres, drinks and another buffet, the dinner buffet is open (along with mashed potato bar, not pictured).

While traditionally one to load his plate to the point of embarrassing his neighbors, Saturday night I think I was a little intimidated by the options and ate much more respectably than usual.  Or maybe I'm just growing up?

And then Claire and Evan started the first dance of the night.  To what I think I remember being a country song?

But soon the DJ started laying down the Top 40 party jams and also Hava Nagila.  The revelers did that thing, you know, from the movies?  Where they lift the bride (and then the groom) up on a chair and bounce them up and down.  And you know what?  I think that's a great way to celebrate and show you're excited about something, that you literally take the person into the air and try to throw them into the ceiling. No, I'm being real.  It's a great gesture of happiness.

Later, after many more jams (and I won't lie, my toes were tapping throughout) the cutting of some cake.

And you know what else was cut?  A giant block of ice.  Into this sculpture.  (photo snatched from Alpha's Instagram feed.  Can you see me? There I am, putting cheese on my plate!)

In conclusion: Great party, great gathering of people from up and down both coasts of the country (and perhaps parts in between?).  A big thank you to the Pritchetts, the Hanlons, and the Pritchett-Hanlons.

Best Night of Laughs

Last night I went with Chaunte to see Brent Weinbach at a little comedy show in Brooklyn.  He asked Chaunte to come up on stage with him to help "with his next trick."



Not only did he make a star of Chaunte but he made a song out of my name.  He has this joke that goes (I paraphrase) "I'm half-filipino, half-jewish.  Sometimes people ask me, oh, is it your mother or your father that's from the Philippines?  My name is Brent Weinbach." or something like that . . . at the end of the joke, he looked at me and asked, "You sir, what's your name?" and I answered.  He began repeating my name in a variety of accents before settling on Jamaican and started singing like a dance-hall reggae sounding song about me/my name before stopping abruptly and saying: "So, you're white?"  I'd never been the center of so much comedy before.

Best Game Show

Man.  I just love a well played game of Jeopardy.



Only criticism: Why not make it a true Daily Double?

Best Three Day Weekend Three Weeks Ago

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is I haven't known what to blog.  But just now I realized, "Duh, I can blog about Martin Luther King Day Weekend."  So here we go!  Let's take a look at Rev.Dr.MLK.jr.Day.2k13!

Friday night I went with Jesse to the MoMA to watch some of the Clock.  It was the Clock's last full weekend.  Crowds were out of control.  We waited maybe an hour and a half to get in?  The line was 3 to 4 hours long in the middle of the night later that weekend.

And what is the Clock?  A 24hr long movie made up of clips of movies perfectly synched with the time of day . . . meaning if you're watching it at 8:15pm, you'll see a scene from a movie that took place at 8:15pm.

After waiting to get into the Clock we waited to get into Totto Ramen, their chicken-based soup is regarded by many as the best ramen in the city.  I thought it was plenty good, I was glad they weren't stingy with the meat, but I'm not ramen expert enough to say what's the best ramen.  I mean, I'd definitely eat it again, don't get me wrong. 

Then Saturday morning I hopped on a Washington Deluxe and went down to DC.  Shortly upon arriving I discovered that there's a Bojangles at Union Station.  Bojangles is a southern fried chicken chain I've been keen to try, I told myself: Brigham, you're going to get that chicken before you catch the bus back to New York.

But my first DC meal was Shop House in Dupont Circle with Kat.  Shop House is the new Asian concept from Chipotle.  I liked that it wasn't just Panda Express, it was more fish-saucey and adventurous than than.

This is me posing with the treats that I brought down for my DC peoples.  Because I'm not just some bum that shows up without treats!

MLK Jr. weekend was also Inauguration Weekend, the whole city was so excited for the inauguration.

Saturday night it took trains and busses for Carol and I to get to the Dan Harmon show, the motivation for why I was down in DC in the first place.

Here it is!  Our bus!

I already posted about the Dan Harmon show, but here's a reminder photo.

But I haven't shown you my show-mates, Richie and Carol, yet.  Ta-Da!  Here they are.  Plus a friendly stranger.

Show got out well after midnight.  Saw some of the wonders of Arlington.

DC Metro.  Always looking so good, even when it's looking bad.

Sunday: Some of the colorful sights in Carol's neighborhood.

Sunday night Carol had a chili and macaroni and cheese gathering.  This is my only photo because I was pretty busy meeting some DC legends, being reunited with Dave and Christina and Jenica, and finally meeting Marcilyn.

Spent all Monday watching TV (starting with the Inauguration) and I could not be happier about it.  CNN said to Instagram yourself watching the Inauguration.  This was my effort.  I did not upload it and, therefore, I was not featured on CNN.  Regrets.  You just had to live with them.

Funny thing that happened: Emergency Broadcast System test interrupted inauguration proceedings. 

View from Carol's roof.  So glad I was inside and warm and not over by that dome.

I got to the bus station an hour early so I could get my Bojangles.  I stood in this line for half an hour (there was only one cashier and everyone was ordering suitcase-sized boxes of chicken) when I realized that I'd miss my bus if I kept waiting for that chicken.  So I had no Bojangles!  No Bojangles at all! Sometimes life just throws you these curve balls and you have to deal with them, you know?

But at least I've got a good reason to get back down to the District soon.

Best Tale of Plucky Orphans

Look at all that LES underwear hanging out to dry.

Saturday night, quite unexpectedly, I found myself gifted a ticket to see the 35th Anniversary revival of Annie on Broadway.  It was like a dream come true that I didn't know I had even been dreaming of.  Watching the show, I realized I knew Annie a lot better than I realized--meaning, I knew Annie the movie a lot better than I realized (I saw first saw it in the theater when it came out for my friend Elliot's birthday) so pretty regularly I was going "Wait, they changed that from the movie!" But some post-show wikipedia'ing taught me that it was the movie that changed things, not this musical, and that the 35th anniversary production was a faithful presentation of the story as it was known in 1977.

The "changes" that most irked me were the absence of Daddy Warbuck's helicopter car and his two bodyguards (Punjab and the Asp) and the anarchist attacks on Daddy Warbucks . . . you know, the stuff they added to the movie for the sake of young boys.  Most definitely this is a musical for little girls, and for people with little girls to bring to the show.  Those of us who are not little girls can still enjoy it quite nicely, but still, too bad you're not a little girl, you know what I mean?  Still, the musical is full of famous and familiar Broadway jams, and watching it live my guts got all stirred up and nostalgic over Tomorrow, You're Never Fully Dressed, and Maybe, to name a few.  All well presented in this presentation, although I though their version of the Ghetto Anthem lacked a certain swagger.

Here is something about New York that I learned watching Annie on Broadway: In it they go to the Roxy to see the movie.  I'd never heard of a Roxy movie theater.  Turns out it's a 6000 seat single-screen movie palace that used to be on 50th street between 6th and 7th avenue.  6000 seat!  The Ziegfeld, Manhattan's current largest single screen theater, seats about 1000 . . . and it's huger than huge inside.  My beloved Jersey Loews theater seats 3000, counting the balconies, which haven't been reopened to the public.  The Roxy didn't last past the 60's, there's a TGI Friday's now where the Roxy's lobby entrance used to be.  A second, "smaller" Roxy was opened on Broadway in the Upper West Side, now it's known as the Beacon Theater.  It only seats 3000.