Irony

Attack of the Theater People!

It's a book review, silly. Attack of the Theater People is the sequel to How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater. It was slightly less madcap, and delved into the very serious issue of coming out as a gay man in the early days of AIDS awareness. Otherwise it was a delightful romp from Hell's Kitchen to Upper Manhattan. If you're looking for something to read that is both fun and intelligent, look no further. Recommended.

More Summer Reading

I went back to bed this morning so I could finish this book, How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater by Marc Acito. Some of you dear readers may be familiar with Marc Acito. Apparently he has a syndicated newspaper column and is a frequent common 'tater on NPR, known in some circles as the "gay Dave Barry". I have never read or heard any of his work before. A friend (as in the Facebook variety) set me up on a blind date with this book.

What can I say? Read. It. I don't want to say too much about it, but it was, in a word, delicious. With echoes of Red Sky At Morning (the Richard Bradford novel) and and A Prayer For Owen Meany -- two of my favorite coming-of-age novels, I enjoyed every minute of reading this book. It almost made me want to go back and repeat my senior year of high school. (Oh, wait. I didn't have a senior year of high school. I graduated after my junior year with about a million credits in folk dancing augmented by juggling. Life at an alternative high school in the seventies ...)

This kind of book is what summer reading is all about. Ahhhhh. Highly recommended.

"Brain To Nowhere"

H/t to my dear spouse, Enriched Geranium, who posted it first. Ken Lonnquist (writer of the eighties classic "Peepee in Jars") and Dave Adler pay tribute to ... well, you'll see.

Palin for President!

My favorite Python!

Celebrate!

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm thinking of doing this to celebrate. Good idea, no?

Everything is Music

It was another musical week. On Wednesday I accompanied my family to see one of their favorite bands, Enter the Haggis. You can read all about the show and see a video that my daughter shot here.

Thursday night was the spring concert of my daughter's 6th grade orchestra, and I have to say it was pretty good. The strings section has come a long way and sounded pretty together. The wind section sounded avant garde -- or was it that they all played at different speeds? Doesn't matter -- I'm a fan of people making their own music.

Last night, on a whim, we went to see the Asylum Street Spankers. Oh. my. You can go to their website to hear a selection of their music. Check them out. They had an impressive array of instruments, all acoustic, and a repertoire that ran the gamut from old blues numbers to biting political commentary (of the right sort.) A lot of it was pee-your-pants funny. And I can't say enough how much it did my heart good to hear them being outspoken: about 9/11, about the Bush Administration, about the travesty otherwise known as "the war on drugs."

Maybe you've seen this video. Somebody posted it a while ago, but I didn't realize it was the same band until right now. The show we saw wasn't quite as theatrical, and they have some new members, including Charlie King, who does harmonic overtone singing -- very cool.



They tour a lot, so if they come to your neck of the woods I highly recommend that you go.

My Kind of Congress ...

... and The Onion does it again.

A Little Too Close to the Truth

The Onion is frequently very funny (my favorite headline: "Jenna Bush's Wetlands Now Open for Public Drilling") but sometimes they hit the nail squarely on the head, as with this week's top story: BUSH BEGINS PREPARATIONS FOR NATION'S FINAL YEAR.

WASHINGTON—As his last term in office winds to a close, President Bush has directed White House aids and Cabinet staff to begin preparing for 2008, the nation's 232nd and final year in existence ...

The president held a special America Wrap-Up press conference with members of the international press earlier today, where he spoke frankly with reporters and gave out long, heartfelt hugs. Bush also took time from his hectic schedule of staring blankly into the gaping maw of absolute dissolution to reflect on the country's past and look forward to its 281-day future.

"Our great nation will be a shining, then blinking, then slowly fading beacon to the world," Bush said. "As our time as a sovereign country with borders and currency comes to a close, let us hope we will be remembered for all the great things we accomplished, and not for the 1960s."

Read it all here.

When I saw it on the newstand yesterday, I just about lost it. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Oy, these times we're living in.

Oh, Wow!

After reading at Pygalgia's blog, that his blog is worth $19,758.90, I decided to see about my blog. The answer I got is priceless.

I'm just ... speechless. I guess I won't be quitting the day job for the glamorous life of a full time blogger anytime soon.

Gallows Humor, circa 2007

Meet my new teaching assistant ...

The problem is, he keeps ducking out to the boys' room to smoke cigs. Find artwork like this for a breathtaking range of occupations here. Sorry, though. If you're a musician who plays something other than French horn, guitar, or organ, you're out of luck. Apparently, Jesus is not with you always.

After you view the artwork, if you're getting that gicky feeling in your mouth from too much saccharine, go here, here, or here for relief. Ahhhhhh. Jesus, it's spawned a cottage industry! I had no idea ...

And by the way ... I'm not mocking the artwork.

Too bad nobody got their hands on the rebus version!

Ann Compton and Jennifer Duck report: Never before has the White House released a draft version of the President's speech to the annual United Nations General Assembly.

But this year, a glimpse of how the President sees his speeches was accidentally placed on the UN website along with the speechwriters' cell phone numbers.

Pronunciations for President Bush's friend French President Sarkozy "[sar-KOzee]" appeared in draft #20 on the UN website. Other pronunciations included the Mugabe "[moo-GAHbee] regime" and pronunciations for countries "Kyrgyzstan [KEYRgeez-stan]" and "Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]."

If it was anyone else, this would make perfect sense and wouldn't even seem newsworthy ... but Jo-ji seems to need scaffolding (that's education jargon for help) with everything he does. Oy vey.

Surge Seasoning

H/T to Mr. Ether for sending this to me (and apologies that I didn't look at it sooner. A little something extra for you later, okay M.E.?)

Enjoy!

Pavarotti Loves Elephants

Full disclosure: I don't consider myself to be much of a fan of opera. My dad loved opera. Every Saturday afternoon he listened to the broadcast from The Met, and it gave me a headache. He used to walk around the house in his long johns, humming parts of operas. All the time. It was embarrassing when I was an adolescent.

He took his unappreciative kids to see a good many performances. He especially loved Mozart and Gilbert & Sullivan. And actually, I do like The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni. And I like Lakmé by Delibes, but so does everybody else, right? It's like the Pachelbel Canon of opera.

I was even once in an opera, The Poacher by Albert Lortzing. The director of the university's opera company was also the director of my Unitarian church's children's choir, and The Poacher featured a children's choir. That was cool.

But what I'm really trying to say is, I was never a big fan of Pavarotti. But I am a fan of this video: http://www.rathergood.com/elephants/

I apologize that I couldn't embed it in my blog. You'll just have to see it the old-fashioned way.

One of the perks of living where I do is getting The Onion every week, free. So last week when I dashed into the neighborhood market for … well, an onion, I also picked up the latest issue of The Onion. It had a bumper crop of good headlines, as follows:

DEMOCRATIC MOB CENSURES BUSH IN EFFIGY; Well behaved Protestors: 'Papier Maîché President Must Be Held Accountable'

HARD TO TELL IF WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON DADA HAS BEEN VANDALIZED OR NOT

FDA Approves Seconds

News Van Driver Sick Of Helping Anchors Move

And an op ed piece by Karl Rove:

My Job getting Unqualified Politicians Elected By Manipulating The Media And Polarizing The Voting Public In Order to Push Through A Secret Agenda Here Is Done

It's a little disconcerting when a humorous publication has better news than the mainstream media.

This just in ...

... from my lovely daughter:

Famous people who got married on your birthday [which is coming up on 8/21]:

Dennis Kucinich and Elizabeth Harper - NOT A JOKE! It's on IMDB!
Walter Matthau and Carol Grace - Awwww, I love him!
Humphrey Bogart and Mayo Methot
Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo

Anna may not know the origin of the word "nadgers" or even what it means, but she knows everything there is to know in the media world.

Thanks, honey. I love you!

Who would you pay $3000 to hear?

Warning: This is a puff piece. I post it in honor of my dear friend Potato Prints, who recently left Long Island for the Land of the Wind Chill Factor.

So, would you pay $3000 a pop to hear the Artist Formerly Known As the Artist Formerly Known As Prince? The Dave Matthews Band? James Taylor? Billy Joel? Me neither, but these people would. Which proves that some people have w-a-y too much money.

I got a kick out of this last part though:

But for Kyle Anderson, no matter where the event is held, only one performance really seems worthy of such a price tag:

"I think it would take the resurrected corpses of the dead Beatles," said Anderson laughing. "You'd probably get people to pay that much to see the zombie John Lennon."

To which my perceptive daughter said, "You can watch the Zombeatles and get that!" So I present to you, hometown sweethearts The Zombeatles in their rock video "Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead."

How perfect.

This series of letters came up when Mr. Ether was leaving a comment on a blog; my sentiments exactly.

But What's the Secret Handshake?

Another hilarious anecdote from the fun and fabulous Friends General Conference gathering: On Wednesday night, which, if your patriotism-o-meter was working you will remember was The Fourth of July (that's English for Syttende Mai), my daughter and I walked to a high point on the River Falls campus to see if we could see fireworks. We walked past a couple of guys who I took to be locals leaning on a bridge. I overheard one of them say, "I heard that the campus has been rented out to Masons!"