Skunk Mullet.
So went up to new york with sparky and matt (#1) to see two shows on Saturday. The first was Next to Normal, which stands a good shot at picking up a crap-load of tony’s this year. It was brilliant. The music and acting was superb. The whole cast was strong, the writing was phenomenal. Actually that was the problem, it was too good. It was too close to home.
It is about a bipolar mother with delusions who is trying to cope with life and her family and her disorder.
I highly recommend it for anyone looking to see a show that really gets under your skin. It is not the classic, saccharine broadway musical, which is why it is so popular.
(not my photo)
You can see Next to Normal tweeted @n2nbroadway and they post clips of each of the songs but it really only makes sense if you’ve already seen it.
After that we went and drank. And then to the village for Coraline (the musical).
Not going to lie, I was a little freaked out it would suck. A fifty year old Broadway veteran is playing Coraline who is a 9 year old girl. David Greenspan is playing the Other Mother (who is not a tranny in the book or anything) and the entire thing was scored for a toy piano. What if it sucked? I think things that are that creative have to be done just right or they will fall on their ass.
It was awesome. It was better than I could have hoped for. I was so ridiculously impressed by the entire cast, and the music, and the set that I was glowing. I swear I will go see everything that David Greenspan is ever in, not only did he write the book for it, but his performance as the Other Mother is dead on to what I needed it to be. I totally forgot he was in drag. It was perfect. If you think about it, the other mother is supposed to be just like coraline’s mother, but a little off. That’s the feeling you got when you watched his performance. Oh, I get the creepies when I think about it.
Unfortunately there are no press pictures from the show, which officially opens June 1st. But I snuck a bad iphone picture of the set.
It is basically all doors and pianos.
Okay I really have to clean so that I can lay by a pool mid day.
Happy Memorial Day to all.
So when did Sarah Michelle Gellar become the new horror queen? I thought she distanced herself from Buffy for opportunities to take new and more serious roles, and every time I turn on my TV I find a new horror movie she’s done. Not that I’m complaining or dissing either her talents or horror movies, it just seemed like she was the only one of the Buffy cast unwilling to look back. I kind of got the impression that she thought she was better than that. Apparently she isn’t and doesn’t, because this is a huge pile of crap I’m watching now. (She is still hot, and I think she’s talented).
Sorry if I sound bitter, but I am. Can’t believe Joss is using Eliza Dushku in his new show Dollhouse. Faith was very hit or miss to me. Oh lord, this is ridiculous. This is how restless I am, I’m blogging about SMG.
I could blog about NPH, or Neil Patrick Harris for those who haven’t seen the Harold and Kumar movies. I have now seen them, and I apologize thoroughly to all of the pot-heads I’ve made fun of for liking them. They were really smart at times, and did really speak to a different stoner thus making them more accessible I think to a lot of people I know. There were still crude toilet jokes, but anymore it’s hard to find a comedy that doesn’t rely a minimum of 25% of it’s laughs on shit jokes.
Packing is coming along quiet well. I think with my weeknight free this week I should be able to get everything done by Saturday morning. That’s the reason I’m watching all these craptacular films, It’s way too difficult to read while packing. As for just listening to music, I find that allows me too much time in my head, which isn’t helpful right now.
I think once I’ve moved and get back into a routine my blogging will really equalize. Part of me is looking forward to being out of the city because I think the distractions might be fewer and farther between. Then I recall that for the last 6 months (post slizzard I think) I only go out when I want to, and have been doing it with little frequency or regularity.
Gave Neighbor Jenny a tutu earlier today, so she came over wearing it. I then proceeded to dress her up with accessories. She gave me permission to post the results here:
delightful.
So my friend James was considering coming to Chicago with me. If you recall, I was going to visit friends, who ended up getting an oppurtunity to move to North Carolina, and had to leave before my scheduled trip. I opted not to cancel my trip because I love traveling of any kind. Well James is in Cleveland which isn’t far off from Chicago, so the idea was thrown around. That was until he decided last week that he was moving to North Carolina this weekend. Yeah, I know, I need to stop asking people to see me in Chicago. It apparently causes some odd desire to move south.
though Sara and I also spent a bit of time this weekend looking at apartments and houses in Wilmington, North Carolina. Just in case I get accepted to their grad program.
Brunch at Carmen’s yesterday. Brunch at Farmicia today with Sara. I love me some brunching.
Okay back to the pretend packing that I’ve been doing all weekend. It’s a studio apartment for Christ’s sake. If I showed the least bit of fucking hustle, I’d have been done in four hours.
Oddly I’ve thought back on most of my occupied time since last posting and I’ve seen a common thread. I’ve developed a desire to watch what approximates some form of other’s problems. I’ve split my time between reading (which with a great character driven novel is always voyeuristic), listening to the savage love podcast, and catching up on season one of In Treatment and season two of Big Love.
Not sure what the deal is, except I think I’d rather submerse myself in other people’s problems than cope with my own. But the problem is that I think most of my friends are problem free and far more functional in this reality than myself, so I’m left with Dan’s cast of anonymous neurotics and the fictional depths of HBO writer’s darkest childhood repressions.
I’m not sure there is anything wrong with it. God knows the highlight of my week is usually Tuesday’s therapy session. So desperate this time around for someone I can be myself with that I have built a system of trust up with her rather quickly. I haven’t cried in front of her or anything, but that’s no shock since it’s only been little over a month and I usually don’t cry till I’ve known someone for over six months and we’ve just finished some really great sex.
A cold wind blew through Philly for the first few days this week. It made me think wicked thoughts, and that everything was possible. It must have run through NYC too because I got almost simultaneous text messages from an ex and a gentleman of ill-repute. As I walked down market street and felt the wind chill me from every direction, ricocheting off buildings and sweeping up skirts, I wandered if anyone doesn’t feel the pull of the northern wind. If everyone isn’t a gypsy at heart when on an 80 degree day in August they feel a 50 degree wind beating promises of anywhere-but-here in their ear drums.
Oh the wander-lust is too strong to enumerate. Fall comes and all I want is to find Sal and Shadow and Hunter and every other that has shown me the face of America. I want to get behind the wheel of an old pickup or a beat-up hatchback with a full ashtray and drive until the fucker overheats outside of a pillbox diner looking for a waitress named Peggy. And I could be that Peggy for a few nights or a few weeks, beg and barter for repairs until the wind blows me farther away.
Speaking of which, I’m walking up Chestnut and a I see a guy maybe a year or two older than myself, with a scant beard, a fishing hat, aviator glasses, and a cigarette holder chomped between his teeth. Some peculiar Hunter castaway, cramped over the steering wheel, meeting my gaze and clearly seeing another lizard eying him up for dinner.
Made me smile. Made me think of infinity looping in on itself and the legacies left of a maniacal genius.
Ugh.
That pretty much describes my week at work.
Stick a fork in me.
Life still seems to be made up of these tiny tasks that I just can’t seem to bring myself to do. So I’m watching it unravel at the seems. But my life is no longer a threadbare tank-top. After 25 years, but mostly in the last three years, my life has become a giant Irish sweater. So though the seems are coming out, it’s not noticeable. I know it’s fixable.
It’s the tiny tasks that really make up an existence. It’s whether you fill your salt and pepper shakers when they are three-quarters full. It’s whether you sort your laundry. It’s what you do while you enjoy your cup of coffee.
When I imagine a mate, I imagine the little things they do. Their quirks. What movies they watch when they think no one is watching. The first article of clothing off when in from work. I imagine their comfort food and whether they’d kiss me on the forehead or on the neck to say aloha.
Instead of these imaginations making me lonely, they make me patient. Next time around, I want cohesion. I want a confluence of quirks and breath.
Met my new tattoo artist today. Can I tell you this is going to rock. Oh yeah, and it’s going to take up my entire back by the time I’m done.
But she knows Gaiman and comic books and I’m meeting her again tomorrow.
Watching In Treatment is phenomenal. If Gabriel Byrne was my therapist I would definitely have some erotic transference. Something about the nose, the accent, the jawline.
Plus, for a non-creepy comment about the show, it makes me feel like a post-therapy follow up for myself.
For anyone who watches the show, I personally feel trapped between the Wednesday client and the Monday client. Not only in age but in emotional maturity.
It’s an odd city. Yesterday on my way back from the burbs I saw in quick succession A tree ripped out of the ground just lying on the sidewalk. A man in a full tuxedo in 95degree weather playing the flute on the street corner for loose change. The tuxedo was a three piece and nicely pressed.
Lastly the bus rolled slowly by a man in his mid to late forties standing in his driveway staring with his jaw open at the back windshield of his car which had been smashed in. It was a brief glimpse into someone else’s unguarded hell. It was surreal.
The weekend was useless. I am useless. The mania isn’t fun but at least it was productive. This depression is useless.
Inappropriately made out with my neighbor last night. That’s all I have to say about that because I broke the cardinal rule of life, don’t screw the girl who can break into your apartment. That’s all I’ve got folks in the ways of advice about life and love.
Highlight of the weekend? Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I really recommended reading Joss’ plan which sort of explains the amazing ideas that really brought it about. It’s stuff that I think most of you will ideologically agree with. So don’t pirate, please purchase. If we don’t financially support the few people in this world who aren’t trying to fuck us up the ass while stealing our wallets, then they’ll eventually be forced into doing just that to survive.
I watched it twice today and certain songs I watched more. Nathan Fillon is the greatest cheesy super-hero tool. You just want to punch him in his cute cute face. Neal Patrick Harris actually brings a real earnestness to Dr. Horrible that makes him ridiculously relatable. It was a superb performance. The jokes are the great bad jokes that were more in the background of Buffy than Firefly, and that Angel always went for but never quite landed.
Also watching first episode of the new season of project runway, always a hoot. I’m only half way through and I always feel like the contestants have never watched the show before because you can already tell what the judges will say.
Haven’t gotten to the theaters to see Batman yet, but I did go watch the new biography on Hunter S. Thompson. While in the theater a very attractive guy sitting in front of me turned around and asked if I’d like company to watch the show. Little did I realize that he was a character from a Wes Anderson film (Royal Tannenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling Limited). For example the second thing he said to me was to ask me how I felt about the government bail out of the FDIC (is that right, I might be using the wrong initials, but it’s late) and I was astonished to go from introductions to politics that I began stuttering. Also he laughed loudly at the jokes but always 75 seconds after everyone else in the theater. Every time. It got to the point where I was laughing after he laughed. Very surreal.
But the movie depressed me because I always associated very dearly with Hunter. He was an odd idealist who I feel like created a persona to shield that and it took over. He was a split person too, often described as being passionate and dualistic, living in opposing extremes of kindness and violence.
Okay another week to get through. I can do this. I swear.
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