The “Gettin’ It Out Of Our System” Reloaded Tour 2009 – Day Four (and one-half) – New York City!!

I believe we have found our new Las Vegas. New York City is so full of energy, excitement, and diversity of entertainment options, I’m not so sure we’re ever going to think of Vegas the same again…

And, we’re trying to cram every bit of each of those options in, during our short run here. For a couple of aging tourists, the bones tend to creak a bit more with every new day that dawns. We have yet to even leave Manhattan, but there’s still so much to see and do here. Today, the plan is to hoof it over to Macy’s (the one immortalized in the Christmas classic “Miracle On 34^th Street”), and from there finally trek over to the Empire State Building. Other than that, we are attending the first-ever Mandela Day concert celebration tonight, a star-studded gala at Radio City Music Hall – featuring Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Josh Groban, Morgan Freeman, and many more artists and actors. Should be positively surreal.

We started our day yesterday (once we finally dragged our sorry carcasses out of bed) with “brunch” at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, a retro café that features singing servers. But not your run-of-the-mill singing servers- all of these platter jockeys are currently IN Broadway productions of one sort or another, and was that ever obvious when they each took their turn at the microphones. Holy Torpedo!! You could have spent your entire day just sitting there, soaking in the ambience, and hoping to digest the chili dogs without embarrassing incidence. A must-do if you ever make it here to New York.

Once we reluctantly moved on from The Stardust, we made it over to Radio City Music Hall, to take the behind-the-scenes tour. What an incredible facility that iconic hall is, and what a preview we had of what to expect tonight. The hall is stunningly beautiful, and of course, the sound is beyond belief – I believe the Soweto Gospel Choir was just coming onstage, while we were in the viewing area adjacent to one of the audio visual booths. We’d better bring smelling salts for this one…

After the tour of Radio City, we made a preliminary trek down to the Macy’s I mentioned earlier, just to see it and take a few of the 117 pictures I shot yesterday (we’re just under 400 so far, at this stage of the trip). We only had a few minutes to look around, before we hauled ass back to our hotel, to grab another super-sized street vendor pretzel for supper, and get ready to see our second Broadway play.

Wait a minute! We also stopped along the way in Times Square to grab a Tim Horton’s coffee – a little taste of Canada, in the heart of Manhattan. A true delight, and I’m happy to report it was just as busy there as it is back home.

Funny enough, we had wanted to see one dramatic/comedic production, and one musical. The hope had been the award-winning “Billy Elliott”, or “Wicked”, but both had sold out before we were able to snag tickets. Our “consolation choice” was “Blithe Spirit”, a star-studded production of the Noel Coward comedy, and a comedy it was. Featuring Rupert Everett, Christine Ebersole, and the legendary Angela Lansbury, we howled along with the rest of the audience during this madcap romp. Lansbury, despite her age chewed up the stage in her riotous character of medium Madame Arcati – even performing several Jackie Gleason-style dance maneuvers throughout the show. What a delight (even if she ducked out a side door without greeting the audience outside the stage door). I know she’s forever linked with “Murder She Wrote”, but I’ll always remember her as Elvis’ mom in “Blue Hawaii”.

After the show, we walked across the alley to get a few treats at Junior’s – yet another Broadway eatery. We have vowed to eat somewhere different every day, but know that we will not see even a fraction of the restaurants to choose from.

It won’t be without trying…

Chow for now!