Friday, March 26, 2004

 

Slow Brain Friday

But I did receive this spam subject header in my email:

Protect yourself and family against x-rated junk rickets

Are bad porno calcium deficiencies really all that common?

posted by Dan 1:10 PM
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Thursday, March 25, 2004

 

Put Down The Rubber Chicken

Flashback: you're thirteen years old. You're going out to see "Dreamscape" with some older kids who have thrown a gristly table scrap of attention your way. And you're ready to do tricks for that piece of cartilage, boy-o. You've got five dollars to toss around like Mr. Moneybags after the beauty pageant. You've prepared your best anecdotes from that recent foray into Dungeons and Dragons module G2, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. You're wearing a long, multicolored scarf -- you know, the one you bring out on special occasions.

Yes, you're going to make an ass out of yourself tonight. But you won't think it's your fault, because before those older kids get a look at you, they're going to be treated to five minutes with your dad, who thinks he's funny. He's going to stand with you in front of the movie theater, and he's going to tell those worn-out jokes to your social good Samaritans. They may not have heard them before, but they'll smell the Old Spice in his patter, and they'll look at you and think, "No free ride to the mall is worth enduring this."

You'll be standing there, bescarved, thinking, "By the fright-wig of Howard Jones, man, SHUT UP. Don't you realize this is serious business here?" He probably does realize that, and he's doing it anyway, because from his longer view it's not serious. He has perspective. The social farce at age thirteen is utterly devoid of importance, because life is much longer and shorter than a thirteen year-old realizes. The old man sees that these awkward moments will, at most, make for an amusing diary entry. Of course, he won't see that this diary will be on something called "the internet," accessible to people all over the world, but we'll forgive him that astigmatism. The point is, as an adult, you know that your dad was entirely within his rights to make jokes because your problems weren't real problems, and watching you squirm was one of his rare pleasures.

The "you" in this example is in no way me, by the way, because I have always looked and acted like Pierce Brosnan.

Now let's alter some of the details in this scenario. You're still thirteen, but instead of going to the movies, you're going to the grocery store. In the middle of an ice storm. On your ten-speed. And let's say that your dad is the one who sends you, because he thinks there might not be any dinner fixings in the fridge. So he orders you into the storm, to fetch supplies. As you're biking down the street through the sleet and the dark, a pick-up truck barrels around the corner. He doesn't see you, you don't see him, Dodge meets Schwinn, and you end up with your head through his windshield.

As you're lying there in the hospital, in your neck brace, facing a future of reconstructive surgery and potentially fruitless therapy to make your legs work again, Dad comes to visit. And he begins to make jokes with the nurse. He laughs about how he'd sent you out for meat, but you'd come back looking like hamburger. The knock-knock joke that ends, "Orange you glad the ambulance came before you bled to death" goes over surprisingly well witht the staff. But you don't think it's very funny.

Is this because you lack your dad's perspective? No. He's just a moron. He may or may not have been right to send you out, but his gallows humor is cosmically unkosher.

Which leads me to this. Put aside that politicians, like your dad, are never funny, and that they're at their most unfunny when they're involved in this kind of buffoonery. Put aside the fact that a genial, comic Commander-In-Chief is expected at these press dinners, and past ones have played the part with glee. Put aside the self-deprecating tone of some of the jokes, because that's a move out of the standard playbook of every publicist these days.

George Bush Jr. made a joke about the American invasion of Iraq.

Now perhaps I lack perspective on the world. Perhaps, after I'm dead and sitting politely in my grave, Our Town-style, the tragedies of life will be amusing. I'll grant that I am probably a spiritual thirteen year-old. If this were the press dinner in March of 2000, and Bush was clowning it up with Condi Rice, I'd think it was silly and stupid, but I would remind myself that it's par for the political course, and what's the big deal anyway?

But it's not March of 2000. The details of this scenario are different. Bush ordered our troops to invade Iraq. Whether you think this was bringing the gift of democracy to a desperate nation, an imperialistic adventure fueled by crony capitalism, a key strategic move in the War On Terror, or anything in between, I think we can all agree that it's a serious business. I think we can all agree that people -- American soldiers and Iraqis -- died. Perhaps it was worth the price of blood, perhaps not. In either case, GEORGE BUSH ORDERED THE BLOOD SPILT.

I love edgy political humor, but if I saw an old newsreel of FDR doing a vaudeville routine about how he thought those gun emplacements on Omaha beach were the nests of whooping cranes, I'd be horrified. It's one thing for Bugs Bunny to put on the Hitler moustache and prance around. Private jokes to lighten a somber job are one thing, but I expect a sense of public decorum from a man who has made the decision to sacrifice lives. When you're the captain of the ship, you don't have the privilege of yucking it up like a deckhand.

Is this an expectation of paternalism from the president? You bet. We make jokes about Dad's lousy sense of humor, his temper, or his matching of shorts and dark socks. But if you had a decent father, as I did, you also know that he was at his best when he showed leadership in a crisis, when he took a real problem calmly but seriously.

This Hasty Pudding attitude makes me think that, on some fundamental level, George Bush does not appreciate the magnitude of the situation.

posted by Dan 3:10 PM
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Wednesday, March 24, 2004

 

Sorry No Entry

Dealing with tax stuff all night, work all day.

posted by Dan 11:58 PM
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Tuesday, March 23, 2004

 

That's Three Ks, Get It?

Hi, my name is Dan, and, according to several sensible websites, I'm from AmeriKKKa! That's right, AmeriKKKa!

I'm sure looking forward to traveling around the world, sharing the AmeriKKKan experience! First, I'm going to visit the U.K.KK!

Then, I'll sail from Dover to Normandy, in FranKKKe!

From there, it's only a quick train ride to ItAAAly and GermaNEAy!

I can't wait to see the fjords of NoRIAAway!

Or how about a visit to RERAd SqUAWre in MOSHAscoWNBA?

And BoLGBFiVFWia and the UnICCteDHHS AMArASPCAb EmiREMiTOEFELeSCA!

My KKKeyboard is broKKKen!

posted by Dan 12:39 PM
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Monday, March 22, 2004

 

Meow Meow Meow Meow

I saw a brilliant comedy about a cat in love with its clone.

I forgot to mention this, as I saw it in February, and I was eyeball-deep in production. It was a workshop staging at Juilliard. The play is Kitty Kitty Kitty, by Noah Haidle. He's one of the most unique comic writers I've ever seen.

The first piece I saw by him was a ten-minute play (title escapes me) about a champion squash player who suspects he might be a vampire. It blew me away. It was hilarious. His voice had a strong signature. Even though it wasn't about Big Ideas, it was entertaining and original, and that was more than enough.

Kitty Kitty Kitty is hilarious, has the signature voice, and is about Big Ideas, though you don't realize it until the end. A scientist clones a depressed cat, and the cat falls in love with the clone. It sounds like the premise for a sketch, but Haidle invests a great deal of sympathy in the plight of the smitten cats. He also makes them perform sex acts on stage, but that's all part of the unfettered humanity of the piece.

The simplicity of the workshop staging benefited the play. I'm almost convinced that giving it any more production value would harm more than help. It'd get in the way of the conceit of the play. At the risk of sounding like the crazy lady with the overgrown lawn, the cats are just like people. It's not Cats Exclamation Point, with leotards and painted noses clawing jazzercise. I didn't need -- or want -- to be convinced of the theatricality of people playing cats. I'm happy to watch people who are just friggin' cats.

What jogged the memory of this play was an article on the front page of the WSJ. You have to subscribe to read it, and f that s, but here's another version.

Man who cloned cat has new cause: menopausal women
By ANDREA PETERSEN
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- John Sperling has founded a university, cloned a cat and made a kind of alfalfa that grows in salty water. Now the 83-year-old billionaire is putting up $14 million to try to show that hormone-replacement therapy is safe for women entering menopause. [emphasis mine]

I had assumed that Haidle was writing from his own fevered imagination. Okay, so I'm the last person on Earth to learn about this. And I might be the five-billionth person to make the following observation: I wonder if billionaire John Sperling has heard about the old-fashioned method of replicating cats. It's called CAT F**KING.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to Haidle's Woman-Gets-Unmenopaused play.

posted by Dan 11:00 AM
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Second Pix

Here's some more images from Lil Pervs.

First up, it's Laura Axelrod's monologue, Eye Level. Laura was very light on the stage directions and character description for this piece, so director (Lydia Radziul) and actress (Carolyn Corbett) ran with it.


Click on an image to see a larger version

Carolyn's just finished a movie with her husband, Dakota. You can see the trailer at the website.

Next, some shots from Kayla Solomon's story of red-hot brother-sister love, Roller Coaster. That's Beth Collins and Brian Nemioff as the young sinners:


Click on an image to see a larger version

Posting more soon.

posted by Dan 8:35 AM
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