About time for some ‘Music’
OY. Such hoo-hah being prepped for Thursday’s Broadway opening. “The Music Man.” The Winter Garden. Hasn’t been this much excitement since Biden got a syntax correct.
Originally, nearly 1,400 performances 65 years ago, Meredith Willson’s Best Musical about a con man in middle America’s River City stomped in with a parade and famous falldown fabulous hit “76 Trombones.” It grabbed five Tonys and was made into a 1962 film starring Robert Preston, Hermione Gingold, Buddy Hackett, Shirley Jones.
Now it’s Hugh Jackman, Sutton Foster, Jayne Houdyshell.
Jackman and I first met a load of years ago. It was 2000. He’d just begun twinkling as a big name. Standing in a theater lobby he told me how stardom actually began for him: “Before I made it, I worked kids’ parties as a clown. I still can remember a 6-year-old screaming, ‘He’s not a clown, he’s just a man.’
“What I did was, I resorted to smashing eggs on my head and letting 15 boys jump all over me. It was the hardest $50 I ever earned.”
That was then. This is
Hugh Jackman: He’ll finally get to take the stage in “The Music Man” after COVID delays. now. And Thursday 4:45 p.m., a high school band marches up Broadway. At 5 p.m., there’s a red carpet. 6 p.m., curtain. 8:45 p.m., bows. Maybe by 11:30 those in the standing ovation for Jackman — the adored star not the mistreated clown — will finally sit down.
Strange signs of the time
THE world we live in: This shiba inu — their puppies cost $3,500 — arrived at 10th Street’s Abingdon Square Veterinary Clinic. As per Dr. Brett Shorenstein, its owner waited outside in her car. The Japanese dog padded in — wearing a mask . . . MORE. Everyone under the age of rigor mortis is in Florida. Housing’s tighter than an army barracks. No space. No place. No how. One newly empty condo was on the market one day. Asking price: $6 million. A buyer wanted it so badly she paid $1 million over the ask.
What’s going on?
COMMISSION on Judicial Conduct called for an Allegheny County town justice to be axed “for posting sexual content on Facebook.” Seems his Honor had put up a female’s photo with the caption: “Boobies are proof that men can focus on two things at once!” Plus a semi-naked woman tied to a bed along with a man fishing. Caption: “She asked me to tie her up and do anything I want.” OK? . . . MORE. After a woman was pushed onto Times Square’s subway track, the MTA conducted a study to see could they install some preventative measures on the platforms. The answer came in a 3,000-page report. No. Too costly. Structurally impossible. Besides — ready? ONLY 26 people were shoved onto the tracks in 2020. So . . . no . . . EVERY day — with no time left to even reach City Hall — Eric Adams is on TV making a speech, a promise, a guarantee, making everything but a safe city. For show he imports doddering fool Biden who read every word about New York from a printed paper and can’t stop immigrants, can’t stop Russians, can’t stop inflation, can’t stop CV, can’t stop Hunter and can’t start Kamala. Adams thinks we’re stupid? We knew Biden was just BS window dressing. If he’d stay off TV once, stay in City Hall once, do something other than prep Chirlane to become Brooklyn BP, maybe he’ll do something for our city?
Oy. Only in New York, kids, only in New York.