Midtown Loup de Mer
“We ate, drank, and sang sea shanties while savoring wines from Santorini and waters from Newark. It was so pleasant to be waited on hand and foot after being constrained at home for so long that all through the meal we billed and cooed like a couple of randy teenagers in love. (Fortunately, there were a couple randy teenagers in love sitting adjacent to us from which to draw an accurate comparison.)”—Ross Konikoff
West Side Stories
By Ross Konikoff
MANHATTAN New York—(Weekly Hubris)—1 January 2021—Last night, Deborah and I treated ourselves to a sumptuous feast at the highly regarded Greek restaurant, Estiatorio Milos on West 55th Street. Not five minutes after we were guided to our table, Jimmy Fallon was guided to the table next to ours. Five minutes after that, Lorne Michaels walked in and sat down next to Jimmy.
Fortunately for us, Jimmy and Lorne, in a show of both respect for our privacy and their own self-restraint, pretended not to recognize me from my numerous TV appearances (“Good Morning America,” 2014, “The Today Show,” 1997, “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” 2001, and two episodes of “The David Letterman Show,” 2014).
After cocktails, we were led to a mountain of chipped ice, a shattered glacier upon which twitched an impressive variety of Mediterranean sea denizens. We settled on a two-pound Loup de Mer to headline. Co-starring was a Greek salad, along with a cameo by Greek fried potatoes. In short order, our catch was delivered by a phalanx of swarthy Greek seamen posing as waiters.
We ate, drank, and sang sea shanties while savoring wines from Santorini and waters from Newark. It was so pleasant to be waited on hand and foot after being constrained at home for so long that all through the meal we billed and cooed like a couple of randy teenagers in love. (Fortunately, there were a couple randy teenagers in love sitting adjacent to us from which to draw an accurate comparison.)
Jimmy and Lorne would occasionally glance our way with so envious a look that I couldn’t shake the feeling that, sadly, love must be the one pleasure that had eluded them both throughout their otherwise wildly successful lives.
When the food and wine had disappeared, and the time came to pony up the lucre, a single elegant flourish of my American Express card plunged us right back into the depths of poverty once again, but, all in all, it was worth every drachma.
Ross Konikoff
Ross Konikoff, freelance New York City trumpet player, states he is delighted and honored to have his work put before the highly discriminating readers of Weekly Hubris, published and edited by his friend and mentor, Elizabeth Boleman-Herring. Konikoff was born in Buffalo, New York, a cold environment; surrounded by desperate people, out of work, out of money, and out of opportunity. And that was just in his house. Determined to pull himself up by his mute straps, Ross quickly ascended from his first job as a seven-year-old paperboy to his second job as an eight-year-old paperboy. Eventually, he taught himself how to play the trumpet and learned many songs; managed to make something of himself; and accumulated a Manhattan condo, a trophy wife, and a phalanx of deadbeat friends along the way. The trumpet requires hours of daily maintenance to stay in tip-top shape, but Ross’s desire to write things that make people laugh also requires hours of work. Splitting his time between his lips and his laptop, he humbly presents to you his first efforts at getting some laughs and, most importantly, some attention: Breaking Even Every Time; and You've Got To Be Carefully Taut. (Banner image: Ross Konikoff on trumpet, far right, with Buddy Rich.) (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)