You must have put something in my coffee.

This was an unexpectedly fun, if frantic-feeling, night.

After a weird, unproductive, and bad-mood-inducing day of work in the box office, I ate an arepa and bought too much produce at the Greenmarket (about 7 pounds of apples, some carrots, some brussells sprouts, and the world's largest turnip (?!)). Here's where things get REALLY exciting, though (more exciting than turnips?!): I joined Ava at the Access Theatre to see "Call Me Anne, " Phillip Taratula's one-man show about Anne Heche in her Celestia phase. I first saw him do anything as Anne Heche five years ago (JESUS) at BU as part of his senior thesis. I think he's an extremely talented actor and is always a real pleasure to watch. I hope lots of people come and enjoy his work and that he gets rich and famous. Or whatever he wants.

I then left Ava and went to the Williamsburg beer garden to see Carla and Slavko's band, Panonian Wave, play. Some other work folks were there and we danced the hell out of ourselves. It's like gypsy-punk-Balkan and it's a lot of fun. When they were finished playing, a drunk guy pulled a Barney Stinson on me: Beckoned me over, saying "Excuse me?" and when I went over (WHEN WILL I LEARN?!), said "Do you know my friend Anthony?" and tried to hand me off to his drunker friend. Needless to say, these gents had the "best" seats in the house-- as Anthony so eloquently put it, "We were watching...the dancing....." I got out of that as fast as possible.

But! A night of dancing was a good move,I think-- I danced some of my frantic-ness away. I'm acting kind of spazzy lately, and I think it's because I'm nervous about my reading on Tuesday. I'm totally aware that in the scheme of things, a reading is not a big deal at all. Also, the only people who are gonna come will be people who like me and know me and who probably won't be too critical. I guess this is why I'm getting nervous-- because it's just gonna be people I care about, I want it to be great, I want them to really like it. This is not a healthy goal. The thing to think about is that I'm gonna hear my play, I'll hopefully learn some good things about it or what I need to do to it in the future, and then we'll all go raise a glass and bid another year of my youth farewell. This is my hope. And I hope to see you there.

BOOYAH. Now to bed. I keep feeling the urge to quote Moe Axelrod lately. I don't know if that's good or bad. I'll leave you with:


Baby, if you had a dog, I'd love the dog.

The only thing worse than blogging...

...is NOT blogging and then wanting to blog and then fakely post-dating your entry that you wrote while you didn't have internet.

Like I'm about to do.

I wrote this rant on 11.20 and never posted it. Instead of writing something new, I will post it now.

I have had the extreme pleasure of seeing a lot of things live recently. Let me recap. In my haste to talk about the shenanigans of last weekend, I forgot a whole bunch.

Last Tuesday was the opening of Streamers at the Laura Pels Theatre. I guess I've done enough (sexual) favors for Jason to warrant an invite (that was a JOKE), so I dressed up and sat in a great seat, accompanied by Lee, Nitz and Tanni, surrounded by cool-looking people who probably were no more VIPs than we were but at least appeared to have some clout. I did recognize a few faces, including (I'm convinced, though this doesn't really make 'logical' sense) Aaron Staton, aka Ken Cosgrove on Mad Men, aka the husband of former BU student Connie Fletcher. There would have been no point in trying to talk to him, and it probably wasn't even him, but I was excited anyway and wouldn't stop staring. The lesson is—you can't take me anywhere. Once I put on lipstick, I think I have a free pass to act as uncouthly as I want. AND DON'T I?!

I liked the show, though it was a completely different play from the one I remembered reading three years ago in Jim Spruill's class. I guess that's to be expected. Jason has a moment where he crosses the back of the stage, whistling, and he accepts song requests in the form of dares. I put him up to the Mad Men theme song and was not disappointed.

Afterwards, there was a swell party at the Bryant Park Grill, where we all ate and drank a lot, I bonded INTENSELY with a member of the cast who was born in Schenectady (he made me meet his girlfriend so I could corroborate all stories, past and present, about Schenectady being tough), and ultimately resulted in Jason getting yelled at by a Scottish bartender. My people know a good-for-nothing when they SEE one!

Then, this past Monday, I found myself at the Roust Theatre Company's production of Macbeth. I shouldn't probably put the full name of their company, in case someone is googling, so—if you were in the show, please, stop reading now. I'm going to be mean. Michael, this excludes you.

This was, hands down, the most gratuitous, stupid, infuriating production of any Shakespeare play I've ever seen, and I include Complicite's Measure for Measure in that assessment. And I really hate Simon McBurney, so that means a lot. Back then, in the naïve days of my youth, I though cutting a girl's bra open and then making her deliver a five-minute monologue to the audience was bad. Oh, but I had much to learn. Here's a brief tally of the horrors I witnessed inside that small theatre:

3 slit throats

1 rape of a pregnant woman

1 mentally handicapped adult getting asphyxiated with a plastic bag

3 teeth ripped out with a hammer

1 overblown, WSS-wannabe knife fight

1 vagina getting stabbed

1 anus getting stabbed

1 dead king who comes back as a random soldier in a Castro costume

3 slutty witches

infinite sexual positions in the orgy scene

Oh wait, there's no orgy scene in Macbeth? Sure there is. You know, there's the sleepwalking scene, the dagger scene, the dinner scene, the orgy scene. No? Really, are you sure? I know what I saw.

I don't need to go on. I don't care if this makes me seem like some sort of traditionalist prude, but I DO NOT AND WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT. I was actually angry after I saw it, because SO MANY people had spent considerable time and considerably more money bringing this terror to life, and for what? I doubt anyone came away with any sort of familiarity or connection with the play. Maybe a "Wow, that smoke machine was working hard" or "Wasn't that awesome when the witches were all giving Malcolm a blowjob at the end?," but nothing else. No tongues were in cheeks. (They were plenty of other places, though.) No one was winking. I wouldn't even agree with that, but at least then I would have been confident that I wasn't watching something that had been spearheaded by an absolute lunatic. That's what I think the director was, for the record.

Oh Jesus.

HAPPILY, the stains of that evening were washed away the very next, by The Seagull on Broadway at the Walter Kerr. I was absolutely astounded by this show. I had never read the play, and my last experience with Chekhov ranged from forgettable to, um…forgettable-er? I got a $25 "student" (unethical unethical unethical) ticket an hour before the show, which is a fucking steal, and for the next three hours, was totally rapt. With the exception of intermission, where the cute gay guy sitting next to me talked to me about stories of Patti LuPone telling people to be quiet from the stage (which I loved), and when the cellphone of the lady behind me rang at, you know, the emotional climax of the play. Other than that, it was perfect perfect perfect. Forgive me for being in such a proselytizing mood—as much as I could go on and on about how bad Maccers was, I could talk for hours about all the things I loved about The Seagull. I won't. I'll just say that it runs through December 21^st, and if you have time, money, and are in appropriately manageable proximity to it, you should make it your business to go see it. DOOOO IT.

The Seagull was sandwiched between working on WTTAN for four hours in a coffee shop and going out for drinks at Jimmy's corner with my friends (apparently everyone hates that bar except for me, but I could care less), and assessing it now, that is a model that I use for every day. I wouldn't mind. Writing, show, friends. Add in a few hours of rehearsal somewhere and I'm good to go.

And last night Erin and I went to the Bowery Ballroom to see my one true love, Sondre Lerche. Oh my. I….can't even talk about the way he makes me feel. He sang us a bunch of new songs, including one about lost opportunities and second chances called "Like Lazenby," as in George Lazenby, an apparently-underrated Bond. CUTE. It was absolutely ridiculous—though there were a lot of guys there, the only sounds you could here during Sondre's talking was giggling, giggling, giggling. His superpower is making all that look upon him instantly smitten. Or smi'en, as Liam said last night. :)

Note to self:

On touch-and-go days, don't listen to "Cabaret."

Party, party!

I've been out of the house so much lately, and it's been really awesome.  I've worked every day for the past week +, sometimes at two different jobs in the same day, and haven't had much time to sit around and get upset about how I don't do anything. Additionally, I've been HAVING FUN! GOING PLACES!  

Thursday night turned into an unexpected ladies' night when Emma called me after work and whisked me off (soggily, in the driving rain) to a lovely wine bar called Terroir.  Her roommate joined us a little later and we stayed warm drinking wine until two in the morning.  Much of the conversation revolved around Felicity. Am I complaining? Never, never, no not ever.  This bar was really cute, though ordinarily I'd never go because it's out of my price range and because it doesn't generally occur to me that I can go places other than dives

Friday, the train I was on after work got stuck mid-tunnel due to a "smoke problem" further up the track.  The train totally shut down for just over ten minutes...which isn't that long, but was ample time for a quiet sort of pandemonium to break out in my car.  One guy was trying to incite panic-- yelling "Get set, folks. We're gonna be in here all night. I'm not kidding. Hope you got a good book. Oh, boy. We're here for a long time."  The girl sitting across from me went in between two cars to pee, then stayed out there smoking with some old hippie types.  Someone called the conductor on the emergency intercom.  A pre-recorded message played, saying "Due to problems on the track, this train is no longer in service.  Please listen for evacuation instructions from the train crew." At that, everyone made a lot of noise.  The guy next to me ws sweating buckets and nervously laughing, trying to engage everyone around him in conversation, saying "Heh-heh, we're not really gonna be stuck here all night, right? Right?!" Of course we didn't have to evacuate, and eventually we got to the station, which did, indeed, smell like smoke.  

Saturday, I ventured to Bushwick to Asterisk for their farewell party.  I was there to see Infidels, but caught most of the sets of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (chaos in the form of horns and dancers requesting us to sing along to a song that went "Here's the the man and his bombs, his bombs, his bombs, here's to the man and his motherfucking war games!") and Project Jenny, Project Jan (fun, sweaty multimedia insanity).  I drank a bunch of beer, thrashed around with some sweaty, hyper hipsters (I was leaning against a wall, minding my own business, and before I knew it, 'Jake the performance artist' was spinning me into the fray), got some air in the rainy Bushwick night, danced my face off during Infidels' sweet set, and at the end of the night, couldn't have been happier to be away from home at 4 AM.  I also found out that I am not the only one who, upon receiving a haircut that I'm less-than-thrilled with, fears that I look "Polish."  I can't explain that.

I've had several nightmares recently about my upcoming reading. They're like the classic actor's nightmare, except that they feature me getting to the reading, passing out the scripts to the actors, and then realizing that I never did the rewrites I wanted to.  Genuinely terrifying. I wake up all sick-feeling. 

Thanksgiving's coming up.  I'm looking forward to going home for a few days. I can't believe that 2008 is almost over. Good lord.

My favorite part of last night (besides cake):

"Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House--a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity.

Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends ... though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn--I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too."

I can't even express how happy and giddy I am. A wonderful night, a beautiful speech, an amazing start for the most exciting (not to mention the hottest) President I feel I'm ever likely to see.

I VOTED!

And, my goodness, was it awesome. I voted absentee in 2004, which was not anywhere near as exciting as going into that booth today and pulling that big red lever and flicking those weird switches. I remember watching my parents do it when they voted in the basement of Faith Church on Eastern Ave, growing up...and let me tell you, I was so excited to do it for myself today. The whole thing took a little over an hour, and everyone in the polling place (public school lunchroom) was happy and cheerful, chatting, offering each other papers and stuff. I'll make the assumption that the vast majority of people in that room were voting for Obama-- considering where I live and the age group that was in there when I was there, I think that's a relatively safe assumption to make. I don't know if that had something to do with the general tenor of the room, or not. Whatever the case, it was so nice.

Then I trudged deep into the heart of Greenpoint to the only Starbucks anywhere around here, so I could get my free coffee. Free stuff makes me impervious to the restraints of practicality. We'll see if I actually take a trip into Manhattan JUST to get free ice cream. I probably will. Voting AND free ice cream. Come on!

I am so excited and nervous, and I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm holding my breath. I am really surprised that I am feeling so emotional about this--of course I want Obama to win, but I didn't think it would feel so personal. I'm trying to stay calm.

Anyway-- vote if you haven't yet, and do whatever weird superstitious good luck things you feel comfortable doing. Lord knows I'll be crossing my finger, rubbing lucky pennies, doing vageuly OCD behaviors, and holding my breath.

Gobama, go!

The best part of my Halloween (besides seeing Dave Rosenblatt):

(I'm walking up the Bowery to meet my friends and I see a guy rouding the corner onto Fifth Street. He's wearing a blue shirt, jeans, has a short brown wig, and is carrying this tank with a tube attached to it. The halloween spirit takes me over and I yell after him:)

Me: HEY! I love your costume!
Guy: Oh yeah?
Me: Aren't you Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet? Lynch-Lynch! (I point to myself.)
Guy: No, but I so could be. I'm--
Me: Oh my god, you're Anton Chigur. Which is awesome because that's who I was going to be before I decided to be the Log Lady.
Guy: Which is awesome because I just finished watching Twin Peaks!

(He pretends to kill me with his compressed air machine, we go on our respective merry ways.)



I also want to note that the overwhelming majority of people who recognized me last night were gay men.