Sticky&Sweet Tour Opening Night!

Madonna's latest show, The Sticky&Sweet Tour, opened tonight in Cardiff!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!! I am so incredibly excited for October 4th when I'll be watching the show with 3 of my favorite people in the entire world: Andrea, my sister; Ashley, my great friend here in NYC; and Aileen, my best friend from way back when in Nicaragua.

That's a ways away though! I need something to tide me over till then!!!!!

These helped ease my longing a bit.....
Look at the masks the guys are wearing! She's bringing some Girlie Show back!!!!!
Look at those gams!
I can't even handle it.

I've decided to start a little Sticky&Sweet October 4th countdown! Starting today there are 43 days left till I get to see Madge again. I'll post videos every now and then in celebration of the approaching date. Alright? Good? Good!

Here's the opening of The Girlie Show back in 1993 (I think). She's singing Erotica and her little S&M mask is definitely evident in her new tour. I love how she brings little things from her past back like that. It's a little racy so if anyone reading has a problem with a little nudity or some naughty Madonna then I wouldn't recommend watching it. But you are seriously missing out! Enjoy!

Fabulous.

Bye!

Karen Ziemba

.....is a Tony Award-winning actress who has been seen in countless Broadway musicals such as A Chorus Line, 42nd Street, Chicago, and Crazy For You. She won her Tony for Contact in 2000.

Anyway! She's at Chelsea right now rehearsing for something and she keeps fabulously sashaying past me. Here she is performing Sooner Or Later from Dick Tracy with the incomparable Bill Irwin. Enjoy!

Pretty great, right?

And has everyone seen this? It has magically reappeared online and I am quite thrilled about it. It's Leslie Uggams singing June Is Bustin' Out All Over from Carousel and unfortunately for her she forgets most of the lyrics. Make sure you read the subtitles later on in the clip. Hey, she sounds fantastic, though, even if she is messing up the words. I mean, I've messed up words in songs before but it was never live on TV in front of thousands of people! I probably woulda crapped my pants. She pulled it off stupendously.....


Did I mention in a past blog that I recently went to a Madonna Sing-a-long with my sister? Well, I finally saw some pictures that a photographer from the Boston Globe took of us dancing. They're absolutely ridiculous. Unfortunately, I have to buy the photos in order to post them up here so I'm gonna have to check the prices. Hopefully I'll have them up very soon!!!

Alright, bye for now :)

Happy Birthday Madonna!

Madonna is 50 today. Holy shit.

What can I say? She's amazing. Still going like there's no tomorrow.

In honor of Madonna and her fabulousness here's her performance of Bye Bye Baby from The Girlie Show. It's one of my favorites.

That ending? Ridiculous.

Happy Birthday Madge.....thanks for the good times!

Random hiatus

So sorry I've been gone so long. Sometimes you just gotta take a little break, you know?!

I've been in Boston visiting my sister but now I'm back in NYC with a fun little story to tell. I took a bunch of pics so I can't post that story just yet since I'm at work but I'll try to get it up here by tonight. I seem to have forgotten about plenty of other things I intended to post up here so how about I put up a little list just so I can remind myself if I need to! Here it goes.....

1. Little dancing man. I was gonna put up another video of him dancing his little heart out but I seem to have forgotten all about him. I think you'll all get quite a kick out of his moves so I'll be sure to put the other video up soon.

2. NYC moments. HA! Remember that one? Neither do I. But these moments keep happening so I'll be sure to put some up here soon.

3. My Washington visit! I still have a few more pics and stories. The trip deserves a denouement!

Well, I think that's about it for now. Right? If anyone can think of anything I might be missing please just post a comment or something.

And here's a little video I watched over my break in Boston. Thanks to Gaby (my sister's friend and ex-roommate) for showing me this! Whitney singing I Will Always Love You is definitely overkill, but come on now, how cute is this?


Love you all, bye!

By the way..... Denouement? Really Jonny? Wow.

Altar Boyz.....

.....was a BUST. That dance call was hard as hell!!! Watch this video. The part we learned starts around 1:53.....

Right around 2:13 we learned something a little different from what these boys do but I'm absolutely certain that what we learned was much harder!

I got cut. Ah well, life goes on.

I stayed after for a bit to ask the choreographer if he taught any classes. Unfortunately he doesn't but he recommended a few classes I could take at Steps. We'll see. He was really good so I'm sure the classes he takes are really hard.

After I left the dance call I told myself not to get bummed out by it but I just couldn't help it. I mean, I did what they always recommend in dance calls...even if you mess up (which I did repeatedly) just enjoy yourself and get through it! I got through it, but it sucks getting cut. Also, this production happens in my hometown!!! How cool would that have been?!

I went to a yoga class after the fiasco hoping that I would be able to get that disappointed feeling out of my system. Yoga just pissed me off even more! Ha.

On the upside, the Kennedy Center wants me to go back out on tour. I'm totally excited that they wanna hire me again but I just don't know if this is the best time. I mean, I've been going to lots more auditions and have really been trying to set up a solid foundation here in the city.....I kinda don't wanna give it up. Plus, there's so much great stuff coming up! My friend Aileen is visiting in September all the way from San Francisco! The Madonna concert! Paul's coming back soon enough! What to do? Tour would be fun, though. It even goes to Florida and the West Coast this time around.

We'll see.

Love you all. Bye!

By the way, I hope I'm not coming off too negative in these posts. I love the fact that I was at least called back to dance. I love my daily routine here in the city. I may bitch and moan a lot.....but I'm really kinda liking how things are going right now :) Sometimes you just gotta vent, you know?!

Ugh

Oh boy. Not having a good day so far. And it's only 8:30am. Ugh.

I think of myself as a pretty positive person, but some days you just gotta be down in the dumps. So far today has definitely been one of those days.

Here's some just pure low down shitty things that have happened so far today.

a. I am temporarily sleeping on an air mattress. When I wake up the mattress has usually deflated a bit.....but today was just ridiculous. This morning the mattress had deflated so much that I literally rolled out of bed. Mind you, I was still sleeping when this was all going on so it was quite a rude awakening when I found myself rolling toward the floor face first. The same thing happened yesterday, by the way, and that incident involved a cup of spilled milk. Yuck. Good morning!

b. I made it out of the house by 7am which is just a little later than I would like. Luckily, I didn't arrive at the station just as my train was leaving. In fact, I could see one in the distance coming down the tunnel. As the train was coming to a stop in front of me I noticed one car that seemed pretty empty. I was gonna get a seat! But once I actually got on the train I discovered why there were so few people in this specific car. Some train cars tend to lose their air conditioning. People then tend to avoid these cars like the plague. I, for one, don't really mind them so much because I can usually get a seat and if I sit really still it's not that hot. But today I would have really appreciated a nice air conditioned ride to work. Plus, the upper train windows had not been opened so there was a lot of still, humid, sweaty air in there. I tried to distract myself with Harry 6 which worked for a while.....till one of those douchebags with a midget or skyscraper in his shorts decided to come splaying himself all over the seat next to me. I coulda punched him. AND, he threw his newspaper under his seat after he was done reading it. That is BAD subway etiquette! That's a big subway NO NO!

Note to self: Next time if you actually say something to the guy you'll probably feel a whole lot better!

c. I got off at 28th street and headed to grab my Metro newspaper. Unfortunately, the stand was all out of today's Metro. No crossword puzzle for me today. Boo.

Update: A nice fellow at work who heard me bitching and moaning to my coworker about not getting my newspaper just gave me his copy of Metro with a big smile on his face. Could today be getting better?

d. As I grumpily walked to work without my Metro a man almost spat on me.

e. Once I got to work I checked my schedule for the coming weeks and noticed that my boss had pretty much ignored my request for nights off. Well, I guess it's understandable since I sent my request in really late.

Now that I read all of those they really don't seem all that bad. I guess that, then, was the purpose of this blog entry. Today has been kinda shitty but it could be a lot worse, right?!

This cheered me up.....

That's Aretha Franklin singing (SANGIN' is more like it) I Never Loved a Man in 1967.

Another thing that is keeping my spirits up is that I finally got a callback! FINALLY! The show is Altar Boyz and it's happening at the Bethesda Theater. Tomorrow morning I have to go to a dance call which absolutely terrifies me because I haven't been to a dance class since I graduated from school. I mean, I did a little dancing when I was on tour with Willy Wonka but that was pretty basic stuff. To dust off my dancing shoes I attended a dance class yesterday. It was an advanced beginners jazz class. Apparently I am an advanced beginner. This is what I looked like.....

Hey, practice makes perfect so I'm gonna keep going to class!

Also, the Kennedy Center called me again but I'm not quite sure what they want this time around. I'll be sure to let you know!

Bye!

Another New York Day

I'm at work with nothing much to do. It's 9:30am. I've been here since 7:30. I don't think I've seen more than five people walk in here today. Ugh.....I could still be sleeping.

But, since I gotta make those big bucks, I have to sit here and figure out ways to pass the time. What better way to pass the time than to write a new blog entry! Lemme just warn you that this particular entry may go absolutely nowhere so read at your own risk.

I'm gonna walk you through a pretty regular day for me here in NYC. I wake up at 6am and immediately press the snooze button. I attempt to sleep in till about 6:15 or 6:30 and then somehow make it into the shower, into some clothes, and out of my apartment.

I catch the subway at 157th street in Washington Heights and head down to 28th street in Chelsea where I work. The subway ride can either be wonderfully relaxing or really aggravating. Mere minutes make a difference when it comes to having a good subway ride. If I get to the station at a good time, then I can usually get myself a seat. I can then open up a book and get my mind working a little since it's soooooooo damn early or I can listen to a little music. If I miss a train or arrive just a little later than I usually do, the train is all of a sudden packed and I have to squeeze in to claim a spot of my own. No sitting, of course. This time difference is probably no more than 5 minutes, maybe less. This late arrival usually irks me, unfortunately. The more people, the more aggravated everyone gets. It's hotter, sweatier, tighter, you're all up in everyone's business.....it's just not fun. And some people just have no respect for anyone else but themselves. Some guys apparently have to make space for themselves and for whatever enormity they may have stashed away in their pants. No joke, these guys just spread themselves across seats like they own the place. On more than one occasion I've wanted to tap one of these guys on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, but do you think you could remove the basketball, or midget, or CAR, or whatever MONSTROSITY you may have in your pants, place it on your lap, close your legs, and make some space for someone else to sit? Thank you! Have a lovely day." But usually I don't have to say anything. Most of the time a feisty woman will firmly place herself in front of one of these douchebags and huff and puff or throw some evil eye in his face till he gets the damn point. And make no mistake, it's usually NEVER the ladies who take up too much space.

Wow. I guess I needed to get that off my chest.

Let's move on! So I get off the train at 28th street and get to work by 7:30. Once at work I take care of my morning duties and stuff and basically wait for people to start arriving for auditions and such. Sometimes work can be painfully dull because there are just no auditions happening. Thank goodness for crossword puzzles, books, and the Internet!

Work is over at 3:30pm. At that point I either head to whatever auditions I can squeeze into or to a yoga class. Yesterday was especially eventful. After work I decided to head to two different auditions. The first was for the new Spiderman musical (with music by U2!). The audition was happening at The Knitting Factory (random) which is way downtown. I headed down absolutely not expecting to be able to audition since it was already 4pm. Also, this musical is a pretty big deal so I would have thought that it would be packed all damn day and that all slots would be filled. I got there and was really surprised to find out that I was gonna get seen! Not only that, I was gonna be in and out in probably 15 minutes. Fabulous. It was all so whirlwind commotion craziness. There was a news crew filming the event, there were assistants buzzing around making what appeared to be important calls on their fancy iPhones, and in the middle of it all stood casting director extraordinaire, Mr. Bernard Telsey himself. He seemed so down to earth wearing his little name tag that said something like, "Hi, my name is BERNIE" that I almost wanted to go up to him and say, "Hi Bernie, I'm Jonny, and I am your Peter Parker." Sadly, though, I didn't. Probably wouldn't have been such a good idea anyway.

I filled out the proper paperwork, attempted to quickly warm up my voice, and then headed into the audition and sang Oh! Darlin' by The Beatles. I thought it went pretty well but yet again got the usual, "Thank you, Jonathan. That was great."

After that I headed over to the Atlantic Theater Company on 16th street to audition for their production of Farragut North. I was able to get a time slot to audition but, unfortunately, I became one of those people I used to hate as a non-Equity actor. When I was non-Equity I used to see Equity actors walking into auditions after I had already been there for hours on end waiting for an audition slot. They would then easily be able to sign up for a time and I would lose yet another chance to audition for something. Understandably, it really pissed me off. And yesterday, I became one of those assholes!!! Well, it had to be done. And, thankfully, it went pretty well.

After the auditions I headed to my regular yoga class. I try to attend a class every day. I go to a donation based studio so if I'm horribly broke I can pay $2 for a yoga mat and that's it! Thank God for Yoga To The People. The class is a sweaty hour long mess and I usually love every moment of it. Even when I'm sweating my balls off and my muscles are screaming at me for mercy.....that's when it's best!

After yoga I head back home which can take up to an hour since I'm way down in St. Mark's Place. Yesterday's trip home was particularly interesting. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince right now. It's the sixth book in the series which means I have one book left till the whole adventure is over. So far no one has spoiled the ending of the series for me (except for one pretty important fact, thanks Paul!) so I get kinda nutsy when people start talking about it. I cover my ears and start humming or singing so I don't hear anything they might happen to let slip out. Anyway, yesterday when I got on the train I sat down and pulled out Harry 6. A few stops later, I was deeply immersed in some sort of shenanigans happening at Hogwarts when a girl came exploding onto the train with a whole slew of Excuse me!'s and Pardon me!'s. She barreled her way through the packs of people to the single seat beside me and proceeded to open her copy of HARRY POTTER 7 RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Now, there are several things about this scenario that just made me say, "Really?"

a. She sat right next to me.

b. She was ready Harry 7. The LAST book.

c. She was right at the end of the book and the fact that her face was close to the page made it clear to me that something very juicy was going on.

d. We must have looked like complete dorks. Just two dorks on the train reading Harry 6 and 7 next to each other. D-O-R-K-S.

I can't even begin to say how much of a struggle it was for me not to take a peek at what she was reading. Oh my God.....it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. For real. Just one simple glance was all I wanted. But no. No! I restrained myself. I didn't even take one little minuscule sneak peek. I'm very proud pf myself. Thankfully, my Harry Potter partner in crime left after a few stops and I was left to read in peace. That is, until Whistling Willy began blowing away next to me. Now, there are a lot of annoying things that people do on the subway. Some people listen to their music too loud (I am occasionally guilty of this), some people talk as if they want to whole train to know their business, some people SPIT (no lie), some people are perfectly well behaved. But never before have I had someone start whistling. I don't think there could be anything more ridiculous. Could anyone really think that everyone on the train would be pleased to hear him whistling? I mean, is there anyone out there who would honestly be happy that a man had decided to grace the train with his whistling magnificence??? Well, I'm not one of them. I gave that guy a look that said "Are you for real, Whistling Willy? Shut it!" He did.

Hmmm. Seems like I have a lot to get off my chest.

Once the train ride was over I headed home and spent the rest of the evening relaxing.

So, here's a brief summary of my regular day.

-Wake up-
-Work-
-Auditions-
-Yoga-
-Home-
-Bed-

Hopefully something will come from all these auditions soon. I'm itching to get back up in the spotlight!!!

Bye all. Thanks for listening to my rants and raves.