EATING, DRINKING, SHOOTING AND SINGING

If you are in New York, and someone offers to take you to dinner at Tira a Segno (which roughly translated means "target practice", say yes. And hold them to it.

I went on Friday with a bunch of folks, and the place is delightful. Old school, very charming, WONDERFUL FOOD - if you like Italian cooking, and if you don't, well, there's no hope for you anyway - and after dinner, they asked me to sing. (Which, of course, I don't mind a bit.) I did O Sole Mio, Libiamo and Questa e quella. (It IS an Italian club.) And then went down into the basement for some work on the range. Yes, it is a shooting club and they do have a shooting range in the basement. Drinks not allowed, which I think is a rather sensible house rule to enforce. It's somewhat downtown - McDougall between Bleeker and Houston - but well worth the trek. I don't think I'm allowed to join - something about your name ending in a vowel, and I suspect I couldn't afford it anyway. There are a couple of priests on the membership list (so the chaplain thing is probably covered - any club with guns really needs a chaplain) and the Cardinal and several Bishops are Honorary Members. Terrific place.

And then on Sunday I went to the Harvard Club. Never been to the Harvard Club. Most of the furniture is older than I am. (Say it with me - And better looking. Right.)

The Blue Hill Troupe (of which I am a member) was singing an afternoon concert in a large room, with floor lamps with turtles as the base and elegant large old painting on the wall, high (high!) ceiling and woodwork pretty much everywhere. A nice crowd, and an age range that went from about six to somewhere pretty close to dead. Almost everyone stayed awake, and the applause was loud and sustained. It was a short concert - only about an hour, all Gilbert & Sullivan stuff, but stitched together in a mish-mosh with something loosely passing for a script. The music was pretty good - one of the things I do enjoy is that these folks can sing. The script? Well, one can't have everything. It verges on embarrassing but doesn't quite get there. But on a spring-like Sunday afternoon (the temperature crossed into the high 50's - might even have made the 60's while I wasn't looking) it is rather fun to get dressed up in the tuxedo with the plaid bowtie and the red vest and sally forth to sing. Especially when one is only singing in the chorus - no solo work, no apprehension, no sweat.

We have two more concerts this week - Wednesday at the Tennis & Racquet Club (Or is it the Racquet & Tennis Club? I'm so unschooled in these things) and then next Sunday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Wednesday gig has an afterglow following the concert - that's the society way of saying "drinks" I gather. I've sung longer for less, so that should be fun too.

Onwards. If you're in town on February 15th,come by the Metropolitan Museum and listen to us do our stuff. (Hey it's worth the admission price to see me in the plaid bow tie!)