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Monthly Archives: July 2010

Lame Adventure 68: Happy 6th of July

Posted on July 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

According to the American Heart Association, healthy American adults should eat less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. This is about 1 teaspoon of sodium chloride (salt). Keep this in mind and read on.

On Sunday, the Fourth of July, Milton and I were in our respective hovels situated on the East and West sides of Manhattan watching Rafael Nadal put a definitive stop to the Tomas Berdych Express at Wimbledon, so all was right in the tennis world once again. Elaine, my company’s Marketing Director, is telecommuting and Skyping from the UK, so she was able to attend Wimbledon last week where she saw Roger Federer advance to the Quarterfinals when he soundly defeated Jürgen Melzer of Austria.

Roger Federer on the far side of the court at Wimbledon June 28th, 2010.

Victorious Federer waving.

Elaine basking in Roger's victory.

Two days later living tennis legend Federer was soundly defeated by Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic.

In response to Federer’s early exit from her homeland, Elaine emailed me, “I am TOTALLY GUTTED–I can hardly speak.” Milton, who shares as deep a love of Federer as Elaine (they have similar taste in men) was more sanguine about the loss that sent shock waves throughout the tennis world, but possibly this was due to the fact that he was on vacation all of last week and was self medicating with Sangria. It was not until Berdych blew a hole through Novak Djokovic, another player Milton adores for both his athletic prowess and his looks, or as Milton recently said of Djokovic’s face, “He’s part athlete, part Margaret Hamilton and I find that so sexy,” that Berdych finally succeeded to get on Milton’s nerves.

Novak Djokovic channeling his inner Margaret Hamilton.

Margaret Hamilton channeling her inner Novak Djokovic.

Milton declared that he hated “Berdick” (actually pronounced “Ber-ditch”) so much he was not going to watch the men’s’ final. Rafa’s my guy so I was going to watch no matter what. I was hoping for a massacre since I was being denied the match I most wanted to see – Federer vs. Nadal. Yet, Milton did tune in, and although he was pleased that Rafa won, he pronounced the trouncing “boring.”

Possibly, Milton would have been more entertained had he switched the channel to that American tradition being broadcast live on ESPN, Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, sponsored by Pepto Bismol. Viewers tune in hoping to see a competitor vomit, the exact reason why I tune out. Odds are good that Milton would have found this monument to competitive eating boring as well since the reigning champion Joey “Jaws” Chestnut could not compete against his archrival, Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi, of Japan. These two are the titans of the competitive eating world, the overeating equivalent of Federer and Nadal.

This year, Kobayashi refused to sign an exclusivity contract with Major League Eating, the body that sanctions competitive eating events, so he was barred against competing on Sunday. He tossed a fit after the competition and got arrested. Although he was starving to compete, in jail he was served a single sandwich and glass of milk. Kobayashi was released on Monday. He is now claiming free agency, but it baffles me who is going to sign him if he does not re-sign with MLE. Possibly the hapless Knicks will go after him when they fail to sign LeBron James?

Kobayashi in happier times flaunting a gut full of dogs.

Without having a fellow elite eater in his midst, Chestnut, who devoured 68 hot dogs and buns (or HDBs in competitive eating jargon), in ten minutes last year against Kobayashi’s 64 ½, gave a performance screaming, “diet!” on Sunday. He ate a mere 54 HDBs. Chestnut’s goal is to eventually eat 70 HDBs, but that might be hard for him to reach without a competitor of Kabayashi’s caliber and twenty pound stomach capacity to spur him on.

Victorious Joey Chestnut with his post-competition beverage of choice.

Since my gastroenterologist has tube steak at the top of the list of the 7,416 foods I am supposed to avoid, I researched the amount of sodium in a single Nathan’s hot dog with the bun – 684 milligrams. After devouring 54 HDBs, Chestnut ate the equivalent of 16.05913 teaspoons of salt or one-third a cup of salt. Writing that sentence alone was enough to make my heart race. It’s doubtful that the American Heart Association will ever sanction this event, but maybe Ex-lax will come calling in 2011, and Kobayashi will get his crap together by then as well. Whatever the future holds for the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, I am steering clear of the vomitorium. My TV is going to remain tuned to Wimbledon.

Victorious Rafa giving competive eaters an idea.

Lame Adventure 67: Broadway revival of Fences

Posted on July 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Theater-whores Milton and I are both devotees of the playwright August Wilson, who wrote an extraordinary body of work in a life that was cut too short at age 60 in 2005. When we heard last year that Denzel Washington was set to star in the first Broadway revival of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, Fences, we were determined to pounce the second tickets went on sale. For a moment I feared our chance to snag a pair of these precious ducats might have entered the ether. On January 20^th, when tickets first went on sale, I wrote Milton the following email:

I hate Time Warner [my cable company]. For the past 35-40 minutes I’ve only had sporadic Internet access so it’s been impossible for me to scope out the seating situation for Fences. This is extremely frustrating. Previews begin in April, and it runs for 14 weeks, closing July 11th. Tix go on sale to the general public on Jan 30th. Only Amex card members are eligible to buy them now. Orch seats are $121.50 plus we’re going to get hammered with fees. Aisle seats do not seem to be available. Forgot about buying tix at the b.o. to escape getting hammered with fees. They don’t go on sale there until March 17th, so it looks to me that if we’re going to see this play, we have to pay the equivalent of an airfare. As I mentioned on the phone DW’s co-star is Viola Davis and it’s playing at the Cort (currently running A View From the Bridge — I heard from Albee, he sat in the last row of the balcony and paid $36.50). So … thoughts?

Milton’s response:

Oy vey! Thanks to Massachusetts, health care is screwed like a two dollar hooker!

Actually, in-between those two emails, my Internet access returned, and we were able to get incredible second row center orchestra seats for the Wednesday matinee performance on June 30^th, a day we both skipped out on work. Since my boss, Elsbeth, saw it in previews, she was annoyed that I had not seen it sooner for she was eager to discuss it. She loved it.

Fences is a powerful play set in 1957 Pittsburgh about Troy Maxon, a star in baseball’s Negro Leagues, who was born too early to make the transition to the Major League and is now a hard-headed 53-year-old sanitation worker who is a supreme teller of tall tales. Troy has been married 18 years to Rose, his devoted wife and mother of their 17-year-old son, Cory, who is being scouted by football recruiters. Troy has a contentious relationship with his son, and he adamantly opposes Cory pursuing sports. Troy has transformed himself into a pillar of responsibility after serving time and meeting Rose, but in the riveting second act he takes a hard fall from grace that tests his wife and estranges him from his son.

As tempting as it is to reveal spoilers about this beautifully written play especially since the remainder of the run is essentially sold out (unless you can afford a king’s ransom for the few premium priced tickets that might still be available), now that it has won the Tony award this season for Best Revival, Actor and Actress, I’ll resist. Both Denzel Washington and Viola Davis were magnificent. How they can play those roles eight times a week is amazing, but I suppose that’s what brilliant acting is all about.

After the final curtain, since we were sitting so far in the front and we did not want to follow the slow moving herd that were taking forever to get out the door, we wandered near the foot of the stage and spoke to a stagehand. He told us that he was sad to see this show close on July 11th, even though the theater will not be dark long. Time Stands Still starring Laura Linney will open next. If you’re part of this great production, it’s easy to understand why he’s feeling wistful. It certainly was a privilege to be among the lucky ones that got to see it during this much too short run.

Embedded below are some YouTube clips from Fences. The montage in the fourth clip features a sample of the lively jazz composed by Wynton Marsalis for this production.