Below are some photos from our dinner at Pittypat’s Porch.
Most people think that being a best-selling author means you never have financial worries again. Unfortunately that is just not the case for most authors. Unless you’re a big name or you have multiple best-selling books, you’re going to find that the advance runs out and the royalties are not going to be enough to keep you financially afloat.
Such is the case with Will Lavender who, even though he has had a best-selling book, finds that he needs the financial security of a steady paycheck and so has joined the ranks of state employees here in Kentucky. It’s one of those reasons I think I’ll stick with seeking magazine, web and short story work instead of a full-blown novel. The work is more financially lucrative AND steady if you work it like a job. And it’s not nearly as long between paydays like it can be with book writing
By the way, I truly hope Mr. Lavender captures the lightning in a bottle again with the book he is working on in his off hours. I’m not sure what his writing is like, but I know his attitude is one that I admire.
The Friday I went to pick up Cindy at the Atlanta airport I had parked in the MARTA station and was walking to the train when I passed a car with this sticker on its back window. I burst out laughing and caused some poor woman who was getting into her car to jump in surprise.
Note: Part I can be found here.
We left the hotel at 5pm in order to meet four co-workers of mine who were attending the performance with us, for a nice pre-event dinner at Pittypat’s Porch, a renown eatery about a mile from The Fox Theatre. Fans of “Gone With The Wind” will recognize the name of Aunt Pittypat as a character from the book and movie who would only prepare her best recipes when Scarlett came to visit in Atlanta. The menu is Southern-style cuisine and so is the service. Both were excellent and we spent about an hour and a half eating, talking and visiting. Cindy and I had our first ever Mint Julep. It was good, but too sweet for our tastes.
After dinner we drove to the theater through suddenly backed up streets, found a parking space and made it inside about 5 minutes before the curtain went up on an absolutely fantastic show you MAY have heard of…The Jersey Boys.
The Jersey Boys, winner of the Tony Award in 2006 as Best Musical, is the story of how Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, four blue-collar boys from the wrong side of the New Jersey tracks, came to be, using more than thirty of their musical hits to frame the history of this amazing group. Unless you’re already an expert on matters pertaining to them, I can guarantee you’re going to learn something, probably several somethings, about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.
From the opening chords of the French version of “Oh What A Night” to the final note of “Who Loves You?” at the end of the performance, this production is more than just an excuse to showcase the group’s musical history. Their personal history is presented as well in a true storyline that will leave you laughing, singing, quiet with reflection and stunned at the tragedy, before bringing you back to laughing and singing at their personal and professional triumphs as the play concludes.
As great as the music is, this would not be the smash hit it is without the guys who portray the group. Matt Bailey is the handsome, sometimes lawbreaker Tommy DeVito; Steve Gouveia is the quiet, little-bit-odd Nick Massi; Josh Franklin is the quiet songwriting genius Bob Gaudio (who also wrote this play); and finally the spectacular Leo Bwarie is the almost four octave range voice of the signature sound of the group, Frankie Valli.
It is Bwarie’s stand-out performance that makes this show as great as it is. He captures the early innocence and naivete of Valli in his youth, shows both the heart of gold and sometimes feet of clay that Valli possessed, and made the role come alive with his singing and dancing, even eliciting a collective “Ooooohhh” from the ladies in the audience and an “Owwww” from the men when he did a perfect standing split.
But it does, after all, come down and back to the music. For most of us, it was the music of our youth and the feelings of nostalgia are hard to deny. I was 7 years old and a big fan of rock and roll in 1962 when their first charted hit “Sherry” was released, followed by “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, “Walk Like A Man” and “Candy Girl.” In 1964 they released “Dawn”, “Ronnie”, “Save It for Me”, and “Bye, Bye, Baby.” Over the next few years hits like “Let’s Hang On!”, “Working My Way Back to You”, “Opus 17 (Don’t You Worry ’bout Me)”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “C’mon Marianne” were all top 40 songs for the group, so you can see how their music would have suffused my life as I was growing up. The play features all those songs and more.
Suffice it to say we were “dancing” in our seats. The music, especially if you grew up with it but even if you didn’t, is infectious in every way. You sing along, you hum, you clap, you wiggle your butt in your seat. You could be a contestant on “Name That Tune” and be the person who names the song in one note, because as soon as you hear that first note you KNOW what song is coming. It was pretty incredible to see 5,000 people on their feet clapping, swaying and singing along to the chorus of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”
I love you, baby,
And if it’s quite alright,
I need you, baby,
To warm a lonely night.
I love you, baby.
Trust in me when I say:
Oh, pretty baby,
Don’t bring me down, I pray.
Oh, pretty baby, now that I found you, stay
And let me love you, baby.
Let me love you.
This is a play I would gladly pay again to see, and I don’t say that about many such shows.
The Fox Theatre is a beautiful venue. The decor is stunning, the acoustics are vibrant and the seats, ah the seats are SO comfortable. Even my wide-load posterior fit without the usual need to squeeze. This theater began it’s life 80 years ago as the headquarters for the 5,000 member Shriners organization before becoming a movie house in the 1940’s through the 1960’s.
It was in danger of being destroyed in the 1970’s when Atlanta’s downtown growth was exploding. But a preservation group prevailed, restoration was undergone and today, in addition to being designated a National Historic Landmark, The Fox Theatre is one hell of a venue for live performances like “The Jersey Boys.”
I bought the play CD, the original group “Very Best Of” CD, the original group live performance DVD and a T-shirt for Cindy. After saying our goodbyes to my co-workers, Cindy and I got in the car, popped in the original group CD and sang songs all the way back to the hotel.
Indeed, “Oh What A Night!”
If you have the opportunity to see “The Jersey Boys” I strongly urge you to do so. You won’t be disappointed.
To be continued…
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad!
By the way, Science says a tomato is a fruit, but the Supreme Court ruled it was a vegetable. In what current Republicans would term an “empathetic” ruling, the 1893 Supreme Court ruled that the fruit was instead a vegetable based on its usage. Talk about activist judges!
Cindy came to visit me in Atlanta last Friday, arriving around 6pm at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. (She has her own horror story to tell of her flight on Spirit Airlines, but I can sum it up in two words, “Never again!”) We took the MARTA train back down to the Dunwoody Station near my hotel and had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory located on the outside of The Perimeter Mall. The food was absolutely delicious and there was so much we could only eat half of it. The other half we had boxed up and took it back to the mini-refrigerate in my hotel room.
Saturday morning we enjoyed the hot breakfast buffet of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, french toast and fruit that the hotel provides for free to Diamond VIP members, then headed over to Target to buy some new shirts for yours truly. Chromatic coordination is so much easier when I have Cindy there to help me make color choices, lol. Then it was back to the hotel to wait for a 10am delivery of some loan/construction papers that were being overnighted to us so we could sign the papers, have them notarized and overnighted back to the bank in North Carolina.
That’s when the notary nightmare began.
Our person at the bank in NC had said, “Just go to any of our branches on Saturday morning and they’ll notarize the papers for you.” Famous last words. When we entered the local branch near the hotel we were told that their only person who is a notary was, “…not working because Saturday is not a business day.” My thinking is if you’re open for business it’s a business day, but apparently that is not their thinking. Similar visits to The UPS Store and Fed-Ex Kinko’s yielded similar responses which had us sensing a trend.
We returned to the hotel room to warm up our leftovers and do an Internet search for notaries in the area. Not much luck other than finding a mobile notary who advertised 24/7 service…for a hefty fee. We decided to hold off on that until the last minute while we checked with the hotel (no), local check-cashing services (no) and calling some co-workers in the area to ask if they knew anyone who might be a notary (left messages).
Then we decided to take a nap since we knew we’d be up late that night going to The Jersey Boys performance at The Fox Theatre in Atlanta.
To be continued…
…is spottier than a leopard with measles.
I don’t have time to play with it all night.
I arrived back in Kentucky late this afternoon. The last time I flew in to Lexington (in February) it was snowy, icy and cold. Today it was warm and rainy. Obviously my very presence has served to improve the weather conditions.
Tomorrow I begin 12 hour days, 6 days a week with a 45-minute drive to and from the office tacked on to that so posting may be sparse but I will try my best to have an entry up each day.
I’m thinking about getting the new iPhone that comes out Friday (32MB with video camera and all the usual cool Apple stuff and developer apps) and dumping my BlackBerry Curve. Any thoughts?
Yeah, I missed posting anything yesterday. Cindy and I were busy all day and completely worn out by last night. I’ll post about our weekend together (with photos) plus the nightmare that was going on in the background later in the week because I don’t have much time tonight either. I’m packing to fly to Lexington, KY tomorrow afternoon. I will be there for the foreseeable future.
But, I wanted to make sure everyone knew my Facebook personalized link http://www.facebook.com/thewordofjeff. Friend and follow me if you haven’t already.
We just got back to the hotel from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta where we were witness (along with almost 5,000 others at this sold out show) to one of the most awesome stage performances in the form of The Jersey Boys.
I’m worn out from singing along, tapping my feet and clapping until my hands and arms were sore, so I’ll leave this tonight and try to write a better review later.
Damn! it was good!!!
Tonight, at approximately 6pm, Cindy will arrive via airplane here in Atlanta to spend the weekend with me. This is the first time in the 2 years that I have been traveling around the country for my employer that we have done this, but Atlanta is a short, relatively inexpensive flight from Orlando. And since it appears I may not be going home after this deployment, we thought we should see each other before I go somewhere farther away.
I have a weekend of fun planned for us to enjoy together, not the least of which is the Saturday night performance of “The Jersey Boys” at the Fox Theater in downtown Atlanta. Oh What A Night, indeed!
Can’t wait to see you, babe!
Last Friday after work, five co-workers and myself got on the MARTA train and rode down to Turner Field to watch the Atlanta Braves take to the field against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Even though the braves lost, we had a great time…along with peanuts and cracker jack.
Photos are up on my Flickr page.
In the past week, two people I know have suffered strokes. One, thankfully, is at home recuperating and one, sadly, died yesterday morning. The damage was too extensive for him to recover.
Live life to its fullest, you never know when it will end.
Rest In Peace Marcos.
Back when my boss and I went to Dialogue in the Dark, we also walked around a bit of what is known as Atlantic Station, a live, work and shop concept that is similar to and familiar to Disney fans of Celebration, Florida.
Cindy is flying up this Friday night to spend the weekend with me and one of the things I have planned for us is to visit Atlantic Station on Sunday afternoon.
Pictures of my last visit are up on Flickr.
Today was the first day of a 4-day Middle Manager Course offered by my employer. I have actually been a middle manager with them since 2005 and more recently in my new department and position, but this was the first time I have been able to take the class on a deployment. It actually comes at a great time since I’ll be taking the position-specific advanced course for my department next month in Maryland, the same place I was in January of 2008 for the basic course.
This particular course is more of a generic management course within the ranks of my employer, rather than a position-specific course, but it IS one that is necessary in these “New” days for our required credentialing, if you want to advance.
Today was more of a review of some basic tenets used by my employer and I discovered that I was more fortunate than most in that I have worked within 2 very different departments during my almost 5 years with them, and I have gathered a lot of information about the other departments in that time. This was, in fact, one of the things our class of 24 discussed; how you feel, many times, like you are only seeing a part of, rather than, the whole picture. That can be frustrating when you are trying to satisfy both the people you manage and the upper management you answer to on a daily basis.
We had 3 instructors today. One I felt was great, one was so-so and the third was very lacking, in my opinion. Afterward, in discussions with some fellow classmates, I discovered that opinion was held by others as well.
We have one participant who looks and talks like a young George Bush. He seems like a nice enough guy, but it is still a little scary to be near him. And I have already found it amusing to watch the others and imagine what their particular management philosophy will be, judging by their in-class behavior and participation. I assume they are making similar observations and judgments about me.
I’ve been told by one person who took the course previously that the next 3 days will be rough. I’ve also been told by another that it will not and that I will look back on it as one of the best courses I have ever taken. I’ll let you know at the end who I agree with, lol.
I slept in, showered, went out to lunch, came back to the hotel and spent the day reading, writing and napping. What a sloth I am. But it felt good to have a nothing day.
A few weeks back I ran across a blog or RSS feed that mentioned having a “Writer’s Totem”, a creature that would represent your writing (spiritually, I suppose) much as some people believe that they have a personal totem that represents their totality in life.
I’m probably on shaky ground here because I do not possess a great deal (if any) faith in this type of thing, so if I get something wrong (including my conclusion above) feel free to chime in. A few years ago a mutual friend of ours who DOES have a great deal of faith in these things, upon Cindy’s request, told her what he saw as my personal totem. We had a good laugh and I promptly forgot about it (that lack of faith and belief thing, you know).
Then, when I read this piece about a writer’s totem it brought that incident back to mind except I couldn’t remember WHAT animal he said was my personal totem. I thought if I did research on the subject it would be interesting to see if my personal totem and my writer’s totem matched, were similar or complete opposites. So I called Cindy and asked and she reminded me that I was a bear (how apropos!). I did a very small amount of research on writer’s totems this afternoon, but could not really come up with much.
So, I’m just throwing this out there for anyone who may be familiar with the term and/or have some knowledge to share, please leave a comment with links or your information.
Thanks!
Here’s a big shout out to my 7-year old grandson, Mikey, who won awards for reading and math at his school’s Awards Ceremony earlier this week. Grandma and Granddad are VERY proud of you and all that you have accomplished!
I haven’t received photos of the event from his mommy yet (hint, hint), so here’s a picture of Mikey I took during our visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios this past April.
Love you Mikey!
Yesterday I twittered that I got tickets to the Atlanta Braves’ home game Friday night against the Milwaukee Brewers and a few minutes later both the Braves and the Brewers were following me on Twitter.
I hate to tell the Brewers, but I’m a Braves fan, lol.
Back when the movie with this title came out, I had no idea this was a dish that was considered a delicacy in the south. And I’m FROM the south, lol.
Even after discovering what they were, again, thanks to the movie, I still have never had the opportunity to taste them during any dining experience.
Until today.
Yesterday someone told us that Kacey’s, a southern-cuisine buffet-style restaurant here in Tucker, GA served Fried Green Tomatoes. I was in Kacey’s for lunch this past Saturday with a group of co-workers, but none of us remembered seeing them on the buffet line, so today one of my other bosses and I went to lunch at Kacey’s and sure enough, there they were. I added 3 of them to my plate of turkey and dressing before sitting down at our table.
Years ago, when I was in Oklahoma City, I had my first taste of Fried Pickles, and they were good.
A couple of weeks ago I had my first taste of Fried Green Beans here in Atlanta, and they were good.
Today I had my first taste of Fried Green Tomatoes, and they were great! I had to exercise some serious self-discipline to keep myself from going back to the buffet line for more. As my dad used to say when he tasted something he liked, “That’ll make your tongue slap your brain silly.”
Yes they will.
