Liza and Me

Today Liza and I were at "The Palace." The Palace Theatre on Broadway. She was playing it and I was there to watch.

This old vaudeville house has boards where many famous people trod including Judy Garland, her mother. And "playing the Palace" is and was a big deal.

I went with a friend of mine who is a good friend of Liza's and thus we had AMAZING seats at 5th row center. I was in awe of my body in that seat. It pays to be an FOL or even an FFOL.

Liza put on a show worthy of her pedigree. She knew how to sell a song and make an audience love her. There was more standing by the audience throughout the two acts that there is at Mass even. They (we) love her. You just know the audience wants her to win. [ Maybe this time?] I have to admit on these very private pages that I wept at "New York, New York." If I had a therapist I would figure out exactly why. It was incredible, but wept?

She deserves the great notices she is getting and at sixty something with two hip replacements and pills and booze issues that she freely admits, she can sing and move in those "Falston" outfits she wore so well. And Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. His ghost is in her hands and knees.

I have nothing but good things to say about her and I am so grateful that I got to see her play the Palace.

Afterwards my friend and I went backstage. There is a tasteful "Design Within Reach" furnished antechamber where backstage-worthy people (Doris Roberts from "Everybody Loves Raymond" and Michael Kors from "Project Runway" were hanging alongside me. Or I them. ) And one by one you are called in to greet Liza in her dressing room.

Like her mother carrying the witch's burnt broom up the hall to the wizard, I got to walk slowly in to greet her surrounded by flowers, photos and cards. She was the gracious and powerful Liza. And exhausted I am sure. I felt it was not the time to tell her my sister was her for Halloween one year in high school or that I just saw two drag queens play her and her mother the night before in a Judy Christmas pageant. I thought it best to say what a wonderful show and thank you. Which I did.

Then out the stage door and into the night I went. I got my pal a cab and then I headed to a Christmas party uptown.

If I ever get a job, I will be the luckiest man alive for all the wonderful experiences I have had and people I have met.