Friday, November 14, 2003

 

Do Not Cross Me!

HELLO! I am Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore! I am the most powerful Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice in the universe! YAHOO!

I order you, my courtiers, to put a two-and-a-half ton statue of the Ten Commandments in front of the state courthouse! This I command! Do not tell me that mine is a civil court, and not a religious one! I am Alabama Swanky Chief Justice Roy Moore, and this be my domain! BOW DOWN! For all civil law finds its root in the very first law, these Ten Commandments! I said SHUT UP about The Code of Hammurabi! That heathen is floating in a soup of tar with hot lead gnocchi! I, Big Chief Roy Moore, declare it so! HUMP-DEE-DOO!

Furthermore, this Biblical law trumps the laws of man! Indeed! It says so in the Constimatution! Article One! “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion!” There! It doesn’t say that Roy Moore, SuperJudge, can’t establish a religion! If Thomas Jefferson wants to stop me, he can tell me to my face! You hear me, you Virginian Queer?! OH YES!

MORE...

CNN, November 14, 2003; Ten Commandments judge removed from office

[for the full text of The Ballad of Roy Moore, visit War Liberal.]

UPDATE: Special thanks to this guy, the originator of CrazyTalk (tm). Boy, he's all over today.

posted by Dan 1:03 PM
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It's Josh's birthday today. To celebrate, he's making light of his socially-challenged freshman year at the alma mater. There was a day where he betrayed his love of Kermit and the gang to some snobboid theatre weenies. They didn't take a shine to this awkward, maladjusted fellow's Muppet love. They were mean to him.

I didn't meet Josh until his sophmore year. He was funny, intelligent, and still hooked on Henson. It's how we first bonded, casting Hamlet with Muppets. Maybe I was awkward and maladjusted too. Actually, I know I was. You could see it in my haircut (no, I won't show you a picture). Josh describes his undergraduate experiences as miserable, but I know for a fact that we had a couple of laughs. And, true to its promise, theatre school did get him laid. So I say to you Josh, yes, SFA had its bullies, even if they were bullies who practiced breathing exercises. But not unlike "Revenge of the Nerds," in the end, you did it in the moon room. Okay, maybe not that, but the geeks did prevail.

And tonight, we're going to see "Road House: The Brawlsical!" We rule the universe!

posted by Dan 10:01 AM
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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

 

Big City Snob

Whenever some Manhattanite makes a remark about the intellectually backwards nature of every American outside of Manhattan, it gits mah blood a-boilin'. As an example in defense of the rest of the country, I bring up my own Portland, OR, a small but cosmopolitan city, well read, with an exciting arts scene.

Then the OregonLive website features as its top story a Tweety-vs.-Sylvester battle.

Then I read the following on the front page of The Oregonian:



And my heart sinks. Because I'm a little bit abashed at this. And because I'm abashed, I've become a big city snob.

P.S. Is there any way to put the word "beaver" in a headline that doesn't lead the mind somewhere naughty?

posted by Dan 1:38 PM
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The Old People Must Be Stopped

I’m a fan of rickety old playwrights. Shakespeare, Chekov, give it to me in the vein. I’ll often see a production of one of their plays accompanied by the wife, who shares my passion for the scribbles of the dead.

The thing about old plays, though, is that they attract old people. We’ll often sit in a theater audience and observe the grey field all around us, as if we were planes flying over a rainstorm. It’s no surprise, though. Old people are the backbone of any nonprofit theatre’s subscribership. A decalcified backbone, bent with arthritis, but a backbone nonetheless.

Now, if there’s one thing old people can’t abide, it’s extreme temperatures, and by extreme, I mean anything above or below 71-73°F. When you take a room, paint it black, and light it with heavy-duty wattage -- in short, make a standard black-box theater -- it’s going to get a bit hot. Some old people aren’t going to like it. And they will do what old people do best: complain. If you’re the managing director of any theatre company, struggling to make ends meet, you’re going to do your best to answer these complaints. Because without these geezers, your cushy theatre job goes poof, and it’s back to Olsten Staffing with you.

All this is why, during the entire two hour forty-five minute presentation of Schnitzler’s Far and Wide, the theatre had their Subaru engine of an air conditioner running full tilt. I can imagine how the decision to do this went down. Some old people complained that it was so terribly hot in that theater. So the management ran the air conditioner for an hour or two before the show. Still the old people complained. So the management ran the air conditioner all day, plunging the room to a temperature best expressed on the Kelvin scale, right up until curtain. Still, when those lights came on, the room heated up, and the old people complained. So now, they run the air conditioner all day, and all through the show.

It sounds like the Lincoln Tunnel is directly over the heads of the audience. And here comes the irony. Another thing about old people? They don’t hear so well. Even for the young, it’s hard to hear actors over this rumble of helicopter blades dicing elephants whole. So during Far and Wide, not only was I treated to said rumble, but also the running commentary of the elderly: “What’d he say?” “Why are they talking so quietly?!” “Seymour! Turn up the volume!”

All of which made me want to stand up and scream, “It’s because of you, old people! Because you cannot be bothered to take off your musty rabbit-fur coats, or dress in layers, or enjoy an icy beverage so as to lower your core temperature before the show, because YOU ARE ROTTEN SELFISH OLD PEOPLE WHO DESERVE TO PAY TOP DOLLAR TO ELI LILLY FOR THOSE DRUGS THAT KEEP YOUR DILAPIDATED HEARTS FROM POPPING.”

But that’s overreacting, so I didn’t.

I do like old people. I’ve got friends and family over sixty. I look forward to being a crotchety old coot myself, God willing and the crick don’t rise.

And God bless you senior citizens for keeping live theatre alive.

That said, I don’t want to hear another complaint slip over those wrinkly lips. We’ve tried to accommodate you. Bring a fan, or one of those old-fashioned ear-horns, and shut up.

What’s that? How was the play? Pretty good, if you like rickety old playwrights.

posted by Dan 12:54 PM
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