“Life is precious.  I don’t know how much longer my father has.”
– Prince Harry tells a reporter why he’d like to reconcile with King Charles – and that
“there is no point in continuing to fight”.  And he wonders why nobody in his family talks to him.

I’m typically up for a three-way.  But this week, there was a three-way tie for what would end up as our opening quote.  Would it be Prince Harry’s typical dimness?  Or Donald Trump saying, “I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you,” to Terry Moran?  Or perhaps acclaimed filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar saying of El Presidente, “You will go down in history as the greatest mistake of our time…you will go down in history as one of the greatest dangers to humanity since the beginning of the century.  You will go down in history as a catastrophe.”  While Prince Harry won, Pedro was close.  However, the century is only 25 years old.  It’s like saying the greatest catastrophe of the final 25 years of the last century was the AMC Pacer!

Before we get to other political news, I think we have to talk about the biggest story of the past week – the Tony nominations!  Let’s look at the race for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical.  I like the good old days when we could just say Best Actress in a Musical.  Anyway, those delightful divas from Death Becomes Her will cancel each other out.  And, God bless that BOOP! girl for making the cut.  But this race is all about Mama Rose and Norma Desmond.  Frankly, someone should simply ask Patti LuPone to choose – after all, she played both parts (she can play any role).  You have relative newbie Nicole Scherzinger, who seemed a shoe-in before Gypsy opened (and before she commented on Russell Brand’s Jesus hat).  But you also have Audra McDonald, who is now the most Tony-nominated actor in history, and who has won an award in all four female acting categories.  Who will win?  If I were a betting man, I’d put money on Audra.

Of course, if you put money on Kieran Culkin being nominated, you’d be licking your wounds.  Not that he would have had a prayer of winning once it was determined that Cole Escola qualified as Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play.  The reason this was even in question is that Cole is playing a female role – Mary Todd Lincoln.  And in real life, Cole uses the “they” pronoun.  So do they really want to win an award branded for men?  Perhaps.  Last week, Escola told Stephen Colbert, “I really want to play a straight guy.”  My response was the Danny Thomas spit-take, and a trip to Best Buy to replace a shorted-out TV.   But good for him…er, them.

Two notable “hes” were also shut out of nominations.  Despite having the highest-priced tickets in Broadway history, both Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello were snubbed by the Tony Committee.  While some people are saying they were hurt by all the hoopla (a word I like to work into at least one column a year), others point to reviewers who were simply underwhelmed.