While Doc’s in Disney ... Ooops ... More Miserables ... Doc says (?) ...

Amici:

While Doc vacations in Disney (it’s a good country, America. He’s unemployed two years now and still managing to vacation--so much for all that right wing bluster about being taxed unfairly), the ugly one returns to the diet/workouts ... oy vey.

In honor of Doc, though, his favorite pastime (besides breaking my and President Obama’s shoes), returns ... la opera ... from a 2000 Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the greatest opera EVER ... with Bryn Terfel singing Don Giovanni and Hei-Kyung Hong singing Zerlina. Ms. Hong once couldn’t take her eyes off me when she sang the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro many years ago (I was in the 2nd row).

Ooops ... after having the Scotsman force several drinks down my gullet between feasting on the Principessa’s vast menu of goodies while Laird McLean was visiting, the ugly one has put on 6 pounds. Pisses me off no end because it isn’t just the booze or the grub. It’s the boss’s nursing classes ... the constantly going back and forth to Manhattan to pick her up doesn’t leave me time to hit the gym the way I was ... so with only a couple hours a night to myself, I tend to spend it in the fridge. Not to worry, I’m back on my horse as of Saturday ... 40 minutes of aerobics and about 8,000 less calories than Friday night.

Les Miserables ... I just finished rereading the Victor Hugo classic and found it to be one of the most frustrating reads of my life (for a second time). I loved The Hunchback of Notre Dame (although that too could’ve used an editor), but this wonderful story (Les Miserables) coincidences and all, could’ve used six editors; one for each social essay. I did enjoy reading about Waterloo again, but that’s where my interest ended on the social commentary (no need for the essay on monasteries, the sewers, the history of slang, etc.). The Broadway show was the reason I first read Les Miserables back when it first premiered in New York. My friend Mr. Ronnie read it and told me to give it a shot. I distinctly remember getting frustrated with some of the never ending narrative and skipping a few pages here and there. Well, twenty years later, I found myself just as frustrated and skipping probably the same pages. As one who makes it a point to read everything in a book, sometimes over and over until I feel I gave it a genuine chance (in case I was tired, etc.), this was unbearable. The story is wonderful, as are the characters, but all the bullshit in between it is just too much.

On that note, I purchased two books on kindle this week: Bill Crider’s, Murder in the Air and a recommendation from one of yous, East Coast Don over at Men Reading Books, Wait Until Spring, Bandini (by John Fante).

But let’s not stop there ... one more for the Doc. The next to last scene of the GREATEST opera EVER (and no, Doc, it’s not about a dinner reservation ... oy vey).



And since he’s not here (and he demanded I write it for him), let me get his words of compassion in here and now:

Doc says:

Gee, Chaz, you gained weight? What a surprise! That’s like someone predicting some of Obama’s stimulus money was being mailed to dead people ... or that we’d still be losing jobs almost two years after his lazer-like focus on unemployment ... or that people suddenly getting slammed with 10-40% insurance premium increases was something nobody knew was coming before Obama care went into effect.

Gee, you just never know, do you?

And if you read a book you didn’t like, imagine what the amicis will think of it? Usually we want to hang ourselves with your recommendations. Come to think of it, maybe this one is something we can live with for a change.

And thanks for the opera, buddy. Just what I needed after a week with ten thousand kids, Mickey Mouse and no alcohol permitted in the park. Now I have no excuse not to kill myself.

Your pal,

Doc