The Ride Provides Needless NYC "Street Show"

There's a new tourist attraction in NYC called The Ride...it's basically a midtown bus tour that covers no more than 20-30 blocks. Along the way through traffic they have set up street performers...a ballet dancer, a break dancer, a couple of mimes, etc. Instead of a guide, you've got TWO stand-up comics "narrating" NY as you drive by these staged performers. TWO comic/actors pretending to be guides! They do a verbal back-and-forth which must be even more confusing to the tourists on board who are already dumbfounded by the ordinary sites and sounds of our metropolis! They are basically using New York City as the "backdrop" to their little Off-Off Broadway show.
MY question: why go to all this trouble? New York is already a stage show with things to see everywhere without having to "stage" events. The people who dreamed up The Ride probably took the awful GrayLine double decker tour and thought "we can improve on this" (anyone could improve on that). And perhaps they improved on Gray Line, but they have obviously never had a really good tour with a talented guide. A talented guide like me (Jim Dykes) or my friends Jane Marx, Robert Fields, Hardy Phippen, Marta Cooper, Mike Brennan or any number of others can make the city come to life using what is there already! A good guide can simply help a group make sense of the existing craziness and give you a nice historical, fun perspective on how it all got that way.
Why add "staged events" to the madness which ARE the streets of New York on any ordinary day? To summarize, a good guide can verbally paint pictures and create a "show" with much less effort and expense than these people responsible for The Ride have done. Plus you are paying a LOT ($75? $85?) for something which is basically a 20 block bus tour from 42nd St. to 59th St. BIG DEAL! At least with GrayLine's tour you get the whole city for your money and can jump off the bus whenever you feel like you've had enough.

Sarah Jessica Parker moving across from Mr. Big?

OMG-- I just saw an item that Sarah Jessica Parker and Mathew Broderick, who have been hunting for a new house for a long time, have apparently bought a 19th century townhouse on East 10th Street next door to where I once lived! And...wait for it....directly across the street from Chris Noth's apt. in the Brevoort East Apartment Building on University Place near NYU in Greenwich Village!!

Sarah and Mathew have lived in the Village for years over on Charles Street...Mathew grew up in the Village at nearby 27 Washington Square North (same building as my acting teacher, the late great Uta Hagen) and their Charles Street home is, by coincidence, right around the corner from the location used on SEX AND THE CITY as "Carrie Bradshaw's apt."...66 Perry Street.
Funny how these things happen!
In my mind's eye I still remember Sarah and her Mom and family...we all worked together in the Alvin Theatre back when a young teenage Sarah was the third "Annie" on Broadway, promoted from her role as "July" in the orphan chorus. I'm sure she doesn't remember me at all, even though I used to hang out in her dressing room with her brother Toby and his friend Robert Klein. As a teenager in acting school, I sold souvenirs and Annie dolls in the lobby for Ray Fanning and lived in a cold-water flat on nearby Ninth Avenue. I also helped Sarah & her Mom and Brooke & Teri Shields empty out her dressing room and load the car on Sarah's last day as Annie (she was growing up too quickly) but I'm sure nobody remembers me. Now I'm one of New York's best guides with wonderful memories and stories. I worked as an extra on Sex and the City several times, even though I begged my old friend Camille Hickman (Sex and the City co-casting director) several times to give me a small part---and Sarah Jessica looked at me on the set as if she remembered me, but it wasn't the time or place to go into "old time remembrances from our childhood." She was the "star"...I was the "extra."

Celebs in the City-- Lady GaGa & the Kardashians

LADY GAGA?? KIM KARDASHIAN?? As a tourguide in New York these days, we are constantly changing our information especially concerning celebrity names and movie references. With the constant flow of reality shows, internet news and pop culture information spewing out PLUS younger tourists, celebrity names that used to mean something no longer spark interest from most groups.
Gilda Radner (long dead) means nothing, Meg Ryan (career dead...means nothing), Madonna (has-been, gets mild interest), Tom Hanks (mildly interesting), Barbara Walters (might as well by dead), and many other names which I used to mention in my tour 5 years ago get very little eyebrows raised on the tour these days.
Young, hip celebrity names are the answer! I recently did a tour where every young person on the bus dozed thru celebrity names like Tom Hanks, Kelly Ripa, Regis Philbin…even Madonna got a few yawns…they are yesterday’s headlines.
As soon as I mentioned Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian.…the bus erupted…they love it when you show them Gaga's old high school on Fifth Avenue (Convent of the Sacred Heart). Her given name is Stephanie Germanotta and she is 25 years old. She shot to international pop star fame very quickly with her first two albums and many high-profile appearances like wearing an evening gown made of MEAT. Just a few short years before, she was one of those Upper Westside high school girls waiting in her uniform for the crosstown bus to her school at 91st and Fifth Ave. (you’ve all seen those groups of kids on the street).
Like many New Yorkers, I don’t replace my Verizon telephone directory often, even though they bring stacks of new phone books to my building lobby yearly. As a matter of fact I realized I still had a telephone book from 2005—six years ago, which today is an eternity. Six years ago, Lady Gaga was a freshly graduated senior living in her own apt. at 176 Stanton Street in the Lower Eastside and working in hole-in-the-wall Greenwich Village and Lower Eastside nightclubs like The Bitter End. She’s listed in the phone book, as is her Uncle Frank at 45 Wall Street. Her parents are listed as: Joe & Cynthia Germanotta, of 135 West 70th Street. I used to live around the corner at 111 West 68th Street so that area is still a favorite of mine (but I just couldn’t afford the rent increases.)
Her parents love the local restaurant VINCE AND EDDIE’S which I also adore, located on W. 68th St. Apparently, Gaga/Stephanie has happy memories going there every week with her parents-- When she heard they were closing forever, she recently swooped in and bought it and gave it to her parents!
Another sure-fire thing people enjoy is to drive down Spring Street and point out the DASH store, owned by the Kardashian sisters Kim & Chloe and made famous on their reality show KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS. They live over in Tri-beca in a rented loft. They are famous for doing NOTHING, except being beautiful, wearing beautiful clothes and being on TV. But fame is an incredible mistress...people want to know about them!!
On a tour you must give the public what they want!

Footnote: God save us from those awful double-decker tours in NYC. They have so much money to spend on advertising but are the McDonalds of the tourbiz...people hop on but quickly hop off when they realize they have been taken for a ride (literally) with guides that know nothing and have no education. Finding a personal/private guide online means searching beyond the first page of google!

How I met Joan Rivers and became dubbed "New York's Celebrity Tour Guide"

Recently on my tours we’ve seen Ricky Gervais, Barbara Walters, Jennifer Garner, and my “pal” Joan Rivers, who was the first one to call me the Celebrity Tour Guide of New York. Joan Rivers is, at age 77, like a phoenix.….her career has crashed and burned several times over the years, yet she re-emerges each time from the ashes reborn with a new look, hairstyle, new gimmick or yet another facelift. She is the ultimate showbiz survivor in one of the hardest businesses in the world. I’ve met Joan several times over the years and I actually like her a lot… She is intelligent, elegant, well-read and well-educated (Barnard). If you spot Joan when touring by all means say hello to her, and introduce your group. She loves her fans and is a former Rockefeller Center tour guide herself, as she told me.
JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK is a new documentary (great reviews), where a camera crew followed her around for almost a year revealing the good, the bad and everything else about the woman who is legally known as Joan Alexandra Molinsky Rosenberg. Born in Brooklyn, she resides on the Upper Eastside, just off Central Park in a fabulous triplex perched on top of a gilded age townhouse. Her home is very opulent (Louis XVI) in style or as Joan says: “this is how Marie Antoinette would have lived if she’d had money.”

My friend Bill Reardin had produced Joan’s TV talk show and another friend produced Joan’s red-carpet events on E! TV, but I actually met Joan on a rainy, cold New York evening when she hosted a call-in radio talk show on WOR talk-radio (7.10 am) in their former Times Square studios.

One night I was leaving my midtown gym and I strapped on my Sony walk-man to tune in Joan’s show. I soon discovered Ms. Rivers in quite a nervous state…the station’s telephone lines were down because of the storm and she was facing 3 hours live without any callers to chat with on air. She then (in desperation) said “can anyone hear me who is nearby and would like to come over and chat live in the studio?”

I heard her and promptly strolled over to 1440 Broadway to the rescue. Joan’s producer was thrilled to have me especially after I dropped some familiar names of my producer friends. That evening I stayed for the entire show and Joan and I chatted about New York vs. LA, our favorite sites and restaurants around town and my New York tours. We chatted about celebrities and many other things.

The time flew by, and at the end of the evening, I had a new friend! Joan kissed me and said “I owe you, Jim…you were a life-saver tonight! Any time you want to come on the show or promote anything, you let me know!” I was on her show a couple more times and she always introduced me as: “my friend Jim Dykes, New York’s celebrity tourguide!”

Rockettes are still hot!

I worked at Radio City Music Hall a few years ago and have seen many incarnations of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. For awhile, it was very "heavy" on the traditionalt Nativity but recently I attended the 2009 edition and noticed they've cut the Nativity a bit...most wouldn't notice. It still has the 3 camels, 2 burros and a smattering of sheep, as well as the entire Radio City chorus decked out in the drag of ancient times a la Cecil B. DeMille. They cut the reading of One Solitary Life to make room for yet another Rockette number...a grand finale. One criticism of the show was that there was never a proper curtain call....you want to cheer for everybody after 90 minutes of breathless spectacle and endless costume changes. SO THEY FINALLY added a curtain call and it's a real crowd-pleaser. My favorite number is still the dance number with 500 dancing Santas.
Several weeks ago I got a telephone call out of the blue from a former Rockette who I used to hang out with when I worked at the Music Hall...she now is married and settled with a family in Florida. Her name is Lois and she told me she misses being a Rockette dreadfully-- "especially at this time of year!"

Look for Jim Dykes in the new Fall TV Season

I've had my SAG and AFTRA union cards which allegedly show that I am a professional actor but after busting my butt for years to obtain union status, I haven't really worked in several years as an actor. Various reasons beginning with 9/11/01 when suddenly two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and when those buildings fell, they also took a lot of opportunity. Agents left the business (my agent Ellen left to teach YOGA for God's sake!), production companies scaled back and/or relocated OUT of New York to what they deemed were safer locations. Non-union productions and even union productions started cutting corners and hiring NON-union talent (because it's cheaper) proliferated and North Carolina, Texas, Canada and other tax havens became more and more popular. New York City has always had this idea (just like L.A.!) that "we are the great New York and the entertainment business will always be here, no matter how much we tax it and regulate it." Actually, the opposite is true...show business is BUSINESS first and producers simply go where it's cheaper to work and where they can make more profit.

Recently I started doing "extra" work or "background" work...I registered with several casting agents that specialize in this and they've been calling me quite a bit. Now mind you...the reason I'm SAG/AFTRA is because I've had prinicipal or LEADING roles in national TV commercials and worked in other shows. But that was THEN and this is NOW. Most actors who have worked in "principal" contract roles do NOT do "extra" work...like many, I was always told that you don't want to do extra work for several reasons:
1. you don't want to get pigeon-holed as just "human furniture"
2. the money is not great and there are no residuals for extras
3. you don't want to get "stuck" on a set all day in case your agent calls with an audition for a really good job. You can't leave sometimes for 15 or 16 hours till they are finished. Extras are also treated shabbily by crew...you are literally treated like you are "less than human" but when you're a "principal" perforner, you have your own dressing room, assistants running around getting you things, RESPECT plus much more money and residual payments.
These are all good reasons to not do "extra" work but recently I threw caution to the wind and did a bunch of extra jobs. I was a "TV reporter" in a horde on Law & Order SVU, I was a security guard in the new Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler movie The Bounty (a romantic comedy for release next summer), a comedic Icelandic camera-man in Tina Fey's hit sitcom 30 Rock and I just found out that I'll be playing a camera-wielding tourist Tuesday on the SEX AND THE CITY 2 movie! Not only is it fun, it pays so-so, the on-set food is WONDERFUL (catered by some of the best catering companies), you're rubbing shoulders with some great stars and working on some exciting sets, with a true "insider's" view of things.
Also, when I give the Rich & Famous Tour (and my other tours) it's great fodder for chit-chat and first-hand stories from the set for my tourists who enjoy "insider celebrity" stories.
I have more info on my Adventures in the World of movie/TV extra work on my other website: http://www.JimDykes.com/blog

A Blog is a Journal (Diary) and is made up of MY thoughts & opinions

Recently, there are reports of people criticizing bloggers for "whining" and "complaining" etc. Blogs are, quite simply, a personal journal or diary...just online so anyone can read it. When I blog, I'm talking about my day, New York tourism (my field), showbiz and celebrities (also my field) or any other damn thing I want to talk about. If I feel like complaining or criticizing something, this is my place to do it. Anybody who doesn't like it is free to simply "exit" and read somebody else's blog!

I recently saw the fabulous movie "Julie & Julia" which tells two stories side by side: the story of how Julia Child (in the 40's and 50's) learned how to cook, wrote her book and BECAME the Julia Child we all know and love. Interwoven is the true story of a young woman (a BLOGGER) who simply cooks her way thru Julia Child's famous French cookbook and blogs about it and learns more about herself in the process. Many critics referred to her as a "whiny blogger" which I think is really unfair. This isn't merely "the Julia Child story" it's Julia Child's story told thru another woman's eyes (and kitchen). An interesting concept. Julia Child is played by the wonderful Meryl Streep and the girl (Julie) is played by the delightful Amy Adams (Disney's ENCHANTED princess).

I've met both women and am fans of both of them. I first met Meryl Streep as a young teenager when she was on Broadway in The Happy End at the Martin Beck Theatre, now the Hirschfeld. I hadn't yet moved to New York permanently...I was visiting a woman in her dressing room (Grayson Hall)who was the leading lady in the show and Meryl was the soprano ingenue (she sings!), freshly out of YALE, and still hadn't been stolen away by Hollywood. She was down-to-earth and lovely as I recall. Years later I had a teensy-weensy part in the movie SHE DEVIL with Meryl and she was just as lovely to me on set. She remembered our meeting (or said she did anyway). I've also met her at industry events and screenings. Both ladies (Meryl and Amy) are total pros...first on the set, completely rehearsed and ready to go, however many takes are needed.