… when you and your group of friends close Planet Hollywood<\/i>. Planet Hollywood<\/i>.<\/p>\n
… when the waitress has to come up to your table, (a table which is, by the way, surrounded by M*A*S*H memorabilia, with Herbie the Love Bug screaming down at you from the ceiling on his suspension wire) … and say gently, “Uhm … last call, guys …” Last call at Planet Hollywood.<\/p>\n
… when you look around and realize that you are the last people in Planet Hollywood<\/i> …<\/p>\n
We didn’t move to a better venue, a quieter venue (sheesh – the noise in that joint) a cheaper venue (two cocktails cost $17.34. Strangest price ever for two drinks. $17.34<\/b>???) … we stayed in Planet Hollywood<\/i> because that’s where the screening was (of this movie <\/a>– directed by someone I knew peripherally – a really good friend of Bill, David, etc.). We saw the movie, then we just … flat out did not leave. For hours. We hung out in the bar area, crowded in on all sides by headless mannequins wearing nurse outfits from some famous movie, a dress worn by Vivien Leigh in blah blah blah … Weird. The whole place is just TOO MUCH. Televisions going everywhere, strange music playing, football games on in the bar, swirling lights, cars driving down the walls, etc. etc. And two gin and tonics cost $17.34.<\/p>\n So much fun though. It was SUCH a fun night. Met some nice new people, reconnected with some people I knew once upon a time – all of them just sweet, nice, funny, friendly, good conversationalists …<\/p>\n My friend Bill was wearing a soft brown vest. Comment made by someone at the table: “Love the whole Ewok look you got goin’ on.”<\/p>\n Had a good conversation with Bill about Paul Ekman<\/a>. Faces, facial expressions, the clues of lying, the facial give-aways of dishonesty … cultural? Learned? Great stuff.<\/p>\n Also a good conversation about Ted Williams, and other atheletic geniuses and how they do what they do … and what their perception is of their own gifts … (you know, like Ted Williams saying that it seemed like the ball slowed down as it came towards the plate, etc.)<\/p>\n Talked about the Queensboro Bridge.<\/p>\n We talked about Grey Gardens<\/i>.<\/p>\n We talked about the movie we had seen (in the private screening room at Planet Hollywood – which is actually a really nice venue – purple velvet walls, nice and big, it was cool) – how it was shot – how they did a lot of it – I had a couple friends in it (David<\/a>, Bob<\/a>) – and of course they both were there – so it was really fun to hear from Scott <\/a> and all of them some of the independent-guerrilla-filmmaker stories. How’d they get the cop cars? How did they do the shot out the back of the moving UHaul? How’d he cast the thing (shot entirely in Omaha)? Etc.<\/p>\n Larry wouldn’t let me pay for my share of the HUGE amount of alcohol I had partaken in. I was horrified. I kept shoving money at him, and he was getting pissed off (I mean, not really – just very firm, like: “Put that away”) – but trying to be polite – and then I said, “Is this making you feel bad right now?” (Meaning: me trying to pay.) Larry said, honestly, ‘Yeah, I feel a little bit dirty at the moment.” I’m still cackling about that. It was a perfect<\/i> moment. It’s like we created it together. I mean, he meant it – but he just went there<\/i> in the humor of the moment. I love that quickness, that … I guess I would call it sensitivity to what is going on in the moment. It was a ba-dum-CHING moment. I supplied the “ba-dum” and he was right there with the “CHING” and I love it when that happens. We both just started guffawing – and no, I didn’t pay. Not after he made himself so clear!!<\/p>\n It was an awesome night. So much fun!!<\/p>\n “Oh my God, you guys, do you realize that we are closing<\/i> Planet Hollywood right now?”<\/p>\n “I have lived in New York for 10 years, I’ve never been here.”<\/p>\n “I will never come here again.”<\/p>\n “Me neither.”<\/p>\n We walked down the three flights of stairs to get to the street – with Jimmy Stewart’s hand-prints hanging on the wall – and displays of rifles with the movie-name on a gold plaque below each one “From Russia with Love” “Octopussy”, etc. – and collages of various awards shows, with glittery stars from past and present … but we were now the only people in the entire joint. It was surreal.<\/p>\n It was ALMOST like the night the two kids spend in the Metropolitan Museum in Mixed-Up Files<\/i> … it had a bit of that feel to it … When we all had converged on the place (smack in the middle of Times Square) – it was 7 pm – so … the streets outside were literally a melee of chaos, a mania of crowds, a throng of humanity, a potpourri of overcrowding … Times Square is a nightmare for a person like myself who gets a bit anxious in crowds. I avoid that place as much as I can, except when I’m going to a show. And when we emerged – it was 12:45 am and a whole different place. The streets were nearly empty now. The grills were already pulled down over the Planet Hollywood windows, and we all had to duck under the grill to exit onto the street. Taxis careen by up and down – but the melee is done. Now we’re moving into nighttime. The city doesn’t sleep, it is true, but it does indeed settle down. One of my favorite things about being in Times Square when it is empty of people – is that all of the billboards and lights are still going. It’s just fantastical – almost futuristic – you look around and think: Good lord, this place is just … overwhelming. And beautiful in a kind of aloof and magnificent way. When the streets are crowded – I get overwhelmed by all the stimuli – because even just getting from 44th to 45th is sometimes a 20 minute extravaganza due to the crowds … and so the flashing glittering moving undulating WALLS of light over my head become too much for me to handle. I block them out. But last night, it was just beautiful.<\/p>\n The great thing was that we all felt that way. We all just had a moment of reveling in the weirdness of Times Square at that hour … and as we crossed the main street<\/a> – Scott held up his camera phone and got a very funny and blurry picture of all of us in an Abbey Road type formation on the crosswalk. The empty avenues whizzing off into the distance behind us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … when you and your group of friends close Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood. … when the waitress has to come up to your table, (a table which is, by the way, surrounded by M*A*S*H memorabilia, with Herbie the Love Bug … Continue reading
![the main street<\/a> – Scott held up his camera phone and got a very funny and blurry picture of all of us in an Abbey Road type formation on the crosswalk. The empty avenues whizzing off into the distance behind us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"… when you and your group of friends close Planet Hollywood. Planet Hollywood. … when the waitress has to come up to your table, (a table which is, by the way, surrounded by M*A*S*H memorabilia, with Herbie the Love Bug … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21507,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions\/21507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/legeros.com\/photos\/ny03\/images\/times-square-one-view.jpg\"){kind=link}