I am at this moment not crazy about Meat Loaf. Not the food. The rude dude. Were I lacking in my obviously classy genteel sensitivity refined elegance, I might call Meat Loaf an alleged pig.
Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar — which is a load for a marquee — became Cardi B. I understand name changes. But being chunky and over 70, this guy’s still schlepping around with the name Meat Loaf? His real name’s Marvin Aday. OK, he doesn’t like the name Marvin? So try Milton, Max, Meyer. What’s Meat Loaf’s nickname — well done?
“Where’s the beef?” is why I’m cranky.
Twice, in May and in August, his rep pushed an interview. In May, it was to be us, alone, together, riding — for some unknown reason — a bus around Manhattan. I showed. He didn’t. He’d fallen. Last Thursday was to be backstage at off-B’way’s opening of his “Bat Out of Hell” (another charming title) musical. I showed. He didn’t.
When it comes to Meat Loaf in the future, I am a vegetarian.
Odds & ends
Condos and co-ops are down. Rentals are up … Jon Voight was at the Boathouse in Central Park … jam-packed great delicious Italian restaurant Coco Pazzo — once Midtown — is now downtown. The owner’s Pino Luongo … Super Bowl champ Derrick Ward, former Giants running back, christened Harlem’s new sports eatery 123 BSB. Its 5,000 square feet does 24 beers on tap.
Buzz on perv
Overtaking Trump in today’s conversation is Epstein. From the mouth of one big-mouth publicist: “Many wanted him gone. Many names were fearful. I think it was the Mafia.” News anchor: “Oliver Stone is home right now writing the screenplay.” Manhattan Realtor: “He also skimmed clients. Get them in a bedroom, film them, blackmail them.”
Joining the ‘Club’
Netflix, TV’s Tyrannosaurus, eating up everything in sight, cast Alicia Silverstone in “The Baby-Sitters Club.” Set in Connecticut, it’s filming in Vancouver. A 10-episode go, this is called a live-action, single-camera series adaptation — whatever all that means. She plays the mother of Kristy Thomas. Her love interest is played by Mark Feuerstein. And, as the song goes, more I cannot tell you, more I do not know.
Bits & pieces
Johnny Cash’s daughter Rosanne hustling the book “Bird on a Blade” she did with artist Dan Rizzie. Her lyrics, his pictures. It’s $19.95 … Casting call out for “Men 40-70 to portray drunks for ‘West Side Story’ shoot.” But if you’ve got tattoos, that’s tattoo bad. They’ll nix you. Scenes for this West Side New York story are being filmed in New Jersey.
Haunted house
The Hudson, on West 44th, Broadway’s second-oldest theater, played George M. Cohan, Louis Armstrong and, in 1903, “The Wizard of Oz.” Once haunted, supposedly housing the ghost of its builder Henry Harris, who went down on the Titanic, his apartment remains unoccupied on the fourth floor.
The very special Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge are doing “Sea Wall/A Life” there through Sept. 29. Each, one act. Bare bleak stage. Daytime well-worn clothes. Continuing what seems the playhouse’s macabre history, each did a monologue dealing with death. Even Gyllenhaal sister Maggie’s stunning long gown was black. The audience, rapt. No sound. No movement. Not a knuckle cracked.
To prettify property, Hamptons summer-folk add trees. No waiting 40 years for one to grow, it’s half a mil for a fully grown maple, oak, whatever. Marders specimen trees cost, give or take a branch, $300,000. Planting’s extra. One can set them back half a mil.
Only in the Hamptons, kids, only in the Hamptons.