Happy Memorial Day

So I survived my put-in rehearsal in Philly. The theater got permission to videotape the show for my reference, and I spent all day Saturday watching it. Over and over and over. And I went to see the show once, too. All in all, I lived The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales for, like, nine hours.

I'm not going to go into how pathetic it felt to spend my birthday cloistered in a room in Philadelphia watching The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, devoid of human contact.

The nice thing is that my sisters Sue and Lois and my brother Patrick called and sang "Happy Birthday to You" to me. And I got a call from Fozzie as well, which was extra nice.

So all in all, it wasn't so bad. Lord knows, I'll never forget how I spent my 42nd birthday.

Sunday, we did the put-in rehearsal, and then the cast of the show invited me out to share drinks with them as they toasted Christopher Mullen, the guy I'm taking over for, as he went on his way to his new gig. It was a nice way to get to know everyone, and it was my one chance to get to talk to Chris. Between my cloistering myself to study lines and watch videos and his trying to recuperate from not feeling well, we didn't even have the chance to be introduced until my put-in, for which he'd graciously stayed.

That's him on the left in the picture above. And by the way: Someone needs to explain to me when I got so fat. And when did my nose turn into The Great Gonzo's beak?

This is Why...

The Dodo bird is extinct: It couldn't fly south 'cuz it forgot to bring its luggage.

Just Because

I've been doing this -- in internet years -- for a really long time. In inimitable me style, I would normally have linked you right there to my blog's first entries in, like, early 2001. But I'm in the process of moving them off my main server to some cheap freebie storage, so the link wouldn't take you anywhere.

The point being, here, that sometimes I write even when I don't have a whole lot to say. I had a writing teacher lo' those many years ago who insisted that you write every day, regardless of whether or not you had something to say. Inevitably, this sage insisted, after you'd let this stuff sit on a shelf for a while, you'd come back to review it and find a kernal of something good.

Well, okay, but... um, whatever.

Today I'm loading you down with some recent photos that really have no bearing on anything, but of which I'm inordinately fond. I should point out at least one of them was an absolute accident. That damn bird was unplanned for.

I'm still, as you know, a rank amateur when it comes to knowing the difference between the effects of shutter speed and aperture settings (insofar as I know that both affect how much light is hitting the sensor), so I've been mucking about with both. Hence this photo, which I snapped of the fountain at Columbus Circle on the day after they turned it on for the first time this year. I swear, I actually meant to get that blurred effect with the arching water -- I just don't remember what I did to get it. Yay me.

Here's me being a voyeur, again. I can't for the life of me remember why I thought this guy was so fascinating, excpet maybe it was the first time I'd seen a man without a bulky winter coat on since last fall, and since, as you know, in the spring young mens' blood gets up, I was excited. I'm just saying.

I absolutely love this picture. It's just me and my crazy obsession with the light that streams through tree limbs (and leaves), but I think it's beautiful. It reminds me of that photo from my lil' vacation to Jaybird's place -- the one from the Duke Gardens. Suddenly that seems like forever ago. I need some serious doses of sunshine and warm weather, my friends.

I've been out walking around the city during lunch and after work the last few days, so I'll probably have more of these random shots to share soon.

Once More Unto...

Well, it's official. I got word today from the theater company that they're booking my travel, and they've set up the single four-hour put-in rehearsal (they're allowed four hours of put-in rehearsal?!? what kind of madness is that?) for Sunday. If I understand that correctly, then I get to rehearse on Sunday, and that's it until my first show the following Thursday.

That clicking you hear is my teeth-chattering fear.

I'll be seeing the show Friday night and Saturday & Sunday afternoons. There's that, at least.

"The Nativist Right"

I love that moniker. I'll admit it, like anyone who fears The Other, I'm not thrilled about becoming a minority twenty-five years hence. But, hey. Things change. They always have. They always will. I think the people who are most vocally against the illegal immigrants are the ones who fear that all those years of ignoring the Golden Rule are going to come back to haunt them.

Anyway, Orcinus has some interesting stuff to say on the subject.

Another Reason...

...to love Overheard in New York

Just Say So

On Friday night, HN Fozzie Bear took me out to dinner to celebrate my birthday. And he gave me a really wonderful journal as a birthday gift. He was really funny about it, too. He went out of his way to assure me that, though a journal might seem like a gift into which not a lot of thought had been put, he had, indeed, thought long and hard about what to get me.

He needn't have feared. It's a beautiful and thoughtful gift. I mean, how often does an inveterate scribe like myself get a leather-bound journal with a front closure flap that's magnetized?!?

All of my geek loves combined in one.

As an added bonus, I'm coming to the end of my latest journal, so I'll be needing a new one soon.

Score two for you, Fozzie.

After dinner, and owing to the fact that I'd been completely spent by my week, we retired to Fozzie's den to watch a movie he'd selected for the occasion. It was one I don't think I'd ever seen before, and it occasioned his new blog name. I think this one should stick, since he helped choose it himself.

Anyway, the evening was grand, and I enjoyed Fozzie's company yet again. Thanks, Fozzie.

Not long ago, in the middle of a conversation, I said to Fozzie something along the lines of "How long have we been dating?" or "Is what we're doing dating?" or something like that, and he said to me, "We're pals."

I thought about that for a moment, and I thought, "Okay. That's fair."

Well, apparently, Fozzie's friends (to one of which he recounted our conversation) didn't think so, and took the poor man to task for being rude. This, in turn, led poor Fozzie to apologize to me. He's sweet that way.

It's at this point that I -- apparently even more unaware of the power of my words than his friends think Fozzie is -- tried to downplay the whole thing by saying, "I thought nothing of it. That's just you." I meant, "You say what you're thinking. I accept and dig that."

Wrong approach, apparently. Sadly, the pearls of beneficence and wisdom that drop from my mouth don't come with little asterisks of clarification.

I drove lil' Fozzie to distraction by making him think I was carrying around this picture of him as this rude bastard who can't rule his own mouth.

Score one for him that he had the good sense to speak up about this when it bothered him. "Good on you, FB," say I.

Anyway, since I know he reads this, let me just take this opportunity to proclaim before all: I know you're a speak-your-mind, uncensored, mouthy bastard, Fozzie, and I accept and embrace you for it.

There are those who are demanding photographic evidence of Fozzie's existence, so this is all you buggers are getting. He deserves a little privacy. Accept it.

He liked this picture when it was in the viewscreen of the camera. I'm sure I'll hear about it if he doesn't like the Real McCoy.

Scary Voyeur Man

Well, I'm back at it.

As many of my long-time readers know, I have a little thing for people watching, and particularly for people watching wherein are involved either (a) hot guys (subjective, granted) or (b) train wreck people. That latter category includes people I simply can't take my eyes off, either in a good or bad way.

Ultimately, it's that latter category that's going to earn me a lot of extra time spent as bug in my next life. Karma is a boomerang, baby.

Still, I can't help myself, so herein I share the fruits of my clandestine labor. I really need to get either a decent zoom lens or a wide-angle lens, so my victims can't tell I'm actually pointing the camera at them. I never said I was a particularly good stalker, just that I like to look.

In discussions about another topic, Fozzie told me he was waiting to discover my dark secrets, so maybe this is it. I'm a voyeur. Although I think I'm too innocent a voyeur -- more of the people-watching variety -- to actually have it be a dark secret. Perhaps it's more of a little white secret. Or not.

Still, there's no denying it. I have a compulsion to snap clandestine pictures of cute people. The one above and to the left, and the one to the right here were both snapped while my cohorts from The Velvet Prison™ and I were sitting in Central Park having lunch a couple of weeks back.

Sometimes my machinations just plain don't work, as in the case of this fellow. I was chatting way with one of my fellow inmates and he passed by. Despite the fact that my camera was set on automatic "action" mode, it focused on something in the background and left this handsome devil blurry. If I believed in God, I'd think that maybe he was punishing me. But then again, there's so much other stuff for which He could be punishing me, I'm guessing this isn't very high on his list. I think I have to chalk this one up to bad aim.

The same afternoon I caught Blurry Guy, my fellow inmate pointed out this young lady as a sure-fire winner in the latter category above. I have to say, in a different time and a different place in my life, I might have dug this chick's ensemble. Just goes to show that I'm probably getting old.

Speaking of outgrowing the styles of your youth, I present you with this lady or, as I like to think of her, Elvis Has Not Left the Building, He's Just Had a Sex Change. I'm not saying. I'm just saying.

Then again, it's important to note that I'm hardly in a position to make fun of these people -- unless I include myself, since I'm more often than not wearing a shirt that's two years out of date, and khakis that I bought in a time out of memory. And I do. Include myself, that is. I'm so incredibly not hip, I sometimes fear that my Living in New York card will be revoked.

Watch out, New York. I'm stalking you.

I Was Wondering...

Hand Me That (Blow) Dart

I don't remember how this came to my attention... maybe it was one of those "most e-mailed stories of the week" things in my @times weekly e-mail.

All I know for sure is that I'm wondering if maybe any of these people would like to trade places with me.

I might enjoy getting away from it all, my only responsibility to hunt monkeys for their meat.

Then again, I recently watched the remake of Planet of the Apes and the only redeeming character in it was the little experimental chimpanzee at the beginning, Pericles.

I don't think I could eat my little anthropomorphized hero.

Reason to Live

Oh, yes, my friends. We all need to let our feelings go, and move to the funky groove:

Sing it now.

Hep Me, Hep Me!!!

I can't take this song off repeat on my iTunes and iPod.

The Scientology alien Overlords command that you love Hot Club of Cowtown and Whit Smith's Hot Jazz Caravan.

No. Seriously. Don't defy the overlords.

I Should Be Studying Lines

Did I mention that I'm going to be going to Philly at the end of this month to step into a children's show they're already running? Yeah. For the first time since, seriously, like, 1983, I'm back in the world of children's theater.

God help me.

I'll be stepping into the roll of "Jack" in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. I think I took the gig because I have a hard time saying no to my friends at the Arden, and I've been a little crazily desperate to get back on stage. It's been over seven months since I've trod the boards, and I was beginning to go stir crazy.

Thankfully, the folks at the The Velvet Prison™, in which I've been toiling, are being very cool about letting me take off for the two-week gig.

The idea of jumping into a show that's already running is kinda new to me. It puts me in mind of poor Bobby Zinsmeister having to step into Henry when I did it last summer.

Maybe if I had more of a career, this would be old hat to me. I'm sure the old-time pros have to do it all the time. I mean, people leave Broadway shows all the time, right?

So, anyway.

That doesn't mean I'm pooping my pants any less, lemme tell you. The script for Stinky is only 37 pages long, but I'm in practically all of them, and don't stop talking. Or moving. Or doing physical comedy. No, really. I get boinked by more stuff -- styrofoam letters, fake punches, crazy fowl -- than a cheap Shanghai hooker trying to dodge the Seventh Fleet.

And to make things more scary, HN Fozzie keeps threatening to come to Philly to see me do it.

I suppose I shouldn't really care -- it's nice that he wants to see me onstage, and is willing to go all the way to Philadelphia to do it, right? -- but the idea of him seeing me do childrens' theater somehow depresses me. It's like, "this is what it's come to. I dreamed of playing Hamlet."

Foolish me.

Maybe I'll wait 'til I've survived the first week and determine that I don't actually suck or look like I'm desperately trying to keep up with everyone on stage before inviting him.

I'll decide later.

I've Made Up My Mind. And Changed It.

I'm going with "Irate Mastermind"

IM, for short.

"Hot Nerd."

"Fozzie Bear"

How About an Arts City?

The New York Times reports that Dubai (late of the Dubai Ports World Fiasco '06™) is building Dubai Sports City, a $2.5 billion, fifty million square foot, well, city out in the dessert.

Two and a half billion dollars. On sports.

'Cuz, you know, sports really needs to be subsidized.

I have an idea. How about Arts City?!?

I've Found My Fortunes Falling...

...all over the internet:

Once upon a time, I peaked at 8, but there you have it. The masses (I suspect it's the Vast Twelve Year-Old Conspiracy™ that rules the web) has decided that I'm barely a 7. I suppose I should be grateful. I'm one of those "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member" people, meaning I don't think I'm hot, either. But really, people. Less than an 8?

Byte me.

Cultural Imperialism or Just Plain Better?

Okay, so I j'adore Europe, and European culture more than many of my fellow Americans, but even I have to wonder what they're griping about when they accuse (forgive me: j'accuse!) us of flooding the the world with our inferior American entertainments.

I mean... this is their legacy:

A Quandry.

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of a Man from my Past. And I'm really struggling to come up with a blog name for him, since it's pretty much de rigeur that people who've not actually signed on for the "reveal the gaping holes in my neuroses" life that is blogging be granted at least an alias. Or, to paraphrase ol' Jack Friday, "The names should be changed to protect the innocent."

So. At first I thought I'd just go with "Man from my Past," but that's a little unweildy. Even the acronym (MfmP) is.

He's got a kind of Hot Nerd thing going, but he's really not much of a nerd. Unless you count his passion for theater. Maybe "Theater Nerd?"

Then I thought I'd try to be clever and come up with just an acronym. Something private between us that no one would ever know. Like "CHO." Let your imagination run wild trying to figure out what that stands for.

Then I thought perhaps I could use a cool random name generator, like the Wu Name Generator. But I saw the results from possible combinations of first name/last name inputs: Fearless Hunter. Unlucky Ninja. Irate Mastermind.

That last one probably comes closest.

I guess I'm going to have to think on't longer.

A Blast from the Past

Like Karma, the crazy shit you do as a younger person always comes back to haunt you. Witness this little gem, compliments of one of the funniest men to walk the planet Earth, Tom Megalis.

Years ago, while I was still in Pittsburgh (and, I might add, before I lost a whole lotta weight), Tom was working on a sort of sketch comedy/animation show that he intended to pitch to someone or other. Since we'd worked together on one of his funny series of commercials for the Pittsburgh Zoo, I jumped at the chance to help him out.

This is the result:

Umm...

So, into which neighborhood do I move? Not quite this one, but close enough.