Colbert Again

My faithful readers (reader? Hi Stacey!) will recall that a while ago I blogged about a trip into NYC to be an audience member of the Comedy Central hit show "The Colbert Report" (pronounced Colbair Repour??) Well, Michelle got tickets again and the other day we went to see the show with our nephew Tom and his wife Stacey.

The entrance to the Colbert studio on W. 54th St. The "Daily Show" used to be taped here and is still produced just around the corner on 11th Ave.

We had a great time and we had great seats. We were in the front row, literally ten feet from the desk where Stephen Colbert sits and does his schtick.

Before the show, a warm-up comedian who is quite funny in his own right came out on stage and got the audience "wound up". Since this young guy was as bald as a billiard ball of course he ragged on Tom and I for having full heads of gray hair. Michelle and Stacey thought this was pretty funny.

Now one of the things Stephen does after he comes on stage but before the show goes on the air is to sit at his desk and toss these red wristband thingys to the audience. Michelle, sitting next to me, did not manage to snag one, but then Stephen looked right at her and reaching under his desk tossed her a miniature Hershey's Krackle candy bar. She was delighted - in fact I think she's going to have it bronzed.

The Infamous Krackle Bar - With Stephen Colbert's fingerprints still on it.

The show was quite funny that night and to add to the enjoyment, Stephen's guest for the segment was Yo-Yo Ma the world-renowned cellist. He appeared with a small group of musicians and played a piece from his newly-released album "Songs of Joy & Peace." After the offical "end" of the show, in a portion that was not aired, Stephen sang the hymn "Dona Nobis Pacem" accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and his musicians. Stephen has a fairly decent voice. He then invited the audience to sing along with him and afterward informed us that we had now "performed" with Yo-Yo Ma.

Afterward, we went to "Roberto Passon", an Italian restaurant on the corner of 9th and 50th for dinner. The food was excellent, the wine was good, and the company - Tom and Stacey - was enjoyable. All in all a good day.

Toxic in New Brunswick

We just saw "The Toxic Avenger" - The Musical- at the George Street Theater in New Brunswick today. It was very good and side-splittingly funny. It's based on the movie of the same name from the Eighties although with original music and a lot more New Jersey jokes.

The show's songs were written by a member of Bon Jovi's band and they were very good and very funny.

The plot - for those who haven't seen the movie - concerns a nebbishy nerd who is pitched into a vat of toxic waste and is turned into a superhero.

The show is well worth seeing. It's finishing its run in New Brunswick in a week or so, but word is that it will be opening in New York City sometime in December. I'd recommend seeing it while it's still in previews in the city so as to save some bucks.

Fun stuff.

Black Bear Film Festival

Last Saturday we took a ride to Milford PA which is about a forty-five minute ride from our house. The goal was to attend the "Black Bear Film Festival" which is held every year in Milford. Now this is not exactly the Sundance festival, although there was an incredibly handsome guy named Robert in attendance this year (cough! cough! choke...). Seriously, it's a small but quite good festival and we ended up seeing a couple of very good indie films.





The festival web site can be found here: http://www.blackbearfilm.com/





The films were shown in a little old town movie theater which has seen better days, but I think the fact that it was not held in some megaplex added to the charm of the experience. In honor of the festival, they had an exhibit of cleverly decorated bear sculptures set up outside the theater. My favorite was a bear gotten up like Indiana Jones.

Here's a picture of the theater from the 2002 festival with that year's bears.

We saw two movies that day: "Absurdistan" and "Dreams With Sharp Teeth". The former was a Russian film with English subtitles. Now I'm not usually a big fan of subtitled films, but this movie was hilarious. It is set in a place that is so remote no country wants to claim it and tells the tale of how the town's womenfolk go on strike when the menfolk are too lazy to repair the town's broken water supply system - i.e. no water, no sex. I always saw the Russians as having a fine tuned sense of the absurd and this film with its various plot twists and complications bore this out. It is a very funny movie and if it shows up on IFC well worth a Tivo-ing.

The second film was a documentary on author Harlan Ellison. It was the least boring documentary I have ever seen and nearly as funny as the previous comedy film. Harlan Ellison is a writer who has been active since the Sixties and has won just about every award there is in the field of fantasy and science fiction. He has also written scripts for films and TV shows including "Star Trek" and "The Outer Limits". Dedicated Trekkies may remember an episode called "City on the Edge of Forever"- this was the one with Joan Collins where Kirk goes back in time to the Depression-era U.S.- well, Harlan wrote the script for it. He is and was a proud and outspoken skeptic, curmudgeon, and all-around troublemaker and the film covered his many feuds, battles and eccentricities. He is a very funny guy.

To add icing on the cake so to speak, after the film finished, the organizers arranged a speaker phone hookup with Harlan at his home in California and he answered questions from the audience. Apparently, he was involved in a science fiction writers workshop in Milford in the Sixties and Seventies and has a soft spot for the place. He even wanted to know if the Milford Diner was still open (it is).

After this, we headed home with a stop for dinner at the Jefferson Diner on State Route 15 - a joint which is actually featured on the Food Network.

All in all, it was a pleasant, enjoyable day, and we hope to attend the festival next year. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys offbeat film and a nice ride in the country.

By George!

By Lake George, that is. Lake George is a large lake in New York State which is located about an hour's drive north of Albany. Michelle and I took a ride up there last week to look at the autumn foliage and as a sort of mini-getaway. We stayed in the village of Lake George which is located at the southern end of the lake. The village is kind of a quaint touristy kind of place with everything from old fashioned "cabin" motels to rather fancy resorts. For the Wikipedia article on Lake George (the lake itself) go here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_George_(New_York)



Lake George, along with Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, formed an important water-borne route from Canada to New York City in colonial times. As a result two forts were built at either end of the lake: Fort William Henry at the southern end near where we stayed, and the better-known Fort Ticonderoga at the northern end where Lake George links with Lake Champlain. Fort Ticonderoga played an important part in the French and Indian War when the British took it from the French, and in the American Revolution when the Americans took it from the British - and then took its heavy cannons to Boston to help run the Brits out of there.

We booked a room in a quite nice hotel which is part of the "Wingate" chain. I have stayed in a "Wingate" property before when I used to travel to Alabama for my job. My positive experience with that hotel prompted us to take a chance on this place at Lake George. We were not disappointed. The room was reasonably priced, clean, large and modern. It featured a comfortable King-sized bed, free internet access and a complimentary hot breakfast buffet. We stayed two nights and were quite pleased.

After we checked in, we took a ride into town and had lunch at a place called "The Boardwalk". The food was O.K. but the best part was the view from the open deck where we were served. The foliage around the lake was about 80-90% turned and the mountains surrounding the lake were blazing with color. It was a bit chilly on the deck, but the view was worth it.

After lunch we wandered around the town a bit but most of the businesses were either already closed for the season or preparing to do so. Since we were really there for the foliage and views, this was no big deal.

That evening we ate at a barbeque joint called the "Barnsider Smokehouse". They served pretty decent ribs and chicken. Afterward we went in search of a sports bar to watch the NY Giants play Monday night football. Unfortunately, nothing was open and we ended up watching them in our hotel room as they disgraced themselves by losing to Cleveland. Oh well.

Next morning started out cloudy and foggy, but we decided to take a ride up along the lake. It soon cleared and became sunny which resulted in wonderful views of the multi-colored mountains surrounding the lake. We also passed through some very pretty little villages located along the western shore of the lake. Eventually, we found our way to the northern end of Lake George which is near the southern end of Lake Champlain. At that point we paid a visit to Fort Ticonderoga, or, as Michelle called it: "Fort Pencil" ("Ticonderoga" is a well known brand of wooden pencils). It was quite interesting. The fort has been restored to its approximate configuration in the 18th century and had a number of interesting exhibits about its history, colonial warfare, etc. The view of the lake and the surrounding mountains from the fort's battlements was also quite breathtaking. Following our tour of the fort, we retraced our route back to Lake George Village. We lunched in a place called "Duffy's Tavern" which overlooked the lake but had the advantage of allowing us to eat indoors behind glass instead of on an open deck. The food was better than the previous day's lunch although the place itself was pretty much a local dive in much need of renovation inside.

Now as we wandered around the area that day, one thing began to concern us: the number of restaurants and bars that were already closed for the season and whether we would find anyplace open that night for dinner. Well, that afternoon we took a ride to a series of outlets located to the south of the town. The outlets were pretty much a bust except for an Xmas present I found for The World's Cutest Grandnephew (TM) at a Kaybee Toy outlet store. However, while tooling around the outlets we spotted a likely looking, still open restaurant called the "Log Jam". We returned there that night for dinner and had a pretty good meal. The place had a nice well-stocked salad bar and I had a decent prime rib. The atmosphere was also kind of nice as the place was a large, rustic log building.

The next day, we set off for home. On the way, we stopped at Poughkeepsie where our niece Melissa is attending Marist College and took her out for lunch. It was nice spending time with her and catching up on her life at school. After lunch, she guided us on a driving tour of Marist which is located right on the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie. The campus is very pretty and has some spectacular new buildings. We then dropped Melissa off at her campus housing and headed on home.

I know this was probably not my most spectacular travel blog, but, hey, they can't all be trips to China. And anyway, it beat going to Newark for a kidney stone treatment.

Later.

Stoned

Well folks, I was all set to write a series of blogs about our exciting trip across the North Atlantic on the "M/S Norwegian Jewel" via the Shetland Islands, Iceland, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Only problem is: it didn't happen. About a week before we were to fly to the U.K. to board the ship, I started to get a sharp pain in my lower back. After a trip to the Morristown ER and a bunch of boring medical stuff, my urologist said: "Kid, you have a kidney stone and an 11-day boat trip is probably not such a good idea." or words to that effect.

Fortunately, Michelle had the foresight to take out trip insurance against such an eventuality, so we should lose minimum money on the deal.

However, we did get to take another exciting trip -this time to Newark New Jersey. Now normally a trip to Newark means Ferry Street and the Ironbound section for Portuguese or Brazilian food. But this time it was to the campus of the UMDNJ on Bergen St. and a place called the "Stone Center" - as in kidney stones. What they have there is a piece of equipment which is used to perform a procedure called "lithotripsy". Litho meaning stone (in Greek) and tripsy meaning to shatter (likewise in Greek). The device generates sonic shock waves which pass harmlessly through the soft tissue of your back and kidney and shatter the hard mass of the kidney stone into small pieces which can be more easily passed. In other words, they ping you like a U-boat being hunted by allied destroyers. And then you shoot out tiny stone torpedoes.

A Lithotripsy machine

A U-boat. Actually where we were supposed to have cruised in the North Atlantic was pretty much the hunting grounds of the U-boats in WWII

The actual procedure was overseen by my urologist who, although he practices in Denville, is a staff participant at the Stone Center.

What the whole thing comes down to is they lay you on a table with a kind of soft liquid-filled hemisphere pressed against the offending kidney and for twenty minutes you feel a kind of tapping on your back. Of course you are under a type of light anesthesia (Nurse Michelle calls it "twilight") so you can't really feel any pain.

Afterward, they made me hang out for about an hour until I peed and then told me to get dressed and get the hell out.

Actually, I thought that the staff were pretty good there. They were professional courteous and sympathetic. The place even had free valet parking!

About the only down side to the place was not for the patient, but for the person accompanying him/her. Since everyone undergoes some form of anesthesia they require you to bring someone with you to take you home. In my case this was Michelle. Unfortunately, she found the waiting room where she had to stay to be rather cramped and stuffy. Also, there was no place for her or the other people awaiting patients to even get a glass of water never mind a cup of coffee or tea. Well, we mentioned this in the survey they sent us, so maybe they will do something about it - who knows?

Since I was not allowed to eat anything from the midnight before the procedure, by the time they kicked me out at around 2:30 in the afternoon I was starving. I was all for hitting Ferry Street for some Paella, but since this would have ultimately meant subjecting Michelle to rush hour traffic, we decided to just head back to Rockaway and a sandwich at an excellent little place called "Potbelly's" in Rockaway Borough.

Anyway, that was my adventure in lieu of an eleven-day cruise. Can't say that their buffet and casino were very good - come to think of it they didn't have a buffet and casino.

Oh well.