Pure Bliss

Thanks, Terry.

Avenue Q Alums Producing Dan Savage's "The Kid"

And it's going to be a musical! From USNewswire, and oddly missing on the Slog:

The season concludes with "The Kid," a musical based on Dan Savage's book "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant," with book by Michael Zam, music by Andy Monroe and lyrics by Jack Lechner. New Group Artistic Director Scott Elliott directs this world premiere. The authors were honored with the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Best New Musical. This marks The New Group's return to musical theatre after producing "Avenue Q," which received the Tony Award for Best New Musical in 2004.

Dan hates it when I congratulate him for anything, so, CONGRATS DAN!

I Would Like to Start My Own Daily Show Where I Make Fun of Evening Magazine

Too bad this guy's gone:

What I Saw at The Puppet Show at the Frye

A picture of a housewife who appears to be in some sort of hell populated only by Muppets. A room full of wooden ventriliquest puppets dancing on the floor, their clomping so intense it sounds like an earthquake. Wooden furniture giving birth to baby furniture, dressed in Baby Gap. A video of the Harvard Arts Building, expanding and contracting and expanding, as its marionette architect looks away in distress. Go see it!

The Jack in the Box on 85th and Aurora

Do you ever get hella hungry at night? I know you do. And if you're out and about late at night, chances are good you probably think about getting some fast food at one of those all-nite drive thrus (Gross, I know, SHUT UP!) This is important: if you EVER find yourself at the Jack in the Box on Aurora and 85th at 4:45 in the morning, after a certain indescribable personal experience on the hill, DO NOT LOOK INTO THE DRIVE THRU WINDOW. I REPEAT: DO NOT LOOK INSIDE. The sight you will see will make it hard to eat your curly fries and spicy chicken burger in shameful silence in your car. It may make you throw up, violently, all over yourself. You've been warned.

Are You Going to the Comeback, er "Physical," Tonight?

No cover charge!

Orgy of Tolerance at On the Boards

What can I say that hasn't already been said before? Yes, women give birth to packets of M&Ms and bags of chips. Yes, there is a scene involving shopping carts that you will want to download off youtube and watch on repeat. There are also moments of extreme tediousness, where you will want to rip out your hair. I'm pretty sure that's the point. I loved it.

On the Boards supposedly videotaped this performance, and it should be online soon.

State of Play: A Review

Oh those blogtards! What do they know about real reporting? Why, I bet they couldn't tell a government conspiracy involving a Blackwater-look-alike from a Scarlet Johanassen boob-slip or a rumor involving a closeted TV star. Or could they!?

Rachel McAdams is the yellow-internet "journalist" in this movie, except (shocker!) she actually knows how to report. She accompanies seasoned vet Russel Crowe (scraggly, ailing star of printland) to investigate the death of a sub-committee member in Congress who may or may not have been killed by a gaggle of corrupt politicians hell-bent on murdermoney! As the two get thicker and thicker into the case there are lots of mysterious briefcases, threatening phone calls, and dark window frames which may or may not be hiding sniper shooters (you're going to play that scary music every time someone gets near a window? Whatever. If you need me, i'll be hiding under this chair).

At first, "State of Play's" plot feels like a very standard newspapers vs. police cadets vs. congressmen set-up ('The Wire'...anyone? Anyone?) but the tension generated between blogger and printdude make for some compelling moments (McAdams and Helen Mirren, the editah-in-chief, want to break the story earlier as blog fodder, Crowe, the truthy reporter, doesn't). And Crowe makes quite the improvisational journalist; trading sodas for sources, slipping scary notes to republican blowhards, interrogating an evil bisexual PR man (played by a drunk Jason Bateman) and speaking truth to power like he's trynna blow the next Watergate. Meanwhile, in subplotland, where shit is reallly going down, I've been given a headache by too many plot twists. Basically, Crowe is such a good journalist he almost dies a lot in pursuit of the most balanced story. Oy. So that's what journalism is supposed to look like? Now I feel guilty for not donating to KUOW last year.

Quote of the Day

Liz: "Listen, Jack. I don't have a lot of personal life experiences. But if I have learned anything from my Sims Family: when a child doesn't see his father enough he starts to jump up and down. And then his mood level will drop. Until he pees himself."

Liz Lemon to Jack Donaghy on '30 Rock'.

Birthright Israel: Free Drunken Sexfest? Propaganda Machine? Earnest Secular(ish) Pilgrimage? (All of the Above?)

My friend Neal Schindler has an article up on Jew-ish.com about Birthright Israel. I am quoted.

Of course, not all Birthright participants have quite as positive an experience. Steven Blum, who went in the winter of 2008-09, expected a fun trip that would also help him understand what it means to be a Jew, and might include some discussion of Israel/Palestine. What he found was a maze of “propaganda” that didn’t accommodate critical thinking. In his view, participants were told what to feel at major stops along the way, like Masada, where Israeli soldiers talked about their experience defending the contested land.

This is still how I feel. I wish someone would re-vamp this program and make it more like these programs.

Poetry about Gmail

Debates over whether Tao Lin has ruined writing and /or brought writerly self-obsession to a whole new level miss the point. Lin has found a method of communication that, to a broad swath of alienated young folks attached to the computer, feels more authentic than anything else out there.

Brandon Scott Gorrell, a Seattle writer, read Tao Lin online and knew he wanted to write like him. Through the internet, he found the books and ideas to keep his writing going. In Gorrell's pieces the mundanity of life is explored ("I am moving things around in the backpack. I am despairing,") as is the author's relationship with the internet ("green emoticons have appeared on the walls of my room") as is a sort of delusional magical realism ("the backpack is ominous like a male silver-back gorilla charging at me for trying to introduce a baby female silver-back gorilla into his troup").

In a very, very low-key interview over gchat with the author Chris Killien, ("I'm eating a banana, I'm putting on music") Gorrell writes mostly about his weird relationship with blogs ("they make me anxious") and email ("they make me anxious, too") and his excitement about his new book of poetry ("sometimes there would be something about feeling very sarcastic and then the next one would be about feeling very connected to someone").

This is where someone who hates where our young literatis are going with their words would write something snarky about Gorrell. I got nothing. I think he's pretty funny and I wouldn't mind reading more of his work in the future.

The Story of Stuff

Apropos of Nothing

Daniel
did you see the video mother lover
from snl
11:03pmSteven
nope
amazing?
11:04pmDaniel
i hate andy samberg, but i LOVE him for the 3 minutes of this video
http://www.hulu.com/watch/72434/saturday-night-live-motherlover
watch and respond
11:04pmSteven
is this recent?
11:04pmDaniel
saturday
11:06pmSteven
wait, uh, how did they jump to THAT idea?
hilarious
11:06pmDaniel
cuz their moms are single and lonely
and they are trashy as fuck
11:08pmSteven
well yeah obviously
amazing
11:08pmDaniel
best part is their shirts while they are eating sub snadwiches
and the fact that they are eating sub sandwiches
susan saradon was a pretty awesome cameo too
11:09pmSteven
this is identity politics! you just like this video because it makes you think happy thoughts about your future life eating subs and wearing ridiculous shirts
theres gotta be a word for this kind of artlove
11:09pmDaniel
i do that now!
11:10pmSteven
why dont you just go down to tubs and snag yourself a milf
11:10pmDaniel
ive been trying
i'ma be the syrup, she can be my waffle...
11:11pmSteven
this conversation is going on my blog

HAPPY MOMMA'S DAY

This here's mah momma:

These are the presents I rained down on her pretty head:


One's a book. "Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home," created by Jessica Grose and Doree Shafrir (of Hipster Grifter fame). I love the blog that inspired this book (Postcards from Yo Momma) but some of the entries here leave a little to be desired.

The purple metallic mound is a lavender shower bomb (because sometimes a bath is laborious). Behind the bomb is this other thing called "Crazy Cat Lady:" a haggard-looking lady in a bathrobe with cat magnets attached. It will probably be thrown out soon, but whatever. There's too much on that table anyway (see: spaghetti stain).

And in celebration of today, here's a son playing a mom:



John's whole ouvoir is here.

I Can Now Be Found, Occasionally, at Seattle MetBlogs

Check out my first post here.

WTF 85th and 15th?

Huh? Sorry, fellow passenger, I can't pay attention to you right now because I'm too busy being BLINDED by TRAFFIC CAMERAS taking my picture. I wasn't even speeding or doing anything wrong. Jesus christ. What am I, Miss California's boobies? Why all the attention?

Jon Stewart to Audience: "What the Hell is Wrong with You People?"

So I know I *just* posted a Jon Stewart video but this clip was just too weird to pass up.

So all night, Jon's havin' the problems with the audiences. They don't laugh at his first segment jokes, they don't laugh at the introduction to a new guest star who dressed up as twenty different people like some sort of comedy monkey. And then, in the middle of an important Fareed Zakaria interview, things get even weirder.

The topic: Pakistan. "The Taliban's there, but they won't tell us where (without bribes)" says Zakaria. Jon responds with the ironic guest-goading that is his trademark, but things go to shit and, well, just cue to 18:20...



That yell was an earnest, "I actually believe what you're saying is not sarcastic" yell. Oh, dear. Condolences to Stewart whom, I hope, will continue to talk to us intelligent folk in an ironic and sarcastic manner.

Why No Gay Bars in Ballard?

According to Questionland, the gays are too old, too boring, too hip, too jaded, they actually all live in West Seattle and only like to cheat on their "husbears" on Capitol Hill, they don't actually exist, they only exist in a metaphorical sense as spirits who haunt a certain smoke shop, they've been driven away by boring straight people, they don't have the right to have a bar because they're all "douchebags," and one should simply traipse down to "Changes" in Wallingford from Ballard.

None of these answers satisfies me.

Ballard deserves a gay bar.

Lost Lady American Cantina is Dead

From Bethany:

The place met with critical crickets, and Stranger reader-reviews were split down the middle between terrible and weirdly glowing, indicating something weird was going on.

I bet any positive reviews were from Dave Wamstad's staff. Here's what I had to say about the place for Blackbook.

Chichi Mexican for suits and out-of-towners. Seems like a rushed job with unintentional kitsch abound: huge art-deco stained glass chandeliers reminiscent of a hotel conference room in Phoenix, scratched tables, Word Art menu. Prices cuh-razier than a minuteman on border patrol: nearing twenty dollars for Mexican lasagne, forty for steak. At least the bar is all shiny and welcoming.

Video of the Day!

You know, call me a moron, but sometimes I don't realize how idiotic our congress is until I hear Jon Stewart riff on 'em. Take the most recent piss-ant legislation meant to defend gays, queers, trans folk against discrimination and violence. Yes, congress passed the legislation, but over 100 congressmen voted it down. Their reasoning? Watch Jon Stewart tear, effortlessly, into their bigotry with funny words:



How anyone could watch this show and not immediately want to work for this man is beyond me.

Other thoughts: Dennis Leary was weirdly not funny. Maybe don't go on a rival's comedy show if you're still a little bit jealous of him. Jealousy is only funny on teevee if it's a joke, and, for some reason, it didn't seem like Dennis was joking.

Thanks Google Ads!

<---------advertising fail.

"It."

I've been coughed on by a five year old at the library, ate Challah touched by sickly people, ate bacon strips served by sweaty gay men, sat in a classroom, sat in a confined space, sat next to a fluish Asian woman who yelled into my face, sat in an unventilated Subway shop without a gas mask, sat in a library, touched the computer keyboard, touched my face, scratched my head. I should have it by now.

Parks and Recreation: Anatomy of a Failure

When little moments are given big weight in a pseudo-documentary, they better be funny. Otherwise you're just watching a boring, not funny documentary about stupid little things happening to actors who are trying to play regular people. In some ways, it's worse than watching a sitcom with crazy scenarios and larger-than-life personalities. It's cinema verite minus the interesting.

What Will You Be Wearing Tomorrow Night?

I was thinking bacon strip mustaches over surgical masks. It would be confusing!

Jackie Hell at "Baconstrip!"

Hey you. How have you been? I've been in an alcohol-induced haze for days now. I've been doing gayer things than I've done in forever. First there was the Comeback last week, or was that the weekend Bea Arthur died? Again, it's all a haze. Things are more confusing than ever to remember. One thing I do remember: tonight was Bacon Strip at Re-Bar. Conclusion: drag is dead. No it's alive! No it's actually dead. Okay. Can we agree to disagree? It's half dead. It's a half limp penis. Or something.

Jackie Hell was a highlight tonight, but she was the only one. Old raccoon eyes. I know she was so-so at the Comeback, but when all the actors surrounding you are awful, you tend to stand out. She looked like a walking hot air balloon with teeny tiny legs. She sang "the Eyes of the Beast" (same as at Comeback) with a dude who was painfully elated to be on stage. They did a back and forth and Jackie barked out the lyrics with a sort of ironic detachment that usually drives me batty, but for some reason didn't. "Jacky is a shrewd performer." I distinctly remember telling myself something along these lines. She was the only reason I smiled for approximately five seconds.

The crowd gave some half-hearted hoot and hollars (god, isn't that just the worst?) and I drank 3 rum and cokes just to feel mildly socially motivated. It's hard to socialize when you're being fed terrible acting. Note to drag queens: just because you're dressed like a woman doesn't mean you're funny. Just because you're talking about safe sex doesn't mean you're an activist. Just because you've got huge-ass hair and long curly eyelashes and cone boobs doesn't mean I have to hug you. There is nothing interesting about what you're doing, unless, of course, you're doing something interesting. So, thanks Jackie. You almost saved the night.