Happy 184th birthday, Antonín Dvořák!

Though a proud native son of Czechoslovakia, Dvořák is perhaps best known for his mighty, highly melodic Symphony No. 9, which is most commonly called "From the New World" due to its early American musical themes and the fact that he wrote almost the entirety of it in the United States—more specifically in Spillville, Iowa, just 100 miles north of Cedar Rapids.

It's the last symphony he composed, and in my opinion its enduring brilliance lies in its endless accessibility. Its dominant six-note theme, often sung to the words of the American folk song "Goin' Home," is never far from the surface no matter how many variations or complex contrapuntal themes he weaves it through.

As a composer, he was rooted firmly among the late Romantics with their heroic storylines, soaring emotions, and confident nods to the nascent but growing fascination with the shimmering textures of the Impressionists and the gorgeous discordances of what would soon be revered around the world as American jazz. And this symphony sits right at the confluence of all that history, all that emotion, all that foresight and all that promise.

 
It's a gorgeous, centuries- and continents-spanning legacy ... built on a mere six-note theme he encountered on an 1893 stay in the humble American Midwest.

Happy 107th birthday, Leonard Bernstein!

His Candide Overture is perhaps the singular most joyful piece of brilliantly scattered, wickedly intractable music ever written, with its collisions of overlapping themes; fearless jumps between walls of boisterous brass, swirls of tittering piccolos and swells of velvety strings; and headstrong, disobedient asymmetries that have no doubt awakened every conductor on the planet in cold sweats since 1956.

Here he is conducting his thrilling juggernaut with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1989. I know the musicians know the music. I know HE knows the music. But I fail to see any sense of dialogue between them as he conducts. Yet they fly together with effortless confidence and musical delight. It all makes ME break out in a cold sweat, so I can't watch it as I listen in rapture.

You can watch at your own peril. But do take four and a half minutes to just listen.

Happy 340th birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach!

Fun Bach fact 1: Johann Sebastian Bach is considered to be one of the definitive composers of the Baroque Period in music, which lasted from 1600 until Bach's death in 1750. Following the Renaissance Period, which explored independent, interweaving melodic lines in a style known as polyphony, Baroque music introduced the concept of tonality, where music was written in an established key. The highly ornamental and often improvised music of the Baroque followed the key-based chord progressions played by the lower instruments of the basso continuo.

And though all symphonic music from the Baroque Period forward is collectively known as "classical music," the official Classical Period as we define it today directly followed the Baroque, lasting from 1750 to 1825. Its definitive composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Fun Bach fact 2: The formal title of every work composed by Bach is followed by a BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis or Bach-Works-Catalogue) number. First published in 1950 by Wolfgang Schmieder—who was probably very boring at parties—the BWW system assigned a unique number to each of the 1,126 known written works of Bach. Unlike the far-more-useful-in-my-humble-opinion Köchel catalogue that assigns numbers to every known work of Mozart chronologically, the BWW assigns its numbers by genre. Which isn't even a German word.

Cedar Rapids>Dubuque>Car With Total Strangers>O'Hare>Fucking Hell>Eventually NYC

Four years ago today, I embarked on what ended up being a 19-hour, four-airport, one-roadtrip-with-strangers odyssey trying to get to NYC for my 50th birthday. I documented the increasingly infuriating saga on Facebook—to the endless amusement of my family and friends, who literally encouraged to turn it into a book—but I'm too lazy for that so I'm just piling it all here. Please enjoy. Or not.

May 2, 11:21 pm

This weekend’s performance of the Big Birthday Broadway Bash has been delayed while we search for an understudy. Thank you for your patience.

#HowToTurn50 #AndWithholdYourStandingOvationBeforeTheShowEvenStarts


May 3, 12:08 am

Curtain up! My chauffeur parents and I just have a bit of a drive ahead of us.

#HowToTurn50 #AndFinallyExhale


May 3, 4:16 am

My (slightly revised so I want to make sure the tank is full but miraculously still on time) Big Birthday Broadway Bash begins!

#HowToTurn50 #AndLoseAllYourSleep


May 3, 6:34 am

We made it to Dubuque—where the airport is quite modern and cool and the snacks are on a table with a sign that says $1 each and there’s a cardboard box to pay or make change for yourself all on the honor system—and I’m seated on the plane where there are two quite hot men except one of them is literally sitting in a crowd of children so whatever but anyway I’m back on track for my Big Birthday Broadway Bash!

#HowToTurn50 #AndNotStopYawning


May 3, 8:41 am

See this sunny, optimistic smile? It’s the rictus of a man who got up at 3:00 to drive to Dubuque after he had to rebook when his Cedar Rapids flight was canceled ... and then sat on the runway and even back in the airport for TWO FRUSTRATING HOURS because of the fog and is now finally taxiing back to the runway for another attempt.

#HowToTurn50 #AndUseAllYourSwearWords


May 3, 9:33 am

Well THIS is a first.

After sitting in impenetrable fog on the runway, returning to the gate, deplaning, replaning, taxiing back to the runway, and finally revving the engines and accelerating for takeoff ... we abruptly aborted and came SCREAMING to a stop just short of certain fiery death. Because the engine failure light came on. THE ENGINE FAILURE LIGHT. How ridiculous! I’ve been driving with my airbag light on for 10 years and I have never even once experienced certain fiery death.

So here we sit AGAIN at the gate with the honor-system snack table waiting to think of newer, even more thrilling, ways to destroy the joys of turning 50.

On the plus side, I’ve now had the chance to scope out the entirety of the passenger population and I have revised my two-hot-guys body count to four. But one’s wearing a backward baseball cap so I have to kill him. So three.

#HowToTurn50 #AndAlmostPoopYourselfRightOnTheRunway


May 3, 10:05 am

Keep scrolling ...

Keep scrolling ...

Almost there ...

You know what’s awesome about having good bipolar drugs? I’m totally chill in almost every situation.

Of course, I won’t cry at your funeral, but you’ll be dead so FUCK YOU WITH YOUR FUCKING COMPLAINING.

#HowToTurn50 #AndShrugAtEverySetback


May 3, 10:21 am

A post from Mom:

So, I will add a chapter—no, just a little info—to the airplane trip to NYC that still has not happened. Just wanted to share a super foggy photo [note: I cannot find this photo] of the original taxiing to the gate in Dubuque about 6:33 am today. And the airport did not know that the plane did not actually take off from the runway until I called them 90 minutes later and said the AA site said the plane was delayed. And now Jake is in Dubuque and we and the car are back in Cedar Rapids!

May 3, 11:31 am

Well. They did such a good job re-duct-taping the engine to the wing that you can hardly see it. So we’ve now completed our third boarding and I’m in the process of ignoring our third safety demonstration as we speak. It’s now been over 12 hours since I was notified that my 6:06 Cedar Rapids flight was canceled, I got rebooked to a 6:41 flight a hour away in Dubuque, I deplaned not once but twice, I’ve been reassigned to three increasingly later connecting flights, and I first embarked on my first of five (and counting!) treks across that mega-long-ass gangplank (or whatever it’s called). (Seriously. That thing has an Olympic-length lap pool, a Renaissance vanishing point and two time-zone changes.) (Parentheses party!)

But it’s now 11:31 and instead of launching ourselves into the air at our promised 10:45 takeoff time, we’re still connected to that gangplank (or whatever it’s called) like an emotionally needy fetus to its umbilical cord.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand ... we JUST got told that our re-duct-taped engine WON’T EVEN START RUNNING.

This literally is exactly the reason why I didn’t buy tickets to a show tonight.

#HowToTurn50 #AndGetGrayHairsOnYourGrayHairs


May 3, 2:23 pm

See this pretty house? It’s in Galena, which is about a 30-minute drive east of the Dubuque airport. See the side mirror in the corner of the photo? That belongs to a family of four people I just met in line in the Dubuque airport. What could all of this possibly mean?

I’LL TELL YOU WHAT IT MEANS.

After having my original flight canceled and then driving to Dubuque at 4:00 am to catch a different flight, after evacuating the plane for that flight twice for fog and twice because the damn engine fell off, after canceling my tickets to Jimmy Fallon, after TRYING REALLY HARD NOT TO FUCKING SWEAR (oops), my second flight was finally canceled too. OF COURSE. And! There were no more Dubuque flights today. And! There was no time to drive to Cedar Rapids to catch a flight there. And! There was nobody at the car-rental counter anyway. But! There IS an 8:30 flight out of Chicago tonight. And! The nice family in line ahead of me decided to drive their car there to catch it. And! They invited me to tag along.

So here I am. In a car with (hopefully) nice strangers. Who won’t dismember me and feed me to feral she-wolves.

Being 50 is weird.

#HowToTurn50 #AndHopefullyNotBeFedToSheWolves


May 3, 3:05 pm
We have stopped at a McDonald's. I'm hungry. I have to pee. But I'm suddenly obsessively worried that my captors will run to their car and take off without me. So I'm neither peeing in the bathroom nor ordering food at the counter with my back to the door and the car.

#HowToTurn50 #AndLiveInHopefullyIrrationalFear

May 3, 3:59 pm

This fluffy boi is lurking ominously in the general vicinity of O’Hare from my view out the window of my captors’ car.

BRING IT, MOTHER NATURE! Imma get to NYC tonight even if I have to climb on a broom and turn my back to the Western skies. Because everyone deserves a chance to see SpongeBob Squarepants the musical!

#HowToTurn50 #ViaTheIncredibleKindnessOfStrangers


May 3, 5:47 pm
Gary the O'Hare American Airlines ticketing agent is a dick.

Every other American Airlines employee I've encountered today responded to my good spirits and organized, at-the-ready information and mood-lightening corny jokes with nothing but friendly helpfulness.

Let me tell you the reasons you’re a dick, Gary:

• Blah blah blah made-up rules
• Blah blah blah dramatic sighs
• Blah blah blah made up fees
• Blah blah blah putting me in a center seat when my profile says I prefer aisle seats and there’s no way your ticketing system didn’t tell you the back TWO rows of the airplane were empty.

#HowToTurn50 #BlahBlahBlahI'mTalkingToYOUGaryTheDick


May 3, 6:24 pm

I am FINALLY at my O’Hare gate, my third airport after my second canceled flight and two unexpected car rides totaling 500 miles over the last 16 hours. But this flight is two hours earlier than the one I was supposed to be on. So if it gets canceled too, I still have options. BUT I’D BETTER NOT NEED OPTIONS, PEOPLE. I am painfully tired. And after all my soul-crushing travails, American condemned me to a middle seat by the toilets, which my wide shoulders and delicate nose and I hate. But perhaps I’ll be seated in the waifish constipated goblin section. Because OPTIMISM! POSITIVITY! EMACIATING FIBERLESS PLAGUES AMONG THE MAGICAL WOODLAND CREATURES WHO ARE TRAVELING TO NEW YORK TONIGHT!

#HowToTurn50 #ByDrivingToLotsOfAirportsInsteadOfFlyingLikeNormalPeople


May 3, 7:17 pm

Guess what's shut down right now. Just guess.

No, I'll tell you: ALL THE FUCKING NEW YORK AIRPORTS ARE SHUT DOWN RIGHT NOW.

We are currently enjoying life on dimly lit auxiliary power on the O'Hare tarmac. We will sit here until we receive “an update” in an hour and 15 minutes. Go to hell, world.

#HowToTurn50 #WhileSittingOnTarmacAfterTarmacAdNauseam


May 3, 8:31 pm

You know what would make this fucking hell of a day even worse? I’ll tell you exactly what would make this fucking hell of a day even worse:

We literally—LITERALLY!—just got the “Is there a doctor on board?” announcement—yes, apparently it’s a real thing—because someone across the aisle and one row ahead of me is apparently having some kind of seizure. And there are so many people crowding around her that a good four rows of us are trapped in our seats as the whole plane sits trapped on the tarmac subsisting only on dimly lit reserve power.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

So of course—OF FUCKING COURSE!—the self-absorbed douchebag sitting next to me—who has already TWICE demanded that I get up so he can wander the aisles doing his self-absorbed-douchebag things—suddenly decides that NOW is the time to push our row back into the crowded aisle again so he can wander the plane doing even more of his self-absorbed-and-now-potentially-harmful douchebag things.

ON TOP OF THAT!

I don’t even know what’s up with the prick directly in front of me, but he’s trying to interfere in the doctoring so insistently that the flight attendant has repeatedly—REPEATEDLY!—told him that he needs to stay in his seat and stop demanding to interfere and shut the hell up or—and she literally said this to him—“I’ll have to involve the captain.”

Plus the flight attendants have just confirmed amongst themselves and within my earshot that the gagging smell here in the back of the plane is from the “exploded diaper” someone left in the bathroom.

I am so so SO beyond exhaustion and patience and a capacity for tolerance of self-absorbed trash and even basic happiness right now.

#HowToTurn50 #InThePitsOfHell


May 3, 8:58 pm

Why is my phone still on? Why am I using the same screen grab?

I’ll tell you why my phone is still on PLUSS I'll tell you why I'm using the same screen grab:

We have resolved the medical emergency (something about low blood sugar triggering a panic attack, near as I can tell). We have taxied to the runway. We have dimmed the cabin lights. We have been told to off our electronic devices for takeoff.

WE HAVE ALSO SUDDENLY HEARD THE BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAMS OF A FUCKING CHILD WHO HAS LOCKED HERSELF IN THE BATHROOM AND REFUSES TO COME OUT.

The flight attendants are trying to calm the child through the door with a mix of soothing reassurances underscored with FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING LITTLE BRAT OR SO HELP US WE WILL BURN THIS PLANE TO THE GROUND WITH YOU IN IT AND WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR PARENTS WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR PARENTS?

Oh, wait: The flight attendants seem to have gotten the door open and (hopefully) stun-gunned the child because all is quiet save for the dulcet tones of their forced soothing reassurances. BUT THE QUESTION REMAINS WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE FUCKING PARENTS.

#HowToTurn50 #TheFirstStepIsToGetYourTubesTied


May 4, 12:07 am

Wheels on the ground, bag collected, Uber arrived, traffic at a brisk crawl! I haven’t been so tired—or so in need of a vigorous tooth-brushing—in as long as I can remember. But my tap shoes and my sense of overwhelming relief (not to mention my carefully selected, casually handsome, still-looking-Jimmy-Fallon-fresh shirt) are here, so bring on the big gay musicals!

After a sound sleep, of course. Preceded by a vigorous tooth-brushing.

#HowToTurn50 #AfterAGoodSleepOfCourse


May 4, 12:42 am

I’M! IN! MANHATTAN!

TAKING! ELEVATOR! SELFIES!

AND! POSSIBLY! FLEXING!

time. for. fucking. bed.

#HowToTurn50 #ImOnlyDoingThisOnce

Happy 91st birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

Thank you for redefining musical theater. For redefining music. For redefining theater.

Thank you for composing music that's at once asymmetrical and balanced, halting and fluid, atonal and lush, messy and perfect.

Thank you for finding lyrics that explore the outer limits of rhythm and structure and rhyme, that tell a story or define a character or celebrate a moment or break a heart in sometimes just a handful of words, that always seem fresh, that always seem timeless, that always seem effortless.

Thank you for creating an apotheosis of creative and intellectual order, design, tension, composition, balance, light and harmony.

Thank you for inspiring as only you can an enraptured young writer to think outside his own thoughts, to feel outside his own feelings, to never stop searching for the perfect word or the lyrical phrase or the essential defining idea in a universe of creative entropy, to always make sure he's proud of how he creates and proud of what he writes.

And thank you for the phrase that I rely on almost daily to turn an undefined someday into a compelling now ... to pull me out of inertia and propel me sometimes through a bipolar fog and sometimes just through my own complacency to run a marathon, broaden my perspective, take on a challenging writing project, upgrade to a difficult tap class, find a solution, emerge unscathed or at least unbroken, or some days to just show up.

Careful the things you say; children will listen. And sometimes they'll turn your inspiring lyrics into kick-ass tattoos.

Feel the flow,
Hear what's happening:
We're what's happening!
Long ago
All we had was that funny feeling,
Saying someday we'd send 'em reeling.
Now it looks like we can!
Someday just began ...

Happy 102nd birthday, Leonard Bernstein!

His Candide Overture is perhaps the singular most joyful piece of brilliantly scattered, wickedly intractable music ever written, with its collision of overlapping themes; fearless jumps between walls of boisterous brass, swirls of tittering piccolos and swells of velvety strings; and headstrong, disobedient asymmetries that have no doubt awakened every conductor on the planet in cold sweats since 1956.

Here he is conducting his breathless juggernaut with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1989. I know the musicians know the music. I know HE knows the music. But I fail to see any sense of dialogue between them as he conducts. It makes ME break out in a cold sweat, so I can't watch.

You can watch at your own peril. But do take four and a half minutes to just listen.