New York Subway Performer

Wife and I just returned from a night out with Aunt and Uncle (which deserves, and will get, its own lengthy post). As we were coming home, we walked past several street performers down in the subway – nothing unusual there. As we stood waiting for our train, a guy started playing the drums. Again, nothing unusual. I looked over at him and noticed that across his drum set he was promoting his website. This street performer has a website and a MySpace page devoted to his act!

Check it out here:

Shakerleg's Website (view lots of pictures, read various stories, learn his subway performance schedule, and even sign up for his email list)

Shakerleg's Myspace (you can listen to him perform)

The streets of New York City are simply awesome.

The Dangerous Streets of New York

At about 7:15 yesterday evening, Wife and I were walking down the sidewalk on our way out for a special evening (which she will write about later). She and I were chatting – everything was normal. Suddenly, Wife began to shriek while I heard a simultaneous loud “thud.” I looked around, figuring that there had just been a car accident, but directly in front of us was something much worse than a typical car accident: a speeding taxicab struck a careless bicyclist. Right in front of us was the bike rider sticking through the windshield of the taxi.

In less then five seconds, a street cop was on the scene. Seriously, he began handling the situation in less than five seconds. Within about forty-five seconds, two more police cars were on the scene. Wife complained vigorously about the response time of the paramedics and fire truck, because they took nearly five minutes to arrive.

The cyclist was “just a kid” (Wife’s description), who was no more than nineteen or twenty years old. He was listening to his iPod while he peddled, so he was oblivious to the sounds of the street around him.

I couldn’t piece together exactly what each party was doing to cause the accident, but it appeared to me that the speeding taxi made a reckless lane change to avoid a parked bus, while the cyclist was traveling the wrong direction on the street. With the bus blocking the view, neither one could see each other until they got into the intersection, when it was too late. From what I could piece together, both of them were at fault (probably the kid going the wrong way down the street bore a bit more blame).

As the kid was pulled out of the windshield, he immediately began apologizing to the taxi-driver. All he could do was mumble over and over, “I’m so sorry, I’m just so sorry,” as he looked at the smashed windshield of the cab and then down to his mangled bike. The kid was clearly in complete shock; he was not doing well at all (as would be expected after you fly face-first through a glass windshield). Wife’s immediate response was to look at me and say, “Go tell him that you’re a lawyer and he needs to sit down and be quiet.” No, I didn’t listen to Wife. Without having seen exactly what caused the accident, I don’t know who was really at fault (I can just speculate), but the kid looked half-conscious and really shouldn’t be taking full responsibility in that state.

As the paramedics began loading the kid into the ambulance, the poor guy was visibly panicked about what would happen to his bike. Kind-hearted Wife turned to me and suggested, “Go tell him that we will take his bike home for him.” I began to protest to Wife that 1) we have tickets to a show that would begin shortly; 2) we have absolutely no idea where this guy lives; 3) the bike was mangled to the point it would be very difficult to move; and 4) it was barely fifteen degrees outside. Wife’s response was simple, “But he needs help.” Fortunately, the paramedics were ready for the situation and began strapping the bike to the front of the ambulance.

So, the primary lesson here: be careful on the streets of New York.

Husband and Wife Do the Opera

Earlier this month, I received an email from Law School with the subject line, “Free Tickets.” Immediately, the email had my full attention. The email explained that a theater company needed to fill up several seats for opening night of the opera “Pirates of Penzance.” The email explained that in order to be considered for up to two tickets for the next night, I had to email a fellow with the company who would call me if I was selected. I thought, “Why not,” and immediately shot off an email, figuring I would never hear anything, but there was nothing to lose.

Later that evening, the guy did indeed call. He told me to be at the corner of a certain intersection where one of his employees would have an envelope with our names on it for two tickets. He explained that we should be discreet about receiving free tickets, because it could anger other patrons who paid a LOT of money for their tickets. In order to be discreet, we should meet his employee a couple of blocks from the theater and not mention anything about it at the theater.

After I hung up the phone, I started thinking: we need to meet some guy at the corner of an intersection for secret tickets? Really? This must be a joke. I began thinking this was a scam, but how were they scamming me for free tickets? Despite my doubts, I told Wife that I think I got us tickets to our first opera together, but not to get too excited until we actually had tickets in hand. Though Wife understood my apprehension, she disregarded my advice not to get excited. To make a short story even shorter, the tickets turned out to be completely legitimate. Wife and I enjoyed a wonderful night out, for just a few dollars spent on subway fare and hot cocoa. Not only did we get free tickets, the tickets were for exceptional orchestra seats.

Pirates of Penzance was definitely a great first opera for us to see together. Wife enjoyed it because it was musical with lots of singing (and most of the singers were very good). I enjoyed this opera more than I anticipated for a couple reasons. First, it was in English – that was a big deal for me. Second, Pirates is a comedy. I like comedies. Comedies keep the attention of simple minded folk like me.

Pirates of Penzance is probably most famous for a song that almost everyone has heard: “I am the very model of a modern major general” (also known as “The Major-General’s Song”). Though the song may not exactly be operatic, it was certainly entertaining.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the evening was during intermission when Wife turned to me and said, “I miss singing.” Those who know Wife, know of her musical training and passion for singing that was extinguished several years back. Maybe, just maybe, we can get her to start singing in public again.

Where We Are

I'm sure you have heard the news that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment Tuesday. You can read all the rumors and speculation about that somewhere else. I thought the loyal readers of this blog (all ones and ones of you) would be interested to know that his apartment is just up the street from us.

Our First Broadway Musical

“Say you'll love me ev'ry waking moment; turn my head with talk of summertime…” Earlier this month Husband and I attended our first Broadway musical adventure. I find myself still humming the songs to Phantom of the Opera. I have always loved the music to Phantom, but have never been fortunate enough to see the production (I realize many people are shocked to learn I have never seen it since I am so familiar with the music). Well I can officially say that I have now witnessed the immensely popular and loved Phantom of the Opera.

Let me start from the beginning. Husband’s wonderful Aunt recommended us to join a group that provides drastically discounted tickets for some of Broadways best shows. A few weeks ago Husband and I were going through the website and I saw that they were offering tickets to Phantom of the Opera. We decided to use the Christmas gift that Husband’s sister had sent us to purchase tickets. We bought the tickets about two weeks before the date of our show – you can only imagine my excitement.

There was really only one flaw with our plan. We bought tickets for January 3, when it was still tourist season here in the city. Okay, so I know that every day of the year in NYC there are going to be thousands of tourists, but they seem to flock to NY during the holiday season (especially for that big, famous crystal ball that dropped two days before the date of our show). Everywhere in the theater there are signs stating that photography is not allowed and to please silence all cellular phones and beepers. Apparently, tourists believe that the signs do not apply to them because I could not begin count the number of cameras, video recorders, and cell phones I saw snapping pictures and recording videos, many of which Husband and I were in the background. Husband’s response was “Great. Now we are going to show up on YouTube.”

The show itself was terrific. Although I was already quite familiar with the music, I didn’t really know all that much about the plot (other than the obvious). Husband and I were rather disappointed to learn that we had several understudies in our viewing. We were particularly upset to learn that Raoul was an understudy. However, the understudy did a good job. He had a wonderful voice, but was not powerful enough. He definitely was overshadowed by Christine and the Phantom.

It was a wonderful night at the theater and I was pleased to finally see Phantom of the Opera. The next shows that are on our possibility list are: Les Miserables (I absolutely love this show), Jersey Boys (everyone recommends this), and Spamalot (long story). I am not sure if we will actually get to see all of these shows, but they are on our hopeful list.

New Year's Eve in New York City

Even though we didn’t do anything incredibly exciting, there is nothing like New Year’s Eve in New York City. As many of you know, Wife has been quite ill for just over four weeks now. I have spent the last few weeks nursing my wife back from the brink of death (yes, that’s a bit of hyperbole). Given the cold, the crowd, Wife’s health, and the fact that neither of us really felt like getting into a fourteen-hour shoving match with tourists (during which time we would be unable to use a restroom), we decided that we would watch the Ball drop from the comfort of our apartment.

Though we decided that we didn’t want to spend fourteen hours freezing with a million others in Times Square watching the ball drop, Wife and I decided to go over to Times Square on New Year’s Eve just to take in the atmosphere. On Monday afternoon, we took the ten minute trek over to Times Square where we saw the stages, where the ball will drop, and hundreds of thousands of fans lined up.

We now have a completely different perspective of the festivities as we watched Ryan Seacrest host the New Year’s Eve spectacular in Times Square. All the events take place on a block that we have walked down countless times in the last few months. We recognize the signs; we spot little shops and restaurants we have gone in; we notice how each station carefully positioned their cameras to avoid showing advertisements for their competitors. A year ago I never would have dreamed that we would watch the biggest New Year’s party in the world while feeling like it is taking place in our backyard.