Things I learned today in Manhattan:

• A ten-minute pedi-cab ride COSTS SEVENTY DOLLARS. That’s not a typo, and since the rates were carefully hidden up-front, there wasn’t a tip-o.

• It’s perfectly fine to look at the headshots in a Broadway program and then read the bios in the order of who’s cutest. Just as long as you don’t broadcast that you’re doing it on social media.
• It is all but impossible to walk a block in Manhattan without passing through a cloud of marijuana smoke.
• Also, Manhattan is so crowded that even if you’re completely certain that you’ve found a secluded spot in, say, a corner of a theater lobby to, say, quietly relieve yourself of a little gas, you’ll notice as soon as you’re done that someone had also ducked into that same corner to squat down behind you to tie his shoe.
• If you’re afraid to stop and crane your neck and look like a tourist, you’ll miss a lot of breathtaking architecture.
• We’re back in a golden age of Broadway belters who don’t need microphones to overpower an orchestra and throw you against the back wall on the money notes.
• Our hotel hallway is missing a set of gingham-clad twins asking Danny to come play with them.
• Seriously: I GOT SCAMMED INTO PAYING SEVENTY DOLLARS TODAY FOR A TEN-MINUTE PEDI-CAB RIDE.

#HowToTurn50 #AndBlithelyFartOnStrangers

ADDENDUM:

• There is nothing more valuable in life than a friend who understands you AND understands how to use Photoshop.

A nice girl offered to take this for me

#HowToTurn50 #AndSeeTheMostFetchShowEverOnBroadway

Alvin Ailey’s work is still electrifying

But I’ve seen more stirring architecture on a mattress store.

#HowToTurn50 #AndYawnAndStretchAndTryToComeToLife

The Met is ... um ... a lot smaller than I’d pictured

Plus that stupid banner is blocking the storied coffee-splash chandeliers. But I’m glad I finally got to see the highlights of Lincoln Center. Except, of course, the damn chandeliers.

#HowToTurn50 #AndWearAShrugToTheMet

When vacations collide!

Cedar Rapids meets DC via Central Park West. Woot!

#HowToTurn50 #WithALittleHelpFromOldFriends

Last night’s show was filled with the damn gays for some reason

This one’s filled with damn KIDS. When did it become acceptable for either population to attend the theater?

(The girl sitting next to me has seen Frozen before, and she assures me “It’s a lot better than Annie.” It’s a hard-knock review, but Annie will have to let it go.)

#HowToTurn50 #AndFreezeUpInTheNosebleedSeats

NIR! VA! NA!

And a new favorite word.

#HowToTurn50 #AndCarbOutLikeASelfControllessPig

I! AM! GEEKING! OUT!

Grant Wood! The artist! From Cedar Rapids! At the Whitney! In New York! OHMYGOD!

This is such an amazingly comprehensive and brilliantly curated exhibit. Every one of my favorite Grant Wood paintings is here, with the words Cedar Rapids all over the wall descriptions. I talked at length with one of the docents, who knew more about Grant Wood than I do. But I know more about Marvin Cone SO THERE.

Grant Wood was gay. The Whitney says it right when you walk into the exhibit. But Grant Wood's been saying it for decades with every hunky farmer and soldier he's ever drawn or painted. LISTEN, PEOPLE!

Here's my favorite painting OF ALL FUCKING TIME! RIGHT HERE! IN FRONT OF ME! WITH A STUPID GLARE ON THE GLASS! I have written about it extensively RIGHT HERE IN THIS LINK!

Fact! Grant Wood drew vaguely tawdry and vulgar cover art for undeniably tawdry and vulgar books. To wit: Here's a direct blurb quote from Passion Spins the Plot (you may want to sit down for this): "Leaving the wild, brutal land of his childhood, Vridar Hunter enters college with little understanding of women. But there he is led down the forbidden paths of youth. He meets pick-ups and prostitutes, gets drunk, steals, and tortures his body with erotic imaginings of a soul growing from adolescence to manhood. Yet always in Vridar's heart burns the bright dream of Neloa, to whom he has pledged his love. It is not until Vridar returns home that Neloa's own soiled lips shatter his image of a passion as pure as vestal flame." VESTAL FLAMES, PEOPLE!

I probably know this woman's descendants, who no doubt prowl the streets of Cedar Rapids endlessly smirking and judging, smirking and judging:

Cherubic cheeks! Ruddy complexion! Flawless hair! BIG GEOMETRIC COW BUTT! Did I hear someone say Grant Wood was gay? Because, seriously. DOES IT REALLY NEED TO BE SAID?

Grant Wood is my homeboy and I’m so proud that this exhibition is here and people from all over the world are seeing it and talking about it and taking selfies with the paintings—but who does that? gross.—and I couldn’t stop telling complete strangers that I went to Grant Wood Elementary School and I’ve even met Nan Wood Graham who as you should know by know is one of the figures in American Gothic (the left one, I believe) and I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

#HowToTurn50 #AndOMGGRANTWOODGRANTWOODGRANTWOOD!

Cosmic Coincidence!

Boys in the Band takes place in April 1968. I’m in New York to see it as part of my Big Birthday Broadway Bash. AND I WAS BORN IN APRIL 1968.

#HowToTurn50 #AndSeeMattBomerWalkAroundInHisUnderpants #WhichIsSeriouslyATreat

OMG! Everyone in this audience looks GAY.

It's the first Broadway show of my Big Birthday Broadway Bash! And it's filled with GAY CELEBRITIES.

#HowToTurn50 #AndGetFirstChairInTheBand

Ra, the Egyptian sun god framed in rays of brilliant celestial light ...

or Jake, the shameless tourist who takes selfies with pretty much any damn thing in the background?

#HowToTurn50 #AndMakePropleThinkYoureASunGod

I've finally walked the Brooklyn Bridge!

The damn thing is massive. And old. And breathtaking. (So are the views of Manhattan from halfway across the bridge.) I didn't even know this was on my bucket list until I was on it.

#HowToTurn50 #AndStruggleNotToMakeBridgePuns

So tap class was literally up a steep and very narrow stairway / to the feet like a rhythmically contrapuntal metronome

The front desk guard at the Broadway Dance Center gave me a disapproving smirk when I took this selfie, no doubt because of my dumbass-tourist T-shirt emblazoned with a massive NYC. But I more or less rocked the class, so it gets a big happy, paradiddly bucket-list checkmark.

#HowToTurn50 #AndTapLikeABOSS

#BigBoyTapClass #AnnualBucketList

#HowToTurn50 #AndParadiddleLikeABoss

OK, I ran only 2.01 miles

.01, PEOPLE! 

But look at the modern addition to my beloved Hearst Tower in all its diamondy, dimensional glory behind me:

And there’s still time to get cleaned up and start sweating all over again at my tap class.

Paradiddle! As we tappers like to use as an expression of joy.

OK, only some of us do. And by “some” I mean nobody.

#HowToTurn50 #IMean50Point01

First waking hours in Manhattan!

First order of business: Three miles in Central Park!

#HowToTurn50 #AndWHYARETHERESOMANYHILLS?

Captain America socks vs Union Jack shoes. Who would win?

One day until my Big Birthday Broadway Binge Bash!

I'm rounding out my four-day overdose of big-gay-show-tunes theater and Jimmy-Fallon-VIP-seats TV tapings with a three-plus-mile run through the always-surprisingly-hilly Central Park, a visit to the Iowa-homeboy Grant Wood exhibit at the big-city-New-York Whitney Museum and a dance-with-the-pros tap class at the where-the-pros-train Broadway Dance Center.

There's still an entire Friday afternoon to fill, possibly at the Frick, possibly at the Cloisters, possibly trekking along the Highline, possibly traversing the Brooklyn Bridge, possibly visiting the brand-spanking-new Nordstrom men's store ... my Friday is full of delicious possibilities!

#HowToTurn50

These aren’t my stage deaf ear and blind eye; they’re my REHEARSAL deaf ear and blind eye

My stage infirmities will be much more realistic and serious. These are just for fun. So I hear. I mean as far as I can see. SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

Two days until my Big Birthday Broadway Binge Bash!

I'm glad I listened to the buzz, followed my show-tune-loving heart and bought my tickets early, because the Tony nominations came out this morning and I freaking SCORED on tickets that will for the foreseeable show-tune-loving future be impossible to get.

To wit:SpongeBob Squarepants: 12 Tony nominations!
Mean Girls: 12 Tony nominations!
Frozen: 3 Tony nominations!
The Boys in the Band: 0 Tony nominations, but it's about gay people and gay people are gross and besides even though "band" is CLEARLY in the title it's not a musical and why the hell would anyone do a show about gross gay people that isn't a musical?

I still have room for one more show, which I plan on letting the vicissitudes of TKTS decide for me. I'm interested in seeing Lobby Hero (3 Tony nominations!), Hello, Dolly! (Bernadette Peters!), Waitress (Katharine McPhee! Because I have a weird gay crush on her!), Dear Evan Hansen (Better late than never!), The Iceman Cometh (Kidding! Hate that show!), or anything any trusted friend or stranger recommends.

But hurry--recommendations are being accepted only until Thursday night when I stand before the oracles of the TKTS ticket booth. So throw them at me!

#HowToTurn50