Paul Rudnick

When I was a teenager one of my first jobs was as an apprentice at a summer theater in Groton-Mystic, Connecticut. A new show played every week, usually starring some half-forgotten movie or TV star.

Mickey Rooney, who died this week at age 93, had toured for decades in the same play, which had originally been called Alimony. It was a farce inspired by Mickey’s many divorces and over the years, rather than switching to a new play, Mickey would simply change the old play’s title – that summer it was called Three Goats and a Blanket.

At one point in the second act two policemen came on stage and dragged Mickey off to jail for not paying alimony. The cops had no lines, so they were played by whoever could fit into the uniforms at each theater on the tour. I was one of the cops and all I remember was that while Mickey was perfectly nice, when he was offstage he seemed disoriented and that he smelled as if he’d been pickled in bourbon. There was a rumor that Mickey owed millions to the mafia in gambling debts, and he was shadowed everywhere by a set of ominous bodyguards.

That same summer, Ann Miller appeared in a tour of Anything Goes. While she was well into her sixties, she was still a tireless dancer. She’d tap up a storm in the show’s title number, and then tap offstage briefly, where an oxygen mask would be clamped over her face, and then she’d tap back out. Almost all of her costumes had skirts which, thanks to Velcro, she could tear off on stage, revealing her still shapely legs, as the audience went wild. One of her secrets was that she wore three layered pairs of pantyhose.

Ann travelled with at least thirty pieces of personal luggage, and a few of her suitcases contained only stuffed animals. Ann also had night blindness, which meant that whenever the stage went dark, her hired companion would creep onstage with a flashlight, put her arm around Ann’s waist and guide her into the wings. Ann was also famous for her helmet-like, jet black bouffant hairdos. After each number, she’d grab a different wig, with a new hat attached to match each of her many sequinned outfits.

Another week brought a touring production of South Pacific, for which I spent hours painting backdrops of palm trees. The production featured a TV star rumored to be a lesbian. As this actress sang “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” she would shampoo her hair onstage while cavorting with her fellow army nurses, and she did spend a lot of time rubbing her sudsy scalp against the chorus girls’ bare midriffs. Her character’s name, Nelly Forbush, seems to sum up the history of gay rights.

That summer was the first time I’d ever met real theater people and I loved it. It was also the first time I’d ever been around so many gay people, which was also a gift. I was sometimes called into service as a dresser for the various shows’ leading men, so this was also the first time I’d ever seen a guy who contoured his pubic hair.

Without any effort from me, I would like my PC to hack into the personal information of everyone who works at Time-Warner and then contact them with messages like, “Maybe if you had helped Paul Rudnick re-boot his computer then you wouldn’t have to see your parole officer so often.”

When I’m walking behind a stranger who’s checking their phone on the street and blocking the entire sidewalk, I want an app that will allow me to text that stranger’s phone with messages like “Please excuse me for trying to use 45th Street which I know is your personal property”, “I’m sure that you’re talking to the President of the Universe and not just your friend Jessica” and “Your phone is wired to explode in five seconds if you don’t hurl it into the gutter. One…two…three…”

I’d like my PC to have a mood function, which would cause not just the screen but the keyboard and everything else to change color or pattern in accord with my state of mind. When I was angry pulsating flames would appear and if I was sad there’d be daisies and cookies and sobbing Care Bears.

When I’m working on the computer I would like spontaneous comments to appear in the margins, with encouraging phrases like, “Good point!”, “Well put!” “OMG, I was thinking that exact same thing, only you’ve said it so much better!” and “Excuse me, did Paul Rudnick just lend his computer to Leo Tolstoy?”

The Manhattan version of the reality show Million Dollar Listing has returned, featuring the mega-real estate broker Fredrik Eklund, pictured above in his trademark pose of Karate Kid triumph. In the first episode Fredrik is in bed with his handsome new husband, and Fredrik says that since their marriage, he’s become less obsessed with his career. He says this WITH A TV CREW IN HIS BEDROOM.

At the beginning of the new musical If/Then, the glorious Idina Menzel meets a handsome blonde soldier in a park, and because it’s a musical, it’s love at first sight. But I could feel that the audience, which was predominantly female, was a touch apprehensive: the soldier was wearing fatigues, so he didn’t seem to be an officer, and while he was clearly honest and brave, could a soldier really support our beloved Idina while she pursued her career as an urban planner? A few seconds later, the soldier revealed that he was also a doctor, and I could feel every woman in that theater pressing her invisible LIKE! button, as a huge invisible neon sign filled the entire stage reading SCORE!!!

A few scenes later the soldier sets up Idina’s gay best friend on a date with another handsome guy. When this guy mentions that he’s also a doctor, the neon sign read GAY SCORE!!!

Audience members, myself included, often have certain kneejerk reactions. For example, if a psychopath on a TV show kills a child, I might still give him the benefit of the doubt: maybe the psychopath had abusive, alcoholic parents. But if the psychopath even threatens a dog, then I want that psychopath to die horribly. Even in a comedy, if a character tosses an obviously fake dog out a window, there always has to be a shot of the dog walking away unharmed.

However, on the TV show The Following, the show’s resident psychopath recently strangled a cat, without losing his evil charm. This made me feel sympathetic to cats everywhere, because they’re more dramatically disposable than dogs.

Shows like The Following, Dexter and The Blacklist all follow another kneejerk rule. If you want the audience to like or at least enjoy a psychopath, just introduce another less attractive and less witty psychopath. This allows the primary psycho to shine.

In my family, if a woman brought a psychopath home for, say, Passover, everyone would tell the family member that she could do better. If she replied that the psychopath was not only a doctor, but a surgeon, the rest of us might reconsider our positions. We’d say things like, “I know he’s a psychopath, but he does very well for himself” and “Maybe he’s just a part-time psychopath. You know, like a hobby.”

There are certain books, plays and movies which I avoid because they feel like homework assignments. In this category I place anything involving a main character’s spiritual rebirth through hiking, anything which requires me to understand the stock market, any foreign film centering on the theft of a goat, and anything considered a zany, rapping riff on Shakespeare.

I realize that my prejudices are indefensible, and I enjoy being proved wrong. I also enjoy being proved right, so I can crow, “The reviews described it as a scathing, beyond-brilliant collection of short stories documenting the aridity of modern marriage. Which means that trying to read more than the first paragraph is a PUNISHMENT FROM GOD.”

Last night I was wrong. I hadn’t seen Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark play A Raisin in the Sun for a long time, so I wasn’t all that keen on attending the new Broadway revival starring Denzel Washington. But I’d forgotten that the play isn’t a somber, dutiful portrait of working class lives: it’s incredibly smart, wildly entertaining and surprising. Folks had worried that Denzel W. was too old for the role he’s playing, but this wasn’t a factor. He was terrific, and his scenes with Sophie Okonedo, as his wife, were sexy and funny and completely fresh. Okonedo, who’s English, is enchanting; she somehow manages to be gawky and elegant and touching all at the same time, while using a flawless American accent.

But all the same, here are a few more of my cultural red flags:

Anything which tries to explain String Theory.

Almost anything written by, directed by and starring the same person (Lena Dunham is an exception, because she’s great at all three things.)

Any show where the actors use kitchen utensils and folding chairs to create, say, the sinking of a ship or a journey to the underworld.

So when it comes to superheroes with brawny shoulders and fabulous blonde highlights, whom would you rather have swoop down and save you: Chris Hemsworth as the stoic yet still dreamy Thor, or Chris Evans as the impossibly brave and totally sigh-worthy Captain America?

First of all, I’d like to salute both superhunks for dealing with difficult accessories. Thor has to keep swinging his cumbersome magic hammer while Captain America can’t leave home without his impervious shield, which can deflect fists and bullets while also serving as an all-purpose wok and snack tray. Both the hammer and the shield could easily make a superguy look silly, as if he’s carrying a Super-Birkin or dragging a super-wheelie through LaGuardia.

But Thor and Captain America have the very best back-up, because they both have ultra-capable girlfriends. Thor is involved with Natalie Portman as Dr. Jane Porter, while in his new movie Captain America:The Winter Soldier, CA trades some steamy glances with Scarlett Johansson as the wily, irresistible Black Widow. I wasn’t all that familiar with Scarlett’s character, but upon Googling her I discovered that the Black Widow is a biologically-enhanced Russian spy turned American ally. The Black Widow can not only kill hordes of enemies with her martial arts skills and electro-bracelets, but her cover identities include stints as a fashion designer and schoolteacher Nancy Rushman. As if all of this wasn’t enough, the Black Widow is also, according to Wikipedia, “an accomplished ballerina.”

So there it is: the Black Widow is clearly based on me, and not just because like myself, Scarlett is a stunning and provocative Jewish woman who looks amazing in a formfitting black catsuit. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Scarlett and Chris are incredibly sexy and they swap first-date banter while slaughtering zillions of black-ops ninjas. I’ve never really understood these ninjas, since their job is to show up, say something thuggish and then immediately get killed, most often by having their heads twisted around like Snapple bottle caps. Did these ninjas respond to a Craiglist ad for musclebound corpses?

As Captain America, Chris does the impossible, because he not only rescues the world from an NSA-inspired super-threat, he plays a square-jawed, nice-guy hero without becoming a bore, although I did wonder if, once he left the armed forces, he’d be called Mr. America. Chris also tangles with Robert Redford, who’s playing a top-echelon government strategist, and it’s fun watching two generations of classic Hollywood jocks, both of whom have paid their dues by driving motorcycles while wearing tight white t-shirts and Levis. Chris and Bob are part of the screen’s great vanilla brotherhood, because they’re the kind of heroes who come equipped with bomber jackets, an unbreakable code of frontier ethics, and at least one devoted black friend.

So if I had to choose between Thor and the Captain, I’d go American. Chris Hemsworth and his brother Liam are just too blindingly gorgeous, and I’d feel like their Wookie.

Chris Evans also has an adorable brother, and I watched the two of them punching each other on Jimmy Fallon: maybe the Hemsworth brothers and the Evans brothers should compete on an all-star reality show, which would have an even bigger gay male fan base than American Horror Story.

Maybe I love Captain America because it’s harder to be a patriotic hero in a red, white and blue unitard than a Norse god with a ponytail. The Captain also has to wear a leather version of a woman’s bathing cap, as if he’s worried that someone’s going to splash him during water aerobics. Captain America is a super-goy with the heart of a real mensch, if you ask me.

Instead of complaining about the rain and the slush, I’m complaining about the influx of tourists.

The men of Brooklyn have begun to roll up the cuffs of their lighter weight skinny cotton chinos, which they’re accessorizing with skimpy cotton cardigans and canvas totes, for an Audrey Hepburn silhouette.

I can now tell which trees are starting to bud and which trees have died.

All of the restaurants have set up their sidewalk cafes, even if it’s still too cold for anyone to use them. I like sidewalk cafes in theory, but in practice I’d always rather sit inside, without getting bus exhaust in my food.

Everyone is looking a tiny bit more hopeful, but it’s been an especially long winter, so we’re all still wary.

I worry that the minute I leave my home without a hat and gloves, it will snow. But at least now the weather forecasters are referring to this sort of event as a “freak” snowstorm.

I’m trying very hard not to think of this next image as a portrait of pollen.

The NY Times recently ran a front page story about the ever-dwindling number of straight men who attend Broadway shows. Producers have tried to tempt straight guys with sports-themed plays and musicals, like the current Rocky, but so far straight guys aren’t cooperating. Here are the real reasons why straight men avoid the theater:

1. Straight guys fidget.

2. Straight guys don’t understand why the leading character in a musical needs an “I want” song at the top of the show. A straight guy’s “I want” song would be “I want to leave at intermission, go home, take off my pants and have a beer.”

3. A straight guy would never name his new puppy Idina and comfort the puppy over its breakup with Taye Diggs by telling the puppy, “I know you loved him, it’s no one’s fault.”

4. Straight guys know that Damn Yankees isn’t really about baseball. They can sense it, even if they’ve never seen the original cast album cover with the photo of Gwen Verdon as Lola. Straight men can also sense that women are only named Lola in musicals.

5. A straight guy would never attend the first preview of a new musical, just so in the cab on the way home he could post something about how “Sutton is still finding her way, but she’ll get there.”

6. Straight guys don’t collect souvenir mugs from failed musicals and get furious when someone chips Onward Victoria.

7. Straight guys didn’t get so outraged over Smash that they missed work the next day.

8. Straight guys do not have a favorite Mama Rose, whom they will drunkenly defend because, “Fine, she wasn’t Merman, no one’s Merman, but she made me feel Rose’s pain.”

9. Straight men know that musicals are a gateway drug to opera.

10. Straight men don’t believe that Obamacare should cover a pair of decent seats to the next revival of Follies.

11. Straight guys know that the straight male characters in musicals rarely get the big numbers. There aren’t shows called “Jim!” or “Hello, Bob!”

12. Yes, there are straight men who enjoy musicals and gay men who don’t. This topic was covered in the Times magazine cover story on bisexuals.