Dining Chicago

David Leonardis

I just had a fantastic steak, au gratin potatoes, warm pumpernickel raisin bread and a wailingly decadent sundae at Wildfire in Oak Brook.

After which I went to see “Couples Retreat.” It was kinda funny watching this movie on a third date. I asked the girl I was with if she had a message she was trying to send me. She said she didn’t know what the movie was all about, but I’m not totally sure I believe her.

For me, because I had met Jon Favreau in NYC, it was a little weird. I’ve said this before: if you meet a movie star or rock star, they will usually disappoint you. Not always, but often.

Which reminds me that I read in Liz Crokin’s column that Vince Vaughn was in town at his screening of “Couples Retreat,” and he wouldn’t take pictures with fans. Liz was like, “Really?” I’ve never met Vince, but if he’s been hanging around Jon a lot, then I guess I’m not surprised.

In the movie, it was funny/awkward that they had a whole segment about the highlight reel. Where a man plays in his head the highlights of his sexual escapades while he’s having sex with someone else. Thus cheating. Then, they had this whole thing about is it cheating if you act on it or if you don’t? As a man, I felt like they were trying to stir the pot just so they could make some money on their film.

I liked the movie because it was more or less right on target with the situations the couples were getting into. Although my date said she thought it could have been funnier. But, like I said, I liked it and would recommend going to see it. Just not on a first or third date. Going to see it is just like in the movie where they throw you into intensive couples therapy.

I met Favreau in NYC when I was living there. I used to go to this club called Pangea. My friend Jimmy and I had a test for meeting girls there. We had two questions we would ask:

“What is Pangea?” And it’s not a bar in NYC. Pangea is when all the continents were one. Before they split into the five continents that there are now. Keep in mind we are at a bar with that name and a sign out front with the world as having one continent.

The second question was “Who is the Secretary of Defense?” It was Donald Rumsfeld at the time. Remember this was NYC right after 911 and if you didn’t know who Donald Rumsfeld was you were either an idiot or living in a hole. And I suppose the people who were living in holes at the time even knew who he was.

I don’t need to say Saddam Hussein here, do I?

For me to be interested in the girl, she had to get at least one of the questions right. For Jimmy, it was better if she got them both wrong. Ah well, those were some wild and crazy days.

Hanging with film director Abel Ferrara, and Bono’s calling my cell phone. Taking pictures with Bill Clinton and David Bowie. Hanging with Macaulay Culkin. Black-tie parties with Queen Noor of Jordan. Talking to Monica Lewinsky at Paparazzo to the Stars Patrick McMullan’s Bday party at Lucky Cheng’s drag queen paradise in the East Village. Which was right around the corner from my apartment. If Monica went to the buffet one more time I was going to stage an intervention. “That would be fish,” she said with a sneer, and pointed to some sushi.

OK, on to “Cabaret” at the Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace. I went to the performance with a friend who was an entertainer. Which I think gave her a different perspective on the play. I was watching it, and the subject matter is pretty racy, and I was, of course, in a theater with predominately blue-haired people. In particular, I was trying to gauge the audience’s reaction to the scene about a menage au trois. I know it’s the theater, and you’re supposed to be quiet, but you could hear a pin drop, as they say.

I didn’t realize that it was such a serious and really sad play. The older gentleman fruit-market owner went into an entire song at a party about the “meeskites,” who were, as he said “ugly people.” The song went on to say that if two meeskites make a beautiful baby then they were not meeskites at all. What to me was funny was that there were quite a few meeskites in the audience who understood exactly what he was saying, and some of them had their children with them, and thus they were not meeskites at all.

I’ve got to think the writer of the play, even then, must have thought that parody of life would be part of the appeal to his play. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you definitely won’t like my column. Life’s too short to not be able to take a joke. So, all the more, I try to send a message through art and culture that has a ‘pay it forward’ type effect on people. Learn, laugh, live, love, contribute, as I say.

He sang the song with quite a few Yiddish words. (I understood a lot of it. I’ve got a lot of chutzpah, to be sure. I’m schlepping all the time, which involves quite a bit of shvitzing, so I can become one of the gantse mishpocha while I’m being a macher. Let me tell you, well, actually you’re reading it right now, I’ve got a great shpil, to go along with my shtick and my big schmekel, to boot, for a goy.)

Well, all of a sudden, the Nazis don’t like his little song and then, all of a sudden, there is division in the two couples and their romances that are featured throughout the play.

Well, by the end of the play, the visiting American’s girlfriend has an abortion, and he’s packed his bags, sold his typewriter without writing his novel, and is on his way back home with his tail between his legs.

But the cabaret leader kept on insisting that life in the cabaret was all good. I guess it’s all about how you look at it.

I’m watching “One Life to Live,” and it’s funny because I realize that one of the characters used to play an undercover detective on “Hill Street Blues.” That was a show that was huge in its day. A lot of the characters had a hard time getting new roles because they were so well remembered for the ones they had on “Hill Street.”

I still can’t get rid of the image of this character today jumping on a man and biting his ear off on “Hill Street” more than a few years ago. Very Mike Tyson, even before the Champ’s time. Maybe that’s where Mike Tyson got his inspiration to chomp down on Evander Holyfield. Evander lives in my cousin Patricia’s neighborhood in Peach Tree City, Ga. By the way, if you happen to need a good criminal defense attorney in the Atlanta area give me a call and I’ll hook you up with her. She’s 100-percent Italian and a “Damn Yankee.” Fuggedaboutit y’all.

I saw Mike Tyson and his new wife and baby on “Oprah” the other day. The Champ’s wife was talking about how she doesn’t even watch old news on her husband. That she lives in the present and that’s not the Mike Tyson she knows and loves. Isn’t that cute?

Maybe she’s heard of my old friend Howard Finster, who said it best: “Past time is gone. Future time is only a hope. Present time is all you’ve got.” Wise words from a wise man. Check out my museum for Howard.

Mike Tyson was actually hilarious in “The Hangover,” which I saw this summer. That was a really funny movie too. There was a bit of a actor crossover between “Couples Retreat” and “The Hangover.”

I always like to see actors in new roles that I recognize from other parts they’ve played.

I made a commercial for VideYou. They make great videos of you for your business. I did one, and I love it. Check out this link and give Kirstin a call. You’ll be glad you did.

Well, folks, I’m just a few TV production classes from being able to start my own TV show on CAN-TV right here in Chicago. Everyone in Chicago who has cable access will be able to see it, and I’ll be posting the episodes on the web after they’ve aired on CAN-TV.

I have many people to thank for the inspiration, and not the least of which is Dining Chicago’s own David Lissner. TGO, I like to call him. The Great One.

But if it weren’t for Jennie Scott Washington putting me on her show at CAN-TV this summer, I definitely wouldn’t be as close to TV stardom as I am now. Jennie’s show appears every Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. on CAN-TV Channel 21 Chicago Public Access. You can get booked on Jennie’s show, too — if you’re cool enough, that is. Give her a call, and she’ll tell you all about it: (773) 822-4762.

OK, folks, that’s it for this David Leonardis Report. I’ll see you next time.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reading. DL