Let us now praise beautiful women ...
... for my life is abundant with them lately. First, there was Phoebe Snow out on Long Island this past Saturday. Were there a roof to blow off, said roof would be orbiting Saturn right about now. Her set was eclectic in the extreme - "Shaky Ground," "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu," "Never Never Land," "Piece of My Heart," and of course the inevitable "Poetry Man" (no "Lightning Crashes," though, dammit) - which I expected, but I was unprepared for just how funny and self-effacing she was. Her "skit" in the middle of "Piece of My Heart" wherein she revealed just how many songs there are with the same chord structure was fabulous. And, be still my heart, she sang "Something Real," a song for which I have to thank another beautiful woman for introducing me in college. It was an unexpected delight to hear a tune that had soothed me way back when every attempt at a relationship seemed by necessity to include acquaintance with those more famous Katzenjammer Kids, Sturm & Drang. For three-plus blissful minutes I shed 16 years and, after the song was done, gratefully put them back on again. Nostalgia for a misspent youth is all very well, but unless I could go back with an unwavering "save the drama for the stage" philosophy in mind, I'm perfectly happy to be here, graying temples and all.

Accompanying us to this gig was the Royal Family of Three. Lovely people, all of 'em, and too long out of our immediate viewing till now. I've known them as long as I've known MO'C, who's only known them for one year longer. It didn't really strike me how long these folks have been a part of my life until I was chatting with "Baby" RFT, who's now 22 and, no getting around this, a first-class babe. Not just physically attractive - no longer the skinny wide-eyed girl singing "Over the Rainbow" in her high school auditorium - but imbued with the wry, dry humor and the sentimental bent of her parents. Watching kids become adults really is a joy, and so was our conversation about "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and whether or not Angelina Jolie is as hardcore as she tiresomely seems to claim every three minutes. (Which always reminds me of that old Richard Pryor routine about having sex with a certain California breed of woman - She: "Omigodit'ssogood, pleasestop, Ican'ttakeitanymore, pleasestop, pleasestop ..." He: "Can you wait till I put it in?" A routine I opted not to share with "Baby" RFT, in case you were wondering.) In any event, she's a graceful and beautiful soul, a testament to Mama and Papa RFT who managed to make parenting look easy to us too-occasional visitors.

And then there's the Keebler Callas, with whom I once again have the pleasure of singing. She's just all over the place on this recording we're doing, unleashing the mightiest soprano I never thought could emerge from such a teensy and delicate frame, like an angel on steroids. Combine that with her outward-directed receptive nature as an actress and just how freaking nice she is, and somehow I never seem to mind if rehearsals run over a little. My only regret is I'm singing the Snidely Whiplash woo-the-girl guy instead of the kill-the-Snidely-Whiplash-woo-the-girl-guy-and-get-the-rapturous-love-duet guy, who is being sung by a friend I really love and, this being the theatre after all, am convinced I could do a better job of it than he. ;-)

But, of course, there's the MO'C herself, who after watching "Sin City" last night wearily raised herself off the sofa, looking for all the world like she had endured a nursery school production of the entire Ring Cycle (which might have been a more productive use of the time) and pronounced, "Well, THAT was a load of crap that didn't mean anything. Where's the hot chocolate?" You had to be there, of course, to see how funny that was, although it was probably better that you weren't. Some days it's not so bad being me.