Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly post featuring five things that caught my eye this week. Can you believe that it is February already? Where did January go?
1) Tuesday evening we went to the Cutting Room in midtown to hear Steven Maglio and his 12 piece orchestra. Steven Maglio sings mostly Sinatra songs and he plays a tight set of about an hour and fifteen minutes. There was a nice mix of the usual Sinatra classics and a few more obscure songs. We arrived at 6pm when the doors opened, enjoyed a Caesar salad and strip steak dinner and a bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir. It was a good-sized crowd by the time Maglio ook the stage after an opening act of comedy by Chris Monte. The whole night had a Rat Pack feeling and we really enjoyed it. I'd love to return to the Cutting Room to see more live entertainment. They have a lot of tribute bands (Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and original music. I highly recommend it for a great NYC evening out. 
3) It was a week to watch documentaries. First we watched American Nightmare on Netflix like everyone else in the country. It tells the story of a woman kidnapped from her boyfriend's home in the middle of the night in California. The cops zero in on the boyfriend immediately after he tells them a crazy story of how the kidnapping happened. After searching everywhere for her dead body, the woman turns up 400 miles away at her father's house where she says the kidnapper dropped her off. The cops brand the incident as a hoax perpetrated by the couple, similiar to the movie Gone Girl which was popular at that time.
2) We noticed that our neighbor across the way still has their Christmas tree up on February 2nd. I enjoyed our Christmas tree but I don't think I could have it up until February. What do you think?
But it wasn't a hoax, it was a horrible story and this couple's lives were destroyed first by the kidnapper and then by the police and media who hung onto the story like a dog with a bone.
A few years later, a female detective in another California town is investigating a sexual assault and she works hard to put the pieces together to solve her crime and the kidnapping from years ago. I wonder if anyone in the media apologized? (Nancy Grace). It's a riveting story and an example of how women who are victims of sexual assault are treated so poorly. 
4) The second documentary we watched was much happier. The Greatest Night in Pop (also on Netflix) gives a true behind the scenes look at the making of the 1985 song We Are The World, featuring 40 of the biggest names in music gathering together on one night to create a song whose proceeds went to famine relief in Ethiopia. Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote the song, and cassettes were sent to the hottest names in pop music inviting them to show up for one night to make the record in Los Angeles. They decided to do it the night of the American Music Awards when most of the performers would be there. Everyone was put in cars and driven from the awards ceremony to the recording studio. It was very hush-hush, they didn't want word to get out and fans to show up.
Bruce Springsteen flew in from his last concert on his Born in the USA tour in Buffalo to perform. (Fun fact- I was at that Buffalo concert and it was amazing.) They all sang the chorus, and then the musicians who had solo parts stayed to sing their parts. Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Daryl Hall, John Oates, Harry Belafonte, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, my favorite Bette Midler- it was an astonishing group and Quincy Jones had to herd them to get them all together to complete the recording in one night. If you remember the song, you'll love this documentary and if you're too young to remember, watch it anyway. It's fabulous. 
5) Sticking with the theme of true stories, I read Lara Love Hardin's memoir The Many Lives of Mama Love. Lara was a surburban mom to four boys, Little League coach, and PTA mom whose descent in drug addiction led her to steal pills, cash, credit cards and more from neighbors and cars in the school parking lot and eventually to jail. She ends up in county lockup where she becomes Mama Love to the younger prison residents as she tries desperately to work within the system so she doesn't lose custody of her four year-old son. Her husband, who was also arrested with her, is bailed out by his wealthy mother, and somehow he ends up with a better deal than Lara. Lara ends up on probation for nine years until she can make restitution and the labrynth of red tape that she goes through to get out from under her legal case is confusing. It's an honest look at addiction, and if she doesn't always take responsibility for her actions, that too is a honest look at an addict. Eventually Lara ends up working at a literary agency where she ghostwrites books for Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dali Lama because someone believed in her and gave her a chance. This is an eye-opening book and she makes a point of how the system makes it difficult for people to get a second chance. (And her point about using the female prisoners as cheap labor to clean the county jail and sheriff's office is enlightening.) I highly recommend this book. 
I hope you all have a safe and happy week. Until next time.
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