Thanks for a great season...

The Bruins great season has come to an end - sadly - but they had a great one none-the-less...it just sucks that the game winning goal came from Scott Walker (he sucker punched Aaron Ward in Game 5 and was just fined $2500). The effects look like they'll be long term though, it seems that Boston is back to being a four sport town.

Going to see Jerry Springer: The Opera this weekend, and it looks ridiculous...hooray!

Be Italian

The trailer for Nine was released today on apple.com in HD...it's one of the sexiest trailers I've ever seen - here is how it's being billed on apple:

“NINE” is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Fergie) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The film is directed by Rob Marshall (CHICAGO). The original 1982 Broadway production of “NINE,” with music and lyrics by Maury Yeston, won five Tony Awards including Best Musical.

check it:

Glee

Watching the season finale of Lost (and not totally impressed either) and I was flipping back and forth between Idol and they had another commercial on for the premiere of Glee next week - I'm SUPER excited about it...here's a link to the promo.

Check it...

and whoa to the showdown for Idol next week - Kris gets my vote

happy hump day!

It's a little slow at work now, so I figured I'd seize the opportunity to make an entry. My run yesterday didn't go so well, I got just over a mile in and I started to have some pain in my legs (possibly shin splints) so I ended up doing a modified run and turn around, ran across the Longfellow and back to the Museum...it ended up being about 3 miles though, so all was not totally lost. Going to try again today and see if I can go for 6...the big race is only 10 days away...and I'm starting to get nervous/anxious/excited...I CAN do this.

Attempted to make pad thai Monday night for dinner and failed...miserably. It was pretty awful (super salty, noodles stuck together) but my roomates were good sports and tried it anyways. We ended up ordering wings.

I also realized that I've forgotten to blog about a movie I saw almost a month ago (the last time I went to the movies), I Love You, Man. TJ, Meg, Miss Alison Hay, Katie, Shari and I all ventured up to the loop at Methuen to see it - it was this crazy AMC theater, almost as ridiculous as the one on the Common. Anyways, I had been looking forward to seeing this for a while, the combination of Paul Rudd/Jason Segel seemed amazing, and I'm glad to report they didn't disappoint. Basically, Paul Rudd is getting married and he doesn't have any guy friends to be in his wedding, and develops a bromance with Jason Segel (I'm a little fuzzy on their initial meeting, but I remember it involving fish tacos and a vespa). Anyways, they hang out, become BFF's, and hilarity ensues. There's a great supporting cast, especially Jon Faverau and Jamie Pressly as a married couple and Andy Samberg as Paul Rudd's brother. There were definitely quite a few laugh out loud moments, and of course, all the good one liners that were given away in the trailer. It was clicking along at a great pace and kept my attention until about the last 20 minutes, when there was this kind of awkward road to the ending. I won't give anything away, but Segel did something that seemed not realistic/in character, and just seemed to be kind of thrown in there. Best scene? The toast Segel gives at the engagement party. Return the favor.
Grade: B+

Speaking of movies, there are quite a few out that I want to see (and I already missed one, Sin Nombre) so I might have to do a mini marathon this weekend...here's what I'm thinking
Thursday - Every Little Step
Friday/Saturday/Sunday - State of Play, Rudo y Cursi, Sugar (maybe) in any order, and maybe not all three
Monday - The Soloist
I'm not a huge Jamie Foxx fan, but I hear he's quite good in this, and Robert Downey Jr. is supposed to be giving the performance of his career...we'll see. In other news, the 62nd Cannes Film Festival opened today - I can't believe I was there 3 years ago...I want to go back...BAD

Was lucky enough to go to the Sox game last Thursday when they had an offensive EXPLOSION in the 6th inning scoring TWELEVE runs. Mike and I joked that we came to see the Jeff Bailey or Rocco Baldelli home run, and it was kind of close, the both got 2 run doubles. It was pretty sweet considering we were bemoaning the fact the Ortiz, Youkilis and Ellsbury were all out of the line up that night. Alas, it was a major success!!

Speaking of baseball, Roger Clemens needs to either a. get a better PR person or b. keep his mouth shut. I'm going to go with the latter. He made the rounds yesterday defending himself and proclaiming his innocence against the way he's portrayed in a new book, American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime. He was on ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning blabbering away, when they asked him point blank if he had taken steroids, which he flat out denied, saying "it would be suicidal for me to take steroids because our family has a history of heart conditions" he then went on to cite his brother having a heart attack and his step-dad dieing of a heart attack....newsflash to the Rocket: there's no blood-line between you and your step-dad, hence the preposition before dad...idiot. And Miss California ain't doin too much better, but I don't have the energy to waste on her, haha

If you haven't been watching Southland on NBC, you should be. It's an excellent new LA cop drama with an excellent cast and even better writing. I really hope that it can find its niche, because the last few new shows I've liked have sadly met an untimely demise, Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone. Fortunately Mad Men is going strong, and seems like it will be around for a while.

hooray!

I had a big morning, it was my last training long run before the half marathon (14 days away...yikes), and it was the longest I'd done so far, 12 miles. I went bed early last night after having a good dinner, and got up early tonight, had a packed of energy beans, some cereal and a banana and then set off to the MOS to park and run along the Charles. I decided that I was going to do 2 BU/MOS loops, and I successfully finished in.....

2:03.38!

I was PUMPED, I felt pretty good (thanks to the energy beans and hydrating) and gained a whole lot of confidence...there were exactly 2 times I stopped to walk, when I had to cross the Bay State Rd footbridge to cross Storrow Drive - I was really proud of that!

Only have to add 1.1 more miles and I'll be golden, and if I do as well as I did today, I'll definitely come in under my goal time...huzzah!

Meet Tony Soprano...

Yes folks, I was fortunate enough to meet one of my absolute favorite actors who created, IMO, one of the best characters in television history, James Gandolfini. Went to NYC for my mom's birthday, and had tickets to the matinee of God of Carnage.

Marica Gay-Harden, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis were all in the play as well. It was written by French playwright Yasmena Reza, who has written quite a few other high profile plays, most notably Art, which won the 1998 Tony Award for Best Play. Anyways, Carnage was billed as "a comedy of manners without the manners"...two couples meet to discuss the ramification when one couple's son (Daniels/Davis) hit's the other couple's (Gandolfini/Gay Harden) and causes him to loose two teeth. Of course, words are thrown, morals and principles are abandoned, and hilarity ensues. It was an excellent show, fairly light and fast paced, but the performances were extraordinary, all of them uniformally excellent with the stand out being Marcia Gay Harden; she was able to devour Gandolfini with just a look - it was intense...she was absolutely brilliant and should win Best Actress in a Play come June 5th. Others thought it was quite good as well, so good, it was rewarded with 6 Tony nominations Tuesday morning including Best Play, nominations for all four actors, and Best Director. Carnage also has a very good shot of winning Best Play, and Gandolfini or Daniels could sneek by in Best Actor, especially Daniels for his completely droll performance.

After, I took my playbill and head out to the stage door to see if any of the actors would come out to sign autographs or take pictures. Jeff Daniels came out first, and he was nice, if not a bit stand-offish. Hope Davis came out next and she was absolutely delightful, and took time to sign autographs and chat with the crowd. Marcia Gay Harden emerged with a small entourage (her family) and was so down to earth, she stopped and chatted with people and signed autographs...so gracious and kind, it was amazing, and really great to see. After she came out, the security guard said that James wouldn't be coming out, and he put the barriers back up against the side of the theater. A lot of people were disappointed, and many of them left. I knew better. I, along with a handful of others hung around for about another 10-15 minutes. The stage door opened and James poked his head out and came out into the street. I almost died. Tony Soprano was standing 10 feet away. A much more eager fan asked for an autograph, he kind of mumbled and said sure, and signed our playbills. The same fan then asked for a picture, and again, he kind of mumbled yes, and me, not wanting to be one upped, also asked for a picture....


I almost peed my pants, and in fact, I'm pretty sure I was shaking a little. I kept saying, "thank you, thank you, this is awesome"....he was totally what I expected he would be like; I wouldn't say mean or ungrateful, just kind of...indifferent. He was wearing like, windpants and a windbreaker, and eating fruit snacks or something from a package, as evidenced in the photo. It was a pretty awesome day - and it would get better.

We checked into the hotel, and went up to our room. It was a little dirty, stains on the carpet, cracked tiles in the bathroom, and the drain took forever to drain. So I went down to the front desk and said "We're here for my mom's birthday, I'm a gold preferred guest, there are stains on the floor, cracked tiles, blahblahblah, and I'm just generally unsatisfied with the room" thinking that we'd get moved to a new room. So the girl at the desk goes out back and comes back a few minutes later and says "You're only staying one night, right? Checking out tomorrow?" I said yes, and she said "We can put you on a suite on the 17th floor - enjoy the rest of your stay"...I was excited, but thought, a suite in NYC was probably a standard room that was a little bit bigger...not so much. We get up to the 17th floor, the room is all the way at the end of the hall- I open the door to a marble foyer, complete with live plants and flowers. There was a kitchen, livingroom, bedroom, diningroom table for 6 people, TWO bathrooms...it was HUGE. It took up the entire width of the hotel; one side of the room looked out onto 8th Avenue, the other side to Broadway.

We had dinner at this great steakhouse, Frankie and Johnnies and then had tickets to see 9 to 5: The Musical, based on the movie of the same name. I didn't really know what it was about and was vaguely familliar with the title song, but other than that, didn't know a whole lot. I did know, however, that it had been dragged through the mud in it's reviews a few days earlier. Most of the critics praised the three female leads (Allison Janney, Stephanie Block and Megan Hilty) but said that the rest of the show (save for the score by Dolly Parton) was pretty awful. Sadly, I agreed. I didn't care for it at all, and I thought the reviews were pretty much spot on. Allison Janney was indeed excellent (that woman is TALL) as were the other two women, but overall it was just plain blah. The choreography was pedestrian, the sets/lighting were ok, but sometimes a little too flashy, and the story just kind of ended, like someone said "ok, we're approaching the 2:30 mark, time to wrap things up!" AND, my biggest quibble, the big 11 o'clock number for Block's character, while well written and extremely well performed, came out of no where and did NOTHING to evolve the plot forward...the audience around me, however, ate the show up and lept to their feet once the curtain came down. I was a lot more hesitant...I know, I'm a theater snob; but I wanted to like it, went in with an open mind, and it just kind of failed...

After spending the night in the suite, got up Sunday morning, went for a run, checked out this cool exhibit at the MoMA (hooray getting in for free!) and then saw the matinee of Next to Normal, I know, I have already seen it, but we got a great deal on tickets and it was such an amazing show. I liked it even more the second time around, and it's gotten a lot stronger (which I didn't think was possible) since I saw it at the end of March. It was also awarded 11 tony nominations tuesday morning, Musical, Actor, Actress, Featured Actress, Director, Original Score, Book, Orchestrations, Lighting Design and Scenic Desgin. It will go head to head with Billy Elliot, which is nominated for 15 awards (tieing The Producers for the most nominations), in most of its categories. Here's hoping Next to Normal will triumph in some of them - I'd hate to see a Billy Elliot sweep, as good as that show was.

Sox tonight with Mike Arnold, UMass tomorrow for the Zeta class initation! 12 miles also on tap for this weekend, my last long run before the 1/2...wish me luck!

a preview...

Today is my moms birthday, so we went to NYC this past weekend for her birthday. A complete rundown will follow tomorrow, but here is a recap of last weekend's adventures with one Kim Johnson...

Friday night I took the BoltBus, which was pretty awesome. Saturday morning we went for a nice 4 mile run in Central Park, had an awesome brunch in Rockefeller Center, did some shopping on 5th Avenue; I bought a pair of madras shorts at J.Crew (a big purchase for me).

That afternoon we saw the revival of Guys and Dolls. When it opened back in March, the reviews were less than kind, and there were rumors that it was going to close within a couple of weeks. I went in with an open mind, and it was ok, nothing too spectacular, but Lauren Graham was outstanding as Miss Adeliade, who knew she could sing so well? The sets were really odd...pieces would come in and out, but instead of having backdrops, there were all kinds of projections...which were kind of cool, but they also kind of took away from the production, and when there were scene changes and the projections changed, I thought I was going to be sick- not really, but I just didn't like them. And some of the songs were a little underwhelming (like "Luck Be A Lady"), but the choreography was awesome. And thankfully, "Sit Down You're Rockin the Boat" brought the house down, as it should. Oliver Platt was a little underwhelming, and so was Craig Bierko as Sky...the director, Des McAnuff (who did amazing things with Jersey Boys and The Who's Tommy) decided that the show needed to be bookended with the image of Damon Runyon writing the two short stories that were the inspiration for the musical, which I felt was a little much...

After the show, we hit up a bar in Times Square to watch the Sox pummel the Yankees and the bar had $2 Bud Lites and half price appetizers...so we stayed there for about 2 hours.

After spending a good amount of time at the bar, we ran back to the hotel to change and we had tickets to Neil LaBute's new play reasons to be pretty. I was excited to see it, I had heard a lot about it when it was Off-Broadway, and I had read a couple of his plays before, but had never seen one on state. It was met with excellent reviews when it opened a few weeks ago, but it was having a hard time finding an audience (it played to 30% capacity this past week), so I figured that I could do my part to help the show survive. Basically, it was standard LaBute, a social commentary...the long and short, a guy makes a comment to a friend at work about his girlfriend being "ordinary", lots of yelling, ruined relationships, and male chauvenism ensue. I really enjoyed it, and the four actors were outstanding. Thomas Sadowski gave an incredible performance as the offending boyfriend, and Steven Pasquale (Sean Garrity on Rescue Me) was great as the typical jock, and Piper Perabo and Marin Ireland were outstanding in their roles, Perabo as Pasquales wife and Ireland as the "ordinary" girlfriend. Hopefully it will garner a couple of Tony nominations tomorrow morning, at least a Best Play nomination, and it can stay afloat for a little bit longer...

Sunday we tried to go to the Guggenheim, but 90% of it was closed for a Frank Lloyd Wright installation, which opens May 15th that I want to go back and see, so we ended up checking out the Met, and almost got caught up in the Greek pride parade down 5th avenue...had a late brunch and then headed our separate ways, me back to Boston and Kim back to DC. It was a great trip (even though it was SUPER hot), and great to see Kim, who I hadn't seen since last summer when I was in DC for the JOH arrival.

Quick predictions for Tony nominations tomorrow:

Best Musical - 9 to 5, Billy Elliot, Next to Normal, Shrek (alt: [title of show], Rock of Ages)
Best Play - 33 Variations, Dividing the Estate, God of Carnage, reasons to be pretty
Best Revival of a Musical - Guys and Dolls, Hair, Pal Joey, West Side Story
Best Revival of a Play - The Norman Conquests, The Seagull, Speed-the-Plow, Waiting for Godot
Best Actor, Musical - The Billy's - Billy Elliot, James Barbour - A Tale of Two Cities, Gavin Creel - Hair, Brian d'Arcy James - Shrek, J. Robert Spencer - Next to Normal
Best Actress, Musical - Stockard Channing - Pal Joey, Sutton Foster - Shrek, Lauren Graham - Guys and Dolls, Allison Janney - 9 to 5, Alice Ripley - Next to Normal
Best Actor, Play - Raul Esparza - Speed-the-Plow, Bill Irwin - Waiting for Godot, Stephen Mangan - The Norman Conquests, Geoffrey Rush - Exit the King, Thomas Sadowski - reasons to be pretty

Billy Elliot will have the most overall nominations (I'm thinking 13) and 9 to 5 should also pick up double digits, and I'm crossing my fingers that Next to Normal will get 11 (Musical, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Original Score, Book, Orchestrations, Sets, Lights, Sound)

Check back tomorrow morning for a full list as well as an update of an AMAZING 30 hours in my favorite home away from home...