Post 101 - June 20, 2020

Day 101…

Yesterday felt a bit like the end of something.  It was day 100 of the shut-down. It was Governor Cuomo’s last regular daily briefing. And it was Juneteenth, a nationwide celebration of the end of slavery. Freedom!

So now it’s day 101.

In the often, appropriate words of Samuel Beckett, “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

What I have really been missing more than anything these past three months, is the traveling. This morning, a friend posted a Facebook memory from ten years ago today of a trip we all took to Singapore.

One of the marketing tools that Broadway-style musicals can use is to send actors from the show somewhere to perform material where it will get some attention and coverage. It’s not always easy. Not every show has material that can work that way. The songs of Lion King, for example, are very difficult to take out of context and tend to lose something without the amazing costumes and props from the production.

The songs of Jersey Boys, on the other hand, by virtue of the fact that they are from a song catalogue of a rock and roll group, are relatively easy to take out of context and perform on their own. Over the course of working on the show, we have been called upon, countless times, to perform a few songs at galas and events all over the world. I have spent almost as much time working on these events over the last 16 years as I have working on the show itself.

These events have happened all over the place. Often, they are in conjunction with a specific production. There is a massive outdoor music festival that happens in Amsterdam every year that we were a part of when we put the show up there. We’ve appeared on the Tony Awards and galas all over New York City, the Helpmann Awards in Sydney, the Oliviers in London. New Year’s Eve in Toronto. We even did a set at the Belmont Stakes. Sometimes, though, the events are in conjunction with a producing partner and can be just about anywhere.  We did one in Berlin, one in Rabat, Morocco, Bentonville, Arkansas. The event we did in Singapore was a bit of both.

The trip to Singapore happened because we had been invited to sing at the gala dinner that marked the official opening of the spectacular Marina Bay Sands hotel that is now an iconic part of the city’s skyline.  We were scheduled to be one of the first shows to perform in their theatre complex a few months ahead.

The hotel is made up of three massive towers that are each 57 stories tall. Sitting atop the three towers and connecting them is a vast boomerang shaped roof that looks a bit like a tabletop. The hotel is across the bay from the center of Singapore and the entire leading edge of the top of the hotel is a gigantic infinity pool.

Four guys, the associate choreographer and I were sent down to do the event. They flew the six of us business class via Singapore Air, direct. It was an 18-hour non-stop flight that left New York, flew over the North Pole and landed in Changi airport. All four of the guys were nervous about the trip. They couldn’t imagine spending 18 hours on a plane. I kept telling them that they should relax because when we finally land, they won’t want to get off. And I was right.

Business class international travel is absurdly comfortable. Flat beds, food on demand, limitless movies and a bar at the back of the section where you can stand and talk. 

Singapore itself, is an amazing and fascinating city. We all got suits made overnight. There are many tailors in the city that will measure you, build a suit and get it to you 24 hours later. Incredible street food.

The hotel, itself, was still under construction. I remember us all walking down the hall to a rehearsal while workers were unrolling and installing the carpeting ahead of us.

After the gala, the building’s architects threw a private party on the roof which also marked the opening of that fantastic swimming pool. They invited the six of us to come and we did. It’s remarkable we made it out of the country the next day. Diana Ross, who had also performed that night was on our flight but that’s about all I really remember.

These days, my suitcase which usually sits partially pre-packed in the front hall is down in our storage unit. For the first couple of months following the shutdown I was completely content to stay at home in our apartment.

I am fairly certain that I contracted the virus on my flight home from London the week before everything stopped. London’s cases were rising and there was enough concern that I was worried, while I was there, that the US might close its borders before I got home. Looking back, I wasn’t actually concerned about getting it only about not being able to fly.

The last day I was there I had dinner with two of my cousins and we went to a play - packed into the cramped little Victorian theatre together. I think if I had had it at that point that they would have gotten sick too, but they didn’t, so that’s why I think I must have gotten it on the flight home.

As I write this, I am looking at a live feed from outside of the Tulsa arena where the President is going to hold his first rally for his base since the pandemic began. They are expecting over 100,000 people to gather in downtown Tulsa. In the images I am currently seeing, there is not a mask to be seen in the massive crowd that has already started to gather.

Tulsa businesses and residents sued the campaign seeking to get social distancing and face masks mandatory for the people attending. The bid was denied by an Oklahoma judge on Wednesday and then went up to the State Supreme Court where it was also denied.

There is no legal requirement to enforce distancing or masks. The only state rule in effect says that business owners must use their best judgement and discretion in terms of implementing the guidelines. Justice Dustin Rowe said, “It is not the duty of this court to fashion rules or regulations where none exist, simply to achieve a desired outcome.”

Virus cases are spiking in Oklahoma. Just last week, the rate of new infections went up 90%. As reckless as it is to hold a rally where 20,000 people are going to cram into one arena in Tulsa, I think that the ruling by the Supreme Court is correct.

Decisions of the court MUST be non-partisan and based upon the LAW.

The decision in the recent landmark LGBTQ cases before the US Supreme Court was led by a Justice appointed by our current President.

The decision, on Thursday, to protect the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was led by a Justice who had been appointed by President George W. Bush.

The decision, yesterday, to deny the Administration’s request to block the publication of John Bolton’s potentially explosive book about his time in the White House, was handed down by a Judge who had been appointed by President Reagan.

The Judges in each of these cases were making their decisions based upon the law. They were not partisan decisions.

The law can be interpreted in different ways, though, and that’s where the conflict comes from. Do you interpret the law strictly upon what the original framers of the law specifically intended it be applied to, or, do you interpret it, taking into account how society has changed and evolved since the time of its original creation.  In other words, do you expand the interpretation to include contemporary situations and issues that the original framers had no awareness of.

The three Justices that sided against the LGBTQ cases did so from a strict literalist interpretation of the original laws. The majority decided along more progressive lines. It seems, however, that their decisions were based upon how they were interpreting the law, not on the ideology of the party of the President that appointed them.

Geoffrey Berman found out yesterday via a press release issued by the Justice Department that he was stepping down from his post. Berman is a US Attorney who works for the Southern District of New York. His jurisdiction is more important than many others because it includes both the Federal Reserve and the NY Stock Exchange and Wall Street - the major economic engines of our country. Despite being a Presidential appointment, the post must remain non-partisan to continue being effective.

During his time in this position, Berman has been responsible for the successful prosecution of Michael Cohen, the President’s former personal lawyer. These days, he has been investigating the President’s current personal lawyer, Rudi Giuliani.

Attorney Berman is denying that he is stepping down and is refusing to do so.

Ordinarily, the President can hire and fire US Attorneys.  In this case, however, Geoffrey Berman wasn’t hired by the President or confirmed by the Senate. Jeff Sessions, the then US Attorney General appointed him as an interim attorney. The President never formally sent his appointment to the Senate so eventually he was confirmed by judges at the United States District Court. It is unclear, because of this, if the President can fire him.

The President is railing against everyone he feels is being disloyal to him.  What it appears that these people are doing, however, is their jobs. He wants to replace Geoffrey Berman with somebody who has no prosecutorial experience at all. Somebody who he feels will support him at the expense of following the rule of law.

What happens next, we don’t know because we’ve never been here before. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, Michael and I are FINALLY taking a road trip today. We are going up to Albany to have a socially responsible Father’s Day celebration with his Dad. It will be the first time that we will have left the island of Manhattan in three months. As excited as I am to see my in-laws, I am even more excited about getting into a car and going for a drive. It may not be Singapore but it’s a trip. I am beyond ready for it.

Starting tomorrow, instead of posting a blog, I am going to, instead, post the photographs I have taken over the course of the week. Moving forward, I think that that’s what my plan will be - blog six times a week and photos on Sunday.

I am very grateful to everybody who is reading these posts. Writing them is the best way that I know for me to make sense of everything that is unfolding around us. You can always decide to read them or not, but at least for the moment, I am not planning on stopping.

There is so much noise and confusion out there. We aren’t through this by a long shot.

We are, however, still here.

We will get through this strange and sometimes terrifying time in our lives. I do believe that.

I do hope that everyone had a great Juneteenth. For a day, we could all celebrate freedom.

Let’s keep that going.