Brace Yourselves, He's Gonna Blow out the Candles!

Sorry Dan, but it's another venture into four-color fantasy today. You see, today is Superman's birthday.

What, like this is the anniversary of his first publication? No. It's his birthday.


As Fred Hembeck explains, sometime in the 70s it was declared that February 29 was the date on which Kal-El, son of Jor-El was born. This was probably done to help make Superman "younger." Like, he's only had X number of birthdays ... get it? The old PIRATES OF PENZANCE conundrum. Though this does raise some questions ..

1) Is this going by the date he arrived on Earth? Because in some depictions of that he's already a toddler.

2) Is this going by the date he was born on Krypton? 'Cause they can't possibly have the same calendar as Earth.

3) Was this the date on Earth at the moment he was born on Krypton? I can think of any number of ways by which this would be difficult to measure, with time being as malleable as it is in intergalactic reckoning. And even if we can make it work, are we assuming he was born during the one hour of the day where it was Feburary 29th across the entire globe? Are we working on GMT? Smallville time? Metropolis time?

4) How does this jive with the idea that Superman is eternally 29? If he turned 29 today, then he'd have to have been born in 1975 -- wow, a Gen-X Superman only a year older than me ... truly a scary thought -- but that wasn't a leap year ...

See, stuff like this is what I love about Superman. So much meaty minutiae you can debate for hours ... assuming you're hanging out with like-minded individuals and not, say, my wife who tends to shake her head and wonder why she married me when I start discussing the different colors of Kryptonite.

In recent months, I've picked up a number of cheap hard-and-paperback collections of old Superman material:

Superman from the Thirties to the Seventies
Superman in the 50s
Superman in the 60s
Tales of the Bizarro World
The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told

Really fun stuff, and the bulk of it is stories from the Silver Age of Comics. I've discussed this before, but to refresh, the "Silver Age" of comics is considered to have begun in the mid fifties with the reintroduction of The Flash.

Where it ends is debatable. Some would end it as soon as 1961, when Marvel Comics started reinventing the genre. Some not until the breakup of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as a creative team around 1970. Some even later, with the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" miniseries, which cleared away a lot of the Silver Age baggage that had been dragging DC down. This series eliminated all the Multiple Earths, and killed off Supergirl and the Silver Age Flash (see why people consider this the end of the Silver Age?)

But actually the fun of reading those Silver Age stories is watching all that baggage accumulate.

Superman comics of the 50s and early 60s were tremendously creative, great fun, and drawn (if not always written) by some of the greatest talents ever in the field ... people like Wayne Boring (he never was), Dick Sprang (exactly what his artwork did off the page), Curt Swan (every bit as elegant and beautiful as one), and Kurt Schaffenberger (pun unavailable at this time). These were the stories my father grew up reading and the ones he would talk about with me when I was very small and obsessed with Superman.

It's not that those early Golden Age stories of the 30s and 40s aren't fun too. They are, especially this one piece in the Greatest Stories collection which ran in Life Magazine in 1940. In what might be called the first "imaginary story" (more on those later), Superman decides to end this pesky war by arresting Hitler ... AND STALIN. Yep, Mussolini and Hirohito get off scot free, but "Joe" gets hauled off to the world court with Adolph. Now, through the eye of history, this seems like emminently the right thing to do. But I bet two years later, once Iron Joe was our good buddy in Anti-Hitlerdom, Life was kinda regretting that.

Oddly, I think the reason the Silver Age stuff is so fun is that it has a lot less action. Superman spends much less time having bullets bounce off his chest and beating up bad guys ... heck, months would go by where he'd hardly ever face real bad guys ... just natural disasters and whatever freaky thing Jimmy Olsen had been transformed into that month. Postwar Superman had settled into a sort of domesticity. For one, he started to acquire a family ... Supergirl, his cousin (Superboy had been around for years, but that was just Superman as a boy, we'd eventually see Superbaby, too), Krypto the Superdog, Beppo the Supermonkey, Streaky the Supercat, Comet the Superhorse ... most of these hangers-on were some sort of Kryptonian refugees who managed to get off the planet in time. Heck Superman even found a whole city of Kryptonians who had been captured by Braniac and shrunk down to a size where they'd fit in a bottle.

He didn't get married, except in numerous "Imaginary Stories." Wait, aren't they all imaginary you say? Yes, you're the first person ever to say that. These were stories that "weren't really happening" so the writers could play "what if" games ... What if Superman married Lois Lane? What if he had a Superbaby? etc.

Lois is a bit of a sour point in those stories. She started off as such a great, kick-ass reporter in the 30s but by the 50s she was this shrewish, selfish sneak who was constantly trying to prove Clark was Superman ... y'know, so then all her friends could be murdered by vengeful criminals.

Readers would write in to ask why Superman didn't marry Lois in real life. Well, I'm sure the editors would say to themselves "because she's a deranged bitch," but then they'd trot out an explanation like this one from a story where Supergirl kept trying to fix up Superman (her cousin) with a mate:

SUPERMAN:
If I ever DID marry…it would be to someone super and lovable like…YOU! We can’t marry because we’re cousins! Though cousins CAN marry in certain countries here on Earth…we’re both from the planet KRYPTON, where the marriage of cousins was UNLAWFUL!

Darn Kryptonian law! Otherwise, Kal-El would be free to schtup his sixteen-year-old cousin!

This period was also about Superman getting in touch with his sci-fi origins (the space race being front page news and all). He'd build robots, travel through space a lot, and time ... going back to Krypton fairly often. He'd encounter Kryptonite all the time, including new colors, like Red Kryptonite which would transform him in some odd way for 24 hours, Gold, which could rob him of his powers forever, and Blue, which only hurt Bizarro.

Ah ... Bizarro ... you gotta love Bizarro. First introduced in a Superboy story as an "imperfect duplicate" of Superboy, Bizarro was a pretty tragic figure, a mishappen Frankenstein's-Monsteresque freak who wandered the streets of Smallville looking for a friend. In the end, he's destroyed and Superboy feels fine about that since he was made from "unliving material." He was clearly written with real emotions, though, so it the story reads pretty dark these days, and Superboy comes off as pretty callous.

Bizarro was brought back in a Superman story, as a much more comic figure. Soon there was a whole planet full of Bizarros who lived by a code that they have to act exactly the opposite of the way Earthlings do. The really fun part about reading those Tales of the Bizarro World stories (which incidentally, are what hooked Fred Hembeck on superhero comics) is seeing the way the authors (usually Jerry Siegel who created Superman and wrote most of the truly great Silver Age stories) would tie themselves in knots to figure out what "the opposite" of Earth is. Okay, on Bizarro World, there's a Society for the Prevention of Kindness to Animals. Fine. And they set alarm clocks to tell the when to go to bed. And they think Frankenstein is handsome. But then there's weird stuff ... mailmen bark at dogs ... but they still deliver mail. Shouldn't they, like, only give your letters back to you? Or like, insist that you remove the stamps from them ... David Mandel, who wrote that "Bizarro Jerry" episode of "Seinfeld," writes the introductory "interview" with Bizarro, where he breaks down and says he's sick of the opposite schtick:

B:It's bananas, And how about this? On the Bizarro world, people give tickets to the police. That's not imperfect. It's like some kind of bad Yakov Smirnov routine [Does bad Yakov Smirnov impression.] "In Russia, magazine reads ... you."

D: We don't have to talk about Yakov Smirnov.

B: Yes we do. 'Cause on the Bizarro World, everyone loves Yakov Smirnov. He's a friggin' genius and all the Bizarros go see him when he comes to our house and then we sit on the stage and watch him in the audience. And he's not Russian. He's Chinese.

D: That doesn't make any sense.

B: I know. .. Superman has four different books a month? Four! What do I have? None! Zero. Zero isn't the opposite of four. The opposite of four is seven. I should have seven books a month.

D: Seven isn't the opposite of four.

B: It could be. If Yakov Smirnov is going to be Chinese, then seven could be the opposite of four.

My favorite Bizarro bit was a scene from a "history pageant" where Bizarro Paul Revere rides in, sitting backwards on his horse, shouting "The British aren't coming!" (Why isn't the horse riding him? Why not "the British are leaving!"?)

Oh, and on Halloween on Bizarro World, they dress up in really scary masks of Earth Monsters like Marilyn Monroe and Jerry Lewis and Micky Mantle and John F. Kennedy.

JFK appeared in those Silver Age comics a LOT. Considering the guy was only president for two and a half years, he got a LOT of face time in Superman stories. It makes some sense ... here was a guy who looked a lot like a clean-cut sqaure jawed superhero. He was someone kids looked up to, and found more accessible than some old bald guy like Ike (hey, wasn't Luthor bald ... ?).

It's been said many times that Superman is what you want your father to be. Sure, he seems like some boring guy who wears a suit and works in an office. But you know, deep in your heart of hearts, that secretly he's the most powerful man in the world. And JFK, roughly the age of most boomer kids' parents, WAS that ... every day when he put on that suit and went to work in that office, he was the most powerful man in the world.

JFK was entrusted with Superman's secret. In fact, in one of the classic weird-ass stories of all time, JFK DISGUISES HIMSELF AS CLARK KENT in order to preserve Superman's double identity. I've never read that story, but it sounds about as weird as you can possibly get.

The most famous JFK/Superman story was one specially produced with the President's Council on Physical Fitness. It had Superman rescuing young people who were unfit and teaching them the importance of exercise. The irony was that this wasn't published until 1964. Yeah ... They ran an explanation about how it was written and drawn before the assassination and how the Johnson administration encouraged DC to publish it anyway, since the message was important. But still ... that's creepy.

And for my money, that's when the Silver Age ended ... at least for Superman. That Superman in the 60s book might better be called Superman from 1960-1963. Suddenly, the world was a lot scarier, a lot more in need of heroes. But a Superman who spent most of his time fending off Lois's advances and watching Jimmy introduce Beatles music to the ancient Hebrews didn't really fit the bill. Suddenly, it seemed a little weird that Superman, Earth's Greatest Champion spent so much time thinking about Krypton. When he'd shout "Great Rao!" (the Kryptonian sun and quasi-god) it suddenly seemed kind of insulting to the American Christian values Ma and Pa Kent instilled in him.

Meanwhile, Marvel comics were knocking issues out of the park, introducing superheroes with legitimate pain and problems, telling stories far more complex than anything DC was doing, yet still accessible to kids. Batman was being re-reinvented as the Dark Night Detective, but Superman was left in the dust. A 1970s revamp changed the window dressing (Clark became a TV reporter) but didn't make him seem any more relevant.

Then in the 80s, my favorite writer/artist, John Byrne, was hired to give Superman a makeover in time for his 50th anniversary. This "new Superman" was updated to:

A) Make him unique. He was now truly the "Last Son of Krypton." No more Supergirl, Dog, Horse, etc. ... and no more bottled city of Kandor. There's only on Kryptonian left on Earth and ...

B) He's ours! Superman was now symbolically "born" on Earth. He existed on Krypton only as an unborn embryo in a "birthing matrix" -- Krypton being reinvisioned as a sterile world without human contact. So his upbringing was entirely as a human. An American. He considered Earth his true home and himself a citizen of it. This is a part of ...

C) The MAN is more important than the SUPER. Really, if you had those powers, wouldn't you, as Superman writer Roger Stern has said, hold a press conference which began with the words "As your new king ..." ? But not Clark. No, he's humble enough and noble enough to live a mild life and HELP people. Oh by the way ...

D) He thinks of himself as Clark first, and Superman second. He's not putting on a "mild mannered" show. Why would he? He spends most of his time as Clark, why would you want to be a dweeb for 75% of your life? Oh, and nobody knows Superman even HAS a civillian identity anymore. How did they ever know in the first place? He doesn't wear a mask, so why would we think he's ever NOT Superman? This makes the whole "his disguise is just a pair of glasses?" thing much easier to swallow. Oh, and no more Superboy. Clark didn't put on the costume till adulthood.

E) Lois was much cooler.

F) Lex Luthor was an evil billionaire instead of a mad scientist.

G) There's much less Kryptonite around (how did all of it wind up on Earth anyway?)

H) Superman was not quite so ludicrously powerful. Invulnerable, super strong, flight, vision, sure. But no more flying-fast-enough-to-break-the-time-barrier and stuff.

There were other changes and, I think, they made for the best Superman comics in a LOOONG time. Sadly, the MAN OF STEEL miniseries mostly succeeded in making lesser creators think they had carte blanche to reinvent any and every hero, whenever they took over a series. And since Byrne left the books, people have started to slip a lot of the Silver Age stuff back in ... look, it was fun, it was great at the time, but all of that makes Superman a LESS VIABLE character for the 21st century.

Oh well.

So what's the point of this whole long ramble? Well, it's this ... I love Superman. Golden, Silver, Bronze, what have you. He was the centerpiece of most of my childhood fantasies and many of my adult ones, too (no, not THAT kind of fantasy, sicko).

I think about him more often than many members of my own family.

Happy B-Day Superman. Here's to many more.

Golden Boy in Hollywood

Okay ... Oscars on Sunday, let’s make some predictions.

But, y’know ... there really aren’t all that many tough races this year. Maybe Best Actor and Adapted Screenplay. Otherwise, everyone’s picking the same picks.

So here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna give you ...

A) Who I think is gonna win.

B) Who I think SHOULD win.

C) Who I would bet on in an Oscar pool.

Please note that that C is assuming your pool gives a winner for each category, rather than an over score. See ... look if you’re in a pool and EVERYBODY is picking Lord of the Rings, you should probably pick something else, or else, you’re just gonna get your own money back. In the long run, you’ll make more money.

Yeah, listen to me on this, since I’m such an experienced gambler.

(Besides, it looks like I’m just gonna agree with Entertainment Weekly on everything, so I gotta throw in something new)

Okay, on to the categories ...

BEST PICTURE

Will win: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

It has made Hollywood ludicrous amounts of money. It has pretty much universally good reviews. The voters feel a little guilty for not rewarding the trilogy yet (c’mon ... A Beautiful Mind?). Oh, and it’s the best film of the year. And likely the best EVER within its genre. Seriously, if we distinguish fantasy from sci-fi, there’s basically this movie, and Wizard of Oz and Princess Bride (which is more of a swashbuckler’s movie, like Captain Blood), maybe some animated stuff, and that’s IT.

The downside is, of course, that a lot of people don’t like fantasy at all. They reject it outright. Well, I think a lot of these people will say “yeah, but everybody says it’s so good, I’ll vote for it anyway.” And I don’t quite see them rallying around anything else. If fantasy doesn’t do it for them, Lost in Translation is likely to seem too esoteric.

Should win: LOTR: TROTK

That acronym looks like it should stand for some sort of theatrical contract. But man is it a good movie. I gushed over this a lot earlier, but seriously, I think we need to start discussing this trilogy as one of the most impressive filmmaking achievements ever.

Bet on: Mystic River.

As I said, I don’t see enough breakaway votes rallying around Lost (oldsters in the Academy will say “but nothing happens in the whole movie!”) and Seabiscuit suffers the director-not-nominated-curse. So of the remaining two, Mystic seems much more likely to play spoiler that Master and Commander

BEST DIRECTOR

Who will win: Peter Jackson

There have been some surprising splits lately, including last year, but picture and director do almost always go together.

Who should: Jackson

Remember what I said about the impressive achievement?

Bet on: Peter Weir.

As much as voters probably truly liked The Pianist, the award was largely a lifetime achievement/all-is-forgiven olive branch to Polanksi. There is some chance they’d like to do this again and ignore this roly-poly upstart Kiwi. I think Weir is more likely for a “thanks for all the movies” award, since A) Eastwood already has one and B) this is not a year when Hollywood is going to give the award to a Republican.

BEST ACTRESS
Who will win: Charlize Theron

She surprised everyone. Got ugly. Got the best reviews of the year, including Roger Ebert, the most famous critic in the country, calling her performance one of the greatest in the history of film. Plus, in recent years, the award has always been pretty much a two-actress race, as it seems to be this year with Theron and Diane Keaton. And in those races the award has gone to the youngest, prettiest actress in the race ... Okay, that’s not scientific, but let’s see ... Helen Hunt (over Judi Dench), Gwynneth Paltrow (over Cate Blanchett, who is beautiful, but not as “glam”), Hilary Swank (over Annette Benning, who is also gorgeous, but Swank was younger, got uglier for the role, and -- this is an observable factor -- got more naked), Julia Roberts (over Ellen Burstyn), Halle Berry (over Nicole Kidman, again nudity being a hot-babe tiebreaker), and Nicole Kidman (over Renee Zellweger, who is lovely, but c’mon, it’s Nicole Freakin’ Kidman). Plus, Keaton’s movie was a pretty fluffy and mediocre.

Who should win: Theron

It really is an extraordinary performance -- takes you a second to adjust to how weird this woman is, but once you’re in, you’re completely in. Oh, and by the way, Christina Ricci was awesome in it, too.

Y’know what really pissed me off? The piece Entertainment Weekly ran where they interviewed anonymous Academy members about who they were voting for. It’s scary the way these people think. “The Writer” said he was voting for Keaton because you could tell Theron was acting. Um ... you’re an idiot. Y’know why you couldn’t tell Keaton was acting? Because she was playing herself. Keaton is an excellent actress within her somewhat limited range. Theron is an actress who we all thought had a limited range and has blown us away with her depth.

Bet on: Keaton. Unless a lot of people are betting on her and your return would be minimal, in which case, I’d say Naomi Watts. But your chances of winning with Watts are pretty small.

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Sean Penn

It’s a great performance. He gave a just-as-good performance in 21 Grams. And he’s been turning out masterful performances for years without winning much. Plus, I think the Academy wants to give an outspoken, liberal, anti-war guy some recognition this year. And I think the same people who think nothing happens in Lost will think Murray “isn’t really acting.”

Should win: Tie: Penn and Bill Murray

Yeah, I’m wussing out. I’d like to see a tie. I think these are two great actors who deserve recognition. Incidentally, I don’t think either one gave the best performance of his career this year (probably Penn’s is Dean Man Walking and Murray’s is Groundhog Day, but I could change my answer tomorrow). But I have no problem with “lifetime achievement” awards, unlike some people. Really, isn’t it better to reward a real talent for all the works you neglected them for than to give it to a mediocrity who had one flash of brilliance? (I’m looking at you, Kim Basinger)

Murray will probably not be nominated again. Not as a lead, anyway. So I guess, gun to my head, he’s my pick. Also, unlike Penn, he is indisputably the lead of his movie.

Oh, and Johnny Depp? I love you, man, but as creative as Jack Sparrow was, he was a tiny bit one-note, unlike the really great unrecognized comedic performances of the 90s, Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar and Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor.

Bet on: Murray.

Depp might get some votes, but I think comedy freaks will go for Murray. Kingsley is amazing and will get some too ... in fact, if you think your return on Murray would be low, go Kingsley. But Jude Law will fall victim to the anti-Harvey revolt of 2004.

By the way, that ESPN.com piece (yeah, I know ESPN.com?) about who SHOULDN’T have won is pretty good. I don’t agree with everything they say, but at least they didn’t fall into the “Marisa Tomei shouldn’t have won for My Cousin Vinnie“ trap which would have put them in the running for “punch in the face” status.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: Tim Robbins

This one’s close, I think. But Robbins has, in general, made more good movies than Alec Baldwin and the part is showier. Plus, he’s been nominated as a director (maybe as a writer, too), and the Academy is always impressed by that. The liberal-voice vote swings slightly in Robbins favor, too, though Baldwin isn’t exactly quiet about his political views, either.

Should win: Baldwin

I found Robbins ever-so-slightly annoying. But, then again, I’m enough of an asshole to find real-life emotionally screwed up people annoying. Baldwin was so great, though. And he’s been so great, even in shitty movies for so long. To say nothing of his “SNL” work. EW once called him a character actor stuck in a leading man’s body. A role like this really lets him unleash that character side.

Bet on: Baldwin

Yeah ... I just don’t see anybody else being a worthwhile risk. Benicio Del Toro just won, Ken Watanabe is pretty stone-faced throughout. Djimon Hounsou does get to die of a disease, which is always a hit, but did anyone see the movie?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Renee Zellweger

I said this at the time, and I’m not backing down now: she's gonna win. By far the best thing in her movie, including outclassing Academy favorites like Kidman and Law. I think she may have been the only thing that kept many Academy viewers attentions. I know this is the unpredictable category, and there have been some “couldn’t anybody have been cute and feisty and southern?” digs at Zellweger. EW even gives Shoreh Aghdashloo only a 5% lower chance of winning. But for her third nod in a row, I gotta predict Renee.

Should: Zellweger

I haven’t seen Pieces of April or Thirteen. But I didn’t much care for Marcia Gay Harden in Mystic River. As for Aghdashloo ... well, she’s very good but the role does have a lot of “can I get you some tea?” type lines, whereas every moment she’s on screen, Zellweger OWNS the movie. Plus, if she wins, we’re spared another story about her going home and crying on her dog.

Bet on: Um ...

Okay ... if everybody is betting on Zellweger, I guess most people would tell you the smart money is on Aghdashloo. They may know what they’re talking about. But if your fellow poolsters are splitting between Zellweger and Aghdashloo (dear Academy, please nominated actors with easier-to-spell names next year), go for Patricia Clarkson. She’s my favorite dark horse this year and has a leading role in The Station Agent in her favor. If the others in your pool are splitting their votes every which way because they heard this is the unpredictable category, go for Zellweger.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: Lost in Translation

The Academy will want to give it something. Coppola senior won at least one writing award before he got a directing statuette. And the other nominees? Well, Nemo will be considered too slight. I don’t know much about Barbarian Invasion or Dirty Pretty Things but I doubt the academy does either. In America ... may be a little too maudlin, though that ET scene is killer.

(By the way, I saw In America in-flight, and liked it more than I expected)

Should win: Finding Nemo

Hey, I said it was one of the best films of the year -- the best, with only LOTR jockeying for the top spot. I know a thing or two about writing quality stuff for kids, and rarely has it been done as well as this.

Bet on: Nemo

This is a risk. EW even puts In America at only five percent lower than Lost. But I don’t see that. And maybe they’ll want to reward Pixar for breaking away from Disney.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will Win: Mystic River

Okay, this is a real race. EW has Mystic just edging out Seabiscuit. My feeling is that the pendulum has swung so far away from Biscuit that it has no chance, though. I think they’re writing off LOTR a little too easily, but yeah, it probably will fall by the wayside.

Should win: LOTR

Have I mentioned I really like this movie?

Bet on: American Splendor

Sometimes they get creative in the writing categories, and this won plenty of critics’ awards. Seems like a possible spoiler if the three Best Picture noms cancel each other out.

As for other races ... Nemo will win best animated feature. Fog of War should get best Documentary. LOTR will probably get most technical categories, though I’d like to see Girl With a Pearl Earring win art direction and cinematography. “Into the West” will probably win best song, but my vote is, of course, for “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow” from A Mighty Wind.

Other predictions ...

My prediction for which songs Crystal will sing in his medley ...

“King of the Jews” from JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR for “Lord of the Rings.”

“Turning Japanese” for Lost in Translation (by the way, I still can’t believe that song isn’t really about masturbation)

“Moon River” for Mystic River.

Don’t count out “Master of the House” from LES MISERABLES for Master and Commander, but I think it’ll be something sea-shantyish like “What Do you Do with a Drunken Sailor?” (alluding to Russell Crowe’s party-hearty rep), “Blow the Man Down,” or “Popeye the Sailor Man.”

“Fugue for Tinhorns (I Got the Horse Right Here)” from GUYS AND DOLLS for Seabiscuit.

Plus...

Billy Crystal will make one too many jokes about Janet Jackson.

There will be at least one “Oscar statuette as 'my precious’” joke.

There will be a protest of non-clappers when Schwarzenegger is introduced.

They will cut to Tom Cruise whenever Nicole Kidman is onstage and vice versa.

Political statements will be a little more subtle this year, but still ardent.

They’ll do some sort of schtick in the performance of “Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.”

No nipples.

Okay, that’s it. Keep in mind, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

THOTS: They Call Me ... Mr. Pibb

So, as I’ve said, I’m thinking of changing the name of the blog. Here are some options:

Life in a Breadbowl
Not Like a Fountain
Kaufman and Harts and Minds
You Missed the Funny Part (or just “Missing the Funny Part”)
Mirth Becomes a Feast
Teflon Brainpan

What do you guys like?

Amanda, who grew up with a crush on Rick Astley, is thinking about getting the Clay Aiken album. That means I'd have to buy the Ruben Studdard album just for balance.

In ten years, nothing is going to look sillier that this gelled-up spiky hair look guys are wearing now. And the triceratopsesque-ridge-of-hair-right-off-the-forehead look will make the Flock of Seagulls cut look downright sensible.

So it seems that Fred Hembeck actually READS this blog from time to time. I thought he was just being polite linking here, but we’ve actually exchanged emails where he references topics addressed here. This is so ... freaky great. Look, I know many of you don’t know who Fred is, and, no, it’s not like Charles Schulz or Garry Trudeau was riffing with me but Fred Hembeck was a BIG part of my childhood and adolescence. He really walks that delicate line so well, where his comic book-related humor comes from love for the art form, rather than the contempt that fills projects like “Marville” or anything published in “mainstream” media.

My vote for “Most Annoying Cartoon Voice of the 1980s” is Smurfette? You?

Written on the window of a tattoo parlor in Canterbury, about a block from the Cathedral: “Piercing of the Month: Nipple!!”

Written on the label of a British chocolate bar: “Packed with Glucose!” Good, because I find most candy bars don’t have enough of that ...

No matter how far I go in life, I will never be able to hide from the fact that the song “Wind Beneath my Wings” was played at my wedding reception.

Wow. On her “SNL” appearance, Christina Aguilera did a really good Kim Catrall impression. It’s like discovering a Unified Skank Theory.

Pick your favorite simile ... Acquiring Alex Rodriguez and moving him to third while keeping Derek Jeter at short is like ...

A) If Dana Carvey wanted to rejoin the “SNL” cast and Lorne Michaels made him start over as a Featured Player

B) If Al Gore told John Kerry he’d like to be his running mate but Kerry said, “nah, I’m gonna go with Lieberman”

C) If somebody offered you a slice of homemade apple pie and you said, “gee, I already have this Twinkie ...”

Yeah, the Yankees are probably going to be the favorites to win the division again. But we can take some solace in the knowledge that the Braves are gonna suck.

When I officially compile that “punch in the face” list, people with “Kill Your Television” bumperstickers are gonna be really high on it.

Awkward living-on-a-women’s-college-campus moment of the month: having the Simmons student who works in the mailroom hand me my Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Part of me feels a little uncomfortable when the cafeteria busts out the “soul food” for Black History Month. The watermelon was a little insulting, though it’s not like I’m gonna turn down the ribs.

Finally saw Miracle. Y’know, considering it’s a jingoistic piece of nationalism where the invisible hero is Ronald Reagan ... I LOVED IT!

I was at J.P. Licks the other day and they were selling muffin tops. That’s so cool. They have to, HAVE TO start selling pudding skin singles, too.

Wanna be condescended to? Go shopping in Brookline sometime.

This current fashion trend towards pink and green as a hip combination ... it’s like Amanda is Queen of the Earth.

Am I the only heterosexual male on the planet who doesn’t find Lucy Liu very attractive?

I don’t care what anybody says, I love all the Red Sox, and all their hairstyles.



The most backhanded compliment I’ve received in recent memory: (As I’m being measured for my costume for LOSING THE GAME) “Y’know, a lot of actors spend so much time at the gym that it’s hard to fit them into period costumes. I’m glad you don’t.”

I don’t have anything particularly insightful to say about this, but the “Simpsons” episode that aired on Sunday the 22nd was very possible the best one in ten years.

Does anybody prefer full service gas stations anymore? Seriously, aren’t they, like, LESS convenient now?

I can’t believe I forgot to mention Jack Paar in my RIP entry a while back. I don’t think I’m going to do any more of those, but let’s take a second to acknowledge that A) He was very funny. B) He was very classy. C) Jay Leno sucks.

When somebody was giving me a URL over the phone a while ago, she actually said the “http://” Who still does that? Isn’t that like specifying what continent you’re sending a letter to, or writing “AD” on the dates of your checks?

Is there a more embarassing celebrity than John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon at this point?

Y’know the part in Back to the Future where Doc Brown is hired by Middle Eastern terrorists to build a nuclear bomb isn’t quite as cute anymore.

I went to a birthday party for an aunt of mine who was turning 40. They had a male stripper come. He went with the typical “dress as a cop who has come because there have been noise complaints.” Isn’t that kind of old hat? Couldn’t he have been a lost deliveryman? A chef trying to supplant the hired caterer? A disgruntled beekeeper ... “All this noise is disturbing my bees! It’s a very ... sticky situation!” (Cue music)

Yes, it saddens me that the brief period where I was a minor local celebrity in Western Massachusetts seems to be over.

How much longer do we have to just assume Danny Ainge has some sort of master plan for the Celtics, and when do we just all agree that he’s batshit insane?

Howard Stern vs. Clear Channel ... who the hell do you root for there?

Okay, so there’s Dr Pepper, Dr. Thunder, Dr. Slice and several other “Dr.” sodas with the same basic flavor. But then there’s Mr. Pibb. Did he drop out of grad school before he got the PhD? Or is he like a high school principal, where he has a doctorate but asks the kids to call him “Mister”?

The following things NEED to be released on DVD:

“Late Night With Conan O’Brien”: The Best of Andy Richter
The Complete Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
“Quantum Leap”
“Mission Hill”
“The Dana Carvey Show”
“The Baseball Bunch”
The second season of the 1990s “Fantastic Four” cartoon, which, I’m told,
was good.

What would you add to the list?

Ash Wednesday, Pikachu Thursday

So the sun has set on another Ash Wednesday, so called because this is the date when Mel Gibson incinerated his career.

Seriously, I have no idea what to think of this movie. I personally don't want to see it because, apparently, it consists of two hours of intensely detailed torture.

So let's talk about the real Ash Wednesday ... it's a day guaranteed to make me look like a boob among boobs. See, every year, without fail, I do a double take the first time I see someone with the ash on his or her forehead. I am savvy enough not to say "you've got something on your forehead." But I always seem to forget, and have that split-second "what a weird birthmark" moment.

I'm sure it's a great annoyance to Christians to have everybody you meet have that puzzled look at they contemplate your brow. It must be like how women feel when men talk to their breasts.

So, I'm sorry. I only do it once a year.

And it's got me thinking. I wrote this piece last October about Yom Kippur. It was about how I do fast that day, even though I'm not a practicing Jew. Basically, I do it out of a desire to connect to my heritage ... well, 25% of my heritage.

Yet, the other 75% of me is of Christian extraction. What do I do to honor them?

Well, I do the fun stuff ... the Christmas presents and the Cadbury Creme Eggs. But not so much the heavy lifting.

And there's a level where it would be hypocritical to do much. I mean, since I don't believe in the divinity of Jesus, it would be a little insulting to engage in rituals created to worship him. Then again, I don't really believe in the God of the Hebrews either, yet I fast on the Day of Atonement.

But, like I said, I don't do it to atone, I do it for ancestral connection.

So ... what about Lent?

I'm guessing most of my readers have heard Jon Stewart's routine about the two holidays: "We have great holidays! Yom Kippur is a great holiday! You fast for one day, and all your sins are forgiven! Top that! ... with your little 'Lent.' What is that, 40 days of self-deprivation? Even in sin you people are paying retail!"

But I think it's good for you. Even if I don't feel that giving up something would be necessary to honor God, I think it might do me some good to sacrifice something, to test my self-control and will power, to remind myself how fortunate I am.

So, for the next forty days, I will go without ... gummy.

That's right. No bears, no worms, no sharks, no grapefruit slices. That last one will be the toughest, since I have come to regard them as a vital food group.

Look, I know this is a pretty puny thing to give up. It's not like I'm cutting off all sweets, or all junk food. And even if I were, it's not like I'm really giving up something I can't live without.

In all honesty, this is gonna do a lot more harm to my local Star Market than to me, since I'm probably the one keeping the candy bins in business.

But I've got to start somewhere, to see if I can do what a lot of my ancestors have done before me.

I'll keep you updated.

Putting the Fat Back in Fat Tuesday

I suppose I can’t really imagine how Tom Brady feels winning two Super Bowls in three years before age 27, but keep in mind that I have been a judge at a chocolate chip cookie bake off TWICE. He had his childhood dreams ... I had mine.

Look, I’ll never play second base for the Red Sox. No radioactive spider, blast of cosmic rays, or visit from Guardian of the Galaxy with a power ring is going to transform me into a superhero.

But I have been a judge in a chocolate chip cookie bake off.

Twice.

That is a dream fulfilled.

This is one of the perks of living here at Simmons. Like Hogwarts, the school has an ongoing contest between residence halls for the Simmons Cup. There are several events every year ... a field day, a Christmas decoration contest, etc. But my favorite is, of course, tonight.

Some people look askance at my being a judge. Since Amanda and I live in one of the halls, won’t we be biased towards their cookies? The RDs and their spouses a re prohibited from judging, lest they should play favorites.

But those who know me know better. I take cookie quality FAR too seriously to allow something as petty as “loyalty to my neighbors” to enter into the matter. And since Amanda has to deal wit h childish complaints from denizens of EVERY dorm, she’s not going to favor one over another.

So it came to pass on Tuesday night that I and my bride sat at the judge’s table, lords of all we surveyed.

There were two categories -- Chocolate Chip and Original Recipe. Every dorm presented an example from each category.

Last year, mistakes were made. People tried too hard to make their chocolate chip products be “more than just chocolate chips” as if you could possibly make something better than a chocolate chip cookie. So we had to chew our way through oatmeal infused things, nut chunkies, etc. Unsurprisingly, we gave first place to the Hall that just said “screw it, dump in a ton of chocolate chips.”

The Original Recipes of ‘02-’03 were a weak batch, too. I think the prize went to a maple thing just because it was consistent to its theme.

But this year was a whole ‘nuther story. Of the eight Halls, easily five or six presented masterful variations on the chocolate chip. I gave first place, and my fellow judges agreed, to a cookie which incorporated oatmeal and nuts, but didn’t lose sight of the essence of what makes a chocolate chip the king of kookies. Though, in all honesty, I could have easily given the top slot to a great chewy vanilla-y one or a great more-than-a-hint-of-orange delicacy.

And the New Originals were great, too. There was a really nice orange cookie made with Tang (and the Hall that made that one really ran with the theme, decorating with orange and making an orange creamsicle punch). Two Halls made Hello Dollies, which ... well, it’s a stretch to call them cookies, but not so much a stretch to call them the most delicious thing EVER. Another Hall reinvented the snickerdoodle by putting an actual mini-Snickers inside a peanut butter cookie ... GENIUS! Some of the experiments weren’t quite so successful -- turns out making a cookie with Frosted Flakes falls a little short of grrrr-eat! -- but I gotta applaud originality.

This is why I was a little disappointe d in my fellow judges. They gave the award to a molasses cookie ... mind you a very well done molasses cookie, but the category was best ORIGINAL Recipe.

As a veteran judge, I knew how to work this -- how to take notes, how to pace myself, etc. I al so understood the scoring. Some of my fellow judges didn’t seem to get that the score of 1-8 was a RANKING, not a score. So you HAD to have an 8, a 7, a 6, etc. It was like I was chief justice.

Anyway, a wonderful evening. I’m bloated and happy.

But y’know, wh ile I am seeing childhood dreams fulfilled, it does occur to me that Pokey Reese isn’t as young as he used to be, so the Sox could be looking for a backup ...

Forgetful Jones’ Diary

I think one final London entry, and then I'll return to the usual headshot.

Here's a rundown of our time there ...

THURSDAY: We touch down, early in the morning and tube it over to our hotel. We drop off bags and headed into town. When we get off the udnerground, Parliament and Big Ben were RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. That always shocks me, when monuments are RIGHT THERE.

(yes, technically, Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the clock itself, but … shut up)

We take a Rick-Steves recommended walk, squeezing in Westminster Abbey on the way. The Abbey is amazing, of course, but what astounded me is how it's just FULL OF STUFF. Every corner has some tomb or monument. I know, I'm sounding like the ultimate ugly American here saying "gaw-lee, there shore is a lotta history here." But that's hard to avoid. What I truly love is that there's a memorial to Darwin there. See, in other countries, people are aware that the realms of science and religion don't have to agree.

We wind up in Trafalgar Square, then double back for a visit to the Cabinet War Rooms, which is where Churchill's top men holed up during WWII. It's all painstakingly recreated, complete with (sadly non audioanimatronic) dummies. Churchill is high up on my "gotta read a good biography of this guy" list.

Up to Leicester Square and the West End to get theatre tickets and soak up the vibes. Then back to the hotel, up EIGHTY-NINE stairs, CARRYING OUR LUGGAGE, and bed. (Incidentally there were four beds in our room, because apparently the hotel manager was Alan Ayckbourne)

FRIDAY -- Discovering the hotel didn't given us body soap, I get lost prowling around the streets trying to find a store open at 6:30AM which will sell us some. Eventually, I find the soap and the hotel, but it got scary for a while.

We take in the Tower of London, guided by a Beefeater. Quite entertaining and informative, and it's interesting how it walks the line between comedy ("and then we cut off the head of ANOTHER innocent woman!") and reverence for an often tragic history ("and then we cut off the head of another INNOCENT WOMAN!") Weirdest thing: a Playmobil-sponsored exhibit of children's armor, which included a lot of … Playmobil toys.

Lunch, where I learned that A) water isn't free with meals and B) you have to ask for the check, even when you CLEARLY ARE DONE WITH YOUR MEAL AND WANT TO LEAVE. I know, I'm being an ugly American again, but it was pretty absurd.

British Museum next. A cashier tricks us into getting two separate audio tours, which strands Amanda at the unearthly dull exhibition about the Enlightenment ("Isn't it fascinating how people classified things? Have a look at these drawers!"), while I get to see the cool stuff. The Rosetta Stone is the biggie, of course, but there's a ton of fascinating things, among them the well-preserved remains of a Celtic human sacrifice. Sadly, we can't stay long enough, because we had to head to ...

The theatre for STONES IN HIS POCKETS, discussed earlier.

SATURDAY -- Valentine's Day, we take a bus tour, though, sadly, we've blown it and missed the changing of the guards, which only happens on odd-numbered days. The tour is still cool, and the fun thing is we get to use the buses for free for the rest of the day as transportation -- which did mean we heard the same Margaret Thatcher joke twice.

National Gallery next, where we got a great tour from a straight-from-central-casting art historian. He spent over an hour on only four paintings, but it was really neat stuff. We had to breeze through the highlights (Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Raphael ... y’know, nobody too important) and move on.

We took a Thames cruise, which was great, if a bit hectic and the non-English speakers had no qualms about drowning out the recording, which was telling us what we were looking at.

We zipped through Harrods, which is justifiably famed for having everything ... just as long as you're willing to pay a fortune for it. Some of the clothes I didn't even feel comfortable looking at, for fear I would devalue them with my presence. Biggest queue? Krispy Kreme Donuts.

Dinner, Indian food again. While dealing with some misbehaving contact lenses, I manage to lose the camera in the bathroom. We never did get it back, despite several more calls and visits to the restaurant. I feel unbearably stupid for this, taking a little solace in the knowledge that we had recently changed rolls of film, so we didn't lose too many PICTURES. We make do with a crappy disposable for the rest of the trip.

SUNDAY -- Bus trip to Stonehenge and Bath. This was with the weird-slang speaking tour guide, who occasionally sounded German.

Stone Henge is every bit as weird, mysterious, and cool as it's cracked up to be. Apparently, it's going to be much harder to get there, soon -- you'll have to park much farther away and trek across fields and stuff. So we were lucky to see it now.

Bath is also great. The Roman baths themselves are fascinating. Also fascinating? Despite repeated warnings that the water is highly contaminated, people freely dipping their hands in it and drinking it. What did you bring back from England, Dave? Botulism!

And the town of Bath is absurdly beautiful -- the pinnacle of planned-out Georgian architecture. I have a vague memory of walking the streets of Bath with my mother at age four, in uncomfortable shoes, wondering why all the houses looked the same. I got a bit more out of it this time.

Back to town for dinner and more theatre tickets. We miss a chance to see the Comedy Store Players, but wind up behind a barricade gawking at celebrities leaving the BAFTAs (the British Academy Awards). I listed whom we saw, elsewhere, but I will mention that by far the stars most interested in waving to the crowd were Ian McKellan and Andy (Gollum) Serkis. I guess they labored in anonymous respectability for so long that they're thrilled to be global pop stars.

MONDAY -- We meet up with Amanda's cousin Adar and her boyfriend who are on their way to Africa to go on safari and climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Suddenly, our trip seems somewhat puny. But keep in mind that Adar's NEXT trip is going to include running a marathon in Antarctica, so she is clinically insane.

We try to get into St. Paul's but the admission is a bit steep, and since the place is being renovated, and currently covered in scaffolding, we decide to save it for another trip.

We hit the Globe Theatre, which absolutely blows me away. Even if it weren't a near-perfect recreation of Shakespeare's space, I would still think it's one of the coolest performance spaces I've ever seen. I cannot WAIT to see a show there.

Adar and Jeremy depart and Amanda and I stroll along the Thames and across it to the London Eye. This is this new gigantic Ferris Wheel just down the river and across from Parliament. Yes, it’s a bit incongruous to see it sharing the skyline with Big Ben and St. Paul’s, but it offers a great view of town, even on a cloudy day.

We bus/stroll to Buckingham Palace and St. James Place, reminding us that we NEED to see a changing of the guard sometime.

Dinner at this Wagamama place you keep hearing about, where we see Luke Perry on the way and Alexis Denisof inside. Perry is playing Harry to Denisof’s wife, Alyson Hannigan’s Sally in the stage version of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. Love the movie, have no intention of seeing the play.

On to TAMING OF THE SHREW. Yes, theatre on Monday night. It’s so civilized.

TUESDAY -- Another bus tour, this time to Leeds Castle, Canterbury, and Dover. This time our guide is a more traditional British matron type, one who disapproves of Mick Jagger being knighted and sings Noel Coward songs to us … have I mentioned it’s not just the cows who are mad in this country?

Leeds Castle is exactly what you’d expect a British castle to look like, complete with moat, except that the place was lived in as recently as the 1920s. So plenty of the rooms look jarringly modern. Also you can rent it out for conferences … hmm … hotel conference room or castle, lemme see …

We are a little late for the bus because we were exploring a hedge maze and this irritates Myrtle. Yes, her name is Myrtle.

Canterbury is a typical looking town, which happens to have a legendary Cathedral in the middle. Contrasting it to Wesminster, I give it points on architecture, minus a few on exhibits.

We only get a glimpse of the white cliffs of Dover … but really, how much can you do but say, “yep, those sure are some white cliffs!”

Back to town for MAMMA MIA. On the tube ride home, we pass a busker singing “Homeward Bound.” We are … but we wish we weren’t.

WEDNESDAY – Wake up at the crack of dawn in plenty of time to miss our flight. We catch another one.

Land in Boston where it’s cold, people are much ruder on the subway, and the Yankees now have Alex Rodriguez … did we have to come back?

As you can tell by how we “zipped by” this and “rushed through” that, we didn’t have time to see everything we wanted. Amazingly, you can’t “do” London in just six days.

So it’s a pretty safe bet we’ll go back … probably without the 23-year gap I had between my first two visits.

I mean, where else are we gonna go? Marathon running in Antarctica?

So I took a butcher's up the apples and pears ...

Dave asked me to describe the rules of cricket, so here we go …

The teams consist of eleven players each, though, if the game is being played under King’s Brass/Queen’s Bronze rules, it may be as many as fifteen, or as few as zero (though the zero-player games tend to be a bit dull).

The players on each team include a Bowler, a Striker, a Non-Striker, a Striped-Bowler, a Wicket-Keeper, a Cricket-Weeper, a Biker, a Streaker, a Barrister, a Cannister, and an Ana-Baptist. Any additional positions are generally just referred to as “Nigel.”

The batsman stands, grasping his bat (or “dorking flange”) in front of the “wicket” (or “ewok”). The bowler, providing he has confirmed his family status with the umpire, and eaten between three and six sticky buns, “delivers” the ball towards the wicket, at which point one of three things will happen:

A) The batsman will hit the ball, scoring at least one “run”
B) The ball will hit the wicket, shaking loose the “stumps” from the “bails” and the “koopas” from the "lakitus" and scoring a “googlie”
C) The ball will hit the batsman, scoring a “concussion”

If the latter two occur, the batsman is “out” in the sense that he is revealed to be a homosexual, ostracized by his family, and unable to retain his seat in the House of Lords.

If the batsman strikes the ball he must run to the “crease” unless he is wearing “flat front khakis” in which case he must “belt them and cinch them.”

The batsman must touch the end of the “crumpet” with his bat in order to score a run. If he fails to do this, he is deemed a “foppish dandy who thinks his drundle is macaroni.” (keep in mind that "drundle" is pronounced “weskit”)

The batsman may then attempt to touch the opposing players with his bat, gaining an extra run for every splinter or shard of bat left lodged in his opponents' flesh, following a cavity search performed by the “Master of the Revels.”

If the batted ball is caught by one of the fielders (or “Cotswolds”), the innings is over (in cricket, the word "innings" is both a singular and a plural, as well as a tasty spread for toast).

During the “tea interval” players are encouraged to switch teams, smoke some "righteous ganga," and claim varies foreign territories in the name of the Queen.

Following the interval, the positions are reverse, in the sense that the bowling team now bats and the batting team “takes it in the hinder.”

Play continues until the umpire declares one team “the fanciest.” Baronetcies are distributed and the hemophiliacs receive transfusions (the ones who weren’t adequately sporting get mad-cow blood).

Look, Dave, WHY THE HELL DID YOU THINK I WOULD KNOW THE RULES OF CRICKET? I wasn’t exactly called upon to cover it all that much for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier.

Seriously, I looked it up and found the rules here …

http://usa.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/EXPLANATION_OF_CRICKET.html

But that page includes such sentences as:

“If the batsmen run one or three (or five! rare, but possible), then they have swapped ends and their striker/non-striker roles are reversed for the next ball (unless the ball just completed is the end of an over).”

And if that makes any more sense than what I said, then I should be boiled in my own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through my heart.

Queuing up for Ice-Cream During the Interval

So, did I see any plays in London? … um, duh.

Man, do I like British theatre. I think Arthur Miller got it right. In England, they have “the theatre” in the states we have “shows.” It’s a part of life over there; taking in a show is nearly as reflexive as a trip to the cinema. Christmas isn’t Christmas till you’ve been to see a panto. This is exactly what I wish American Theatre were. But we’ve made it such a “special occasion” thing that it’s slowly dying.

Geez, what else do they do right? Cheaper tickets (though, when you wake up and realize the exchange rate is nearly two dollars to a pound …), and you can take drinks or ice cream right to the seats! Aren’t THEY supposed to be the uptight ones?

Only irritating things – paying for playbills.

Anyway, the shows …

We took in a nice variety: a modern comedy, a Shakespeare, and a musical.

STONES IN HIS POCKETS – This is a two-actor Irish comedy, which has had a run on Broadway but was new to me. The actors play, principally, two extras in a Hollywood period romance being shot in their small town in Ireland. They also play every other part in the story – other villagers, the star, crew, and director of the film, and plenty more. Male and female parts, both. Like an Irish GREATER TUNA (GREATER POTATER?), except with, like, a plot. A chance for actors to really tear it up, and these two did. Wish I knew their names, but since I would have had to BUY MY PROGRAMME …

Anyway, a very funny, and often touching and human story. My one complaint is with the ending …

SPOILERS




In the end, the two extras decide that their own story is worth telling and set about to write a movie about themselves, “where the stars are extras and the extras are stars.” They pitch it to the director who tells them it’s too depressing and people don’t go to the cinema to be depressed, because, “that’s what theatre is for.”

So the happy ending is that they write the play that we just saw. Sorry. I think that’s lame and masturbatory. Couldn’t ANY play/movie/novel end that way? “Hmm … too bad Willy crashed his car and killed himself,” thinks Mrs. Loman, “I wonder if I could get a book deal.” And I’m just kind of sick of show business success being the measuring stick for ALL worldly achievement.


END OF SPOILERS

But it’s a great show. I really hope New Century does it soon with Buzz Roddy. It’s screaming out for both of them.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Since we didn’t make it out to Stratford, and the Globe doesn’t have shows in the winter, we were very lucky to find a Royal Shakespeare Company production in the West End. (A week later, we could have seen Judi Dench in ALL’S WELL)

This production was in rep with a production of THE TAMER TAMED, done by same cast. TAMER is, it seems, a sort of sequel to SHREW, which John Fletcher wrote some years after Shakespeare’s death. We didn’t get to see it, which was okay by me. I wanted the real SHREW, not SHREW TWO: LOST IN NEW YORK.

Truly an excellent production. Likely the funniest Shakespeare I’ve ever seen and one of the best as well. Wonderfully acted and designed, energetically paced, everything you could want.

Oh, except that the play is pretty itch-inducing. No matter what you do, it’s really hard not to find a lot of misogyny in the play. Was Shakespeare sexist? Well, he was certainly a lot LESS so than 99% of his contemporaries, but yes, this is a play where we are meant to root for a man to suck the spirit out of a woman.

Is it more complicated than that? Of course, Shakespeare is ALWAYS more complicated than that. And, of course, the RSC recognized this. They went out of their way to depict Kate and Petrucchio’s relationship as something peculiar and special, certainly healthier than the others in the play and actually much more about mutual respect than outward surfaces indicate.

The problems are A) that doesn’t really match up with the text and B) it doesn’t make Pete’s methods any less eyebrow-raising. He breaks down Kate’s resistance with the same techniques that had that Cardassian guy making Picard say there were three lights. (ahem)

SHREW is basically a first draft for MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, which is arguably the best comedy in the canon. So why not just do MUCH ADO?

Well, hell, if that’s your logic, why do ALL MY SONS when you could do DEATH OF A SALESMAN? Why do COME BLOW YOUR HORN when you can do ODD COUPLE? Why do INTERTWINED when you could do INSTANT MESSAGE? (ahem)

Well, because the earlier plays all have a lot of merit. Variety is the spice of life. And first draft Shakespeare is still better than … pretty much anything.

Anyway, excellent production, and really anything I say needs to be taken with a I-didn’t-see-TAMER grain of salt. How can I really address the way they addressed the themes in the original when I don’t know how they wrapped them up in the sequel.

MAMMA MIA!

Yes, the Abba musical. And you know what? It was great fun. Apparently, when I was an infant my mother used to sing “Dancing Queen” to me and I would dance. Perhaps the first example of women in my life trying to turn me gay.

But the point is, I kinda like Abba. I’d take their stuff over 90% of all the pop songs of the last 10 years. “Take a Chance on Me” is probably my favorite – though I prefer the cover Erasure did.

And the show works better than it should. Some of the transitions into songs are forced, and the plot is very slight. But it’s toe-tapping fun.

Oh, the plot … a young woman was raised by her single mother, never knowing who her father was. They live on a Greek island where the mother runs a taberna. The daughter is getting married and she decides to read her mother’s old diary to see whom she was sleeping with nine months before she gave birth. She narrows the field to three candidates and invites them all to the wedding. When they show up, they all have baggage, and it’s not clear who the father is. Mother questions her past, daughter questions her present, farcical goings-on ensue when every one of the three men assumes he’s the father and offers to walk the daughter down the aisle. The second act gets wrapped up very fast so they can reprise several numbers. Lycra and bell-bottoms abound.

Here’s what interested me: in a sad majority of musicals, the male characters are interesting and the women are generic. The reverse is true here. The women rule and the men are space-fillers. The three possible fathers have some degree of personality, though the one who was the mother’s true love is pretty dull (it may have been the actor’s fault). But the daughter’s fiancé is unearthly bland. I suppose turnabout is fair play, but couldn’t EVERYBODY be interesting?

And how do I feel about putting together a musical out of existing pop songs? Well, since that’s how Singin’ in the Rain was created, and that’s one of my favorite films, I can’t complain. I’d rather see this done than see yet another movie-based show. And the two B’s from Abba do have some experience in musical theatre, since they wrote CHESS. So I think there’s no room for snobbery about whether this is an “authentic” musical or what have you.

And clearly, this is a way to bring in new audience members. There was a pair of 30something women a few rows down from us who LOVED this show. They were dancing in their chairs with every number. Hey, great. Like I’ve said, anything that helps people to realize that live theatre is a unique experience. And maybe once they’ve seen this they’ll say, “Hey, that was fun. Let’s see another show sometime, even if it doesn’t include the song I lost my virginity to.” (I’m making some assumptions about these women’s lives, I realize)

This does raise the question … what other songwriters could you build a show around? Lennon and McCartney spring to mind, though many of their best songs probably aren’t generic enough to be fit into a plot in “here we need a love song, here we need a dance number” style. I had an idea years ago for a musical based on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album, about the “poor boys and pilgrims” who are coming to Graceland. I also had that idea for a Rogers & Hart show set at Vassar after WWII when they had a handful of male students there on the GI Bill.

But who else? Billy Joel’s been done. Amanda mentioned Madonna, though that would probably have to BE the Madonna story. Springsteen? Um … I dunno. Stones? Well, only if the whole cast could sing like Jagger.

Ideas?

THOTS: A Fart a Minute

I’m gonna give you a slightly Eurofied THOTS today. Slightly longer, slightly more in-depth … devoid of ranch dressing.

I assure you, I have more thought-out, intellectual experiences from and opinions of my week in London. I’ll get to those later, once I’m on a semi-regular sleep schedule.

Before we begin, some shout-outs to my fill-in gang:

DAN – So you don’t care for the discussions of comic books? Well, I’ve recently received a link from Fred Hembeck (of Fred Sez bloggage), under the listing “Comics Bloggers, Mostly,” so it looks like I’ll have to include the occasional homage to four-color fantasy.

And I’ll have you know I never once visited this site in England. Never even dropped by an Internet café … came back to more porn spam than you can shake a stick at, if that’s your idea of a good time.

YARON – Well, yes, I do think that was more Jackie Harvey than me. And I have never said I hate Bush. I try very hard not to hate any human being. Loathe, disrespect, desire the public humiliation and eventual imprisonment? Sure. But I ain’t got time to hate.

Oh, and don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you actually wrote 261 words in praise of the Bush twins.

ABE – Yeah, the Goofy/Pluto thing is a little old-hat. But nobody ever mentions the other weird one – Mickey is a rodent who is only two heads shorter than Goofy, Horace Horsecollar, and Pete*. But Chip and Dale are rodents who are rodent-sized, live in trees, and in some incarnations, can’t talk at all. Clearly, in the Disneyverse the lines of animal, anthropomorph, and human are ill-defined – especially once you figure in those weird dog-humans Carl Barks used to draw.

*That villain who was the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in Mickey’s Christmas Carol. And yes, his name is just “Pete.” Sometimes it’s been “Pegleg Pete” “Pistol Pete” and “Black Pete,” but I think his official Disney name is just … Pete. Or maybe it’s “Bad Pete.” Oh, and his leg magically grew back in the 80s.

And before we get to the heart of today’s business, let’s welcome some new blog links. All four are comedians, and all four are probably funnier than I:

Max Silvestri.com – Is technically a blog-cum-website, but it passes muster here. Max is a friend of Abe’s and mine and, in about a year, has made himself one of the funniest, fastest rising comics in Boston. Please visit his site and laugh yourself to near regurgitation at his short films, two of which costar Abe.

The Reverend Tim McIntire – Also blurs the blog/website line. I haven’t met Tim personally, though Abe and Max have. He’s a very funny Boston comic who amazed me with the rapidity he came up with a truly great joke on the day Hussein was captured: “His big plan to hide from us was to live in somebody’s basement and grow a beard? You add a Playstation and that describes the lives of half the people I went to high school with.”

So it’s come to this – Well, I think that’s the name of the blog. It’s the mouthpiece of Ross Garmil. Ross and I used to chat fairly frequently in my days on Usenet. I think we met on alt.tv.muppets and were soon regulars on alt.stupidity. Ross is another Boston comedy godling.

travis tack’s brain – I’ve only met Travis once, but he’s a swell fella, and damned young. He’s Abe’s girlfriend Molly’s brother. An expat American living and getting into a comedy career in England.


And now … the THOTS

Okay, I didn’t get a lot of American news while I was gone. Let me get this straight: The Muppets offended Quebec, A-Rod dropped out of the race, George Steinbrenner hired Conan O’Brien, and Disney bought Howard Dean?

My favorite airline name? “Air Canada Jazz.” I have this image of pilots deviating from the flight plane to improvise, doing scales for an hour as they loop around Thunder Bay, announcing that the flight crew is going to lay out for a while so they can shoot up …

Turns out London is the place to go to see American celebrities. A list of the ones Amanda and I saw: Luke Perry, Alexis Denisof, Renee Zellweger, Benicio DelToro, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, and Jon Voight. This was mostly because the BAFTAs were going on as we were walking through Leicester Square. Can you imagine if they held the Oscars in Times Square? Pande-flippin’-monium. But in England, it was all quite polite. Women were even getting on men’s shoulders without the crowd demanding to see their breasts. (I should mention there were SOME British celebrities there – Tim Curry, Emma Thompson, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan – and a few from countries which are essentially England – Peter Jackson, Naomi Watts)

My favorite in-flight movie edit of the trip: In the opening of Intolerable Cruelty, Geoffrey Rush is singing along to “The Boxer,” and the modified lyrics include the phrase “the come-ons from those guys on Seventh Avenue.” Look, I understand if you didn’t want to have the word “whores” in your movie, but isn’t the change much dirtier?

I have thoroughly screwed up my ability to know which way to look while crossing the street.

So THAT'S where I left my piranha! And here I thought the airport lost it.

I think the tour guide who ran our bus tour to Stone Henge was out of her bleedin’ mind. She constantly called children “kiddywinks” and women “ladybabes” and referred to death as “popping your clocks.” That’s not British slang, that’s, like, Gungan – “Meesa gon’ show you Roman Baths now!”

Speaking of Roman Baths, there are, like, a thousand Starbucks in London … wait, hear me out. Romans came to England and built baths, temples, etc. Americans come there and they leave overpriced coffee shops. Millennia from now, archaeologists will be trying to figure out what the tureens were for and how on earth the smallest cup was called “tall.”

Remember me complaining about the movie being called Lion King 1 ½? Well, the British seem to agree with me, since it’s called Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata there. It’s gonna get confusing when Disney releases THEIR Lion King 3. Also, they’re much more upfront about the movie’s flatulence humor. In London, I bought a few copies of The Beano, a comic book I used to read as a kid. One featured 1) a free whoopee cushion and 2) a one-page advert for the video which uses the word “fart” FIVE times:

“With jokes galore, plenty of smelly farts along the way, you’re sure to find the real meaning of Hakuna Matata!” (sic)

“Check out the whoopee cushion on the front of this issue to hear Pumbaa’s favorite sound! It’ll be a fart a minute!”

Plus seven gastrointestinal riddles, including the following: “Q. What can knock out a herd of Buffalo at 30 Paces? A: One of Pumbaa’s farts!”

Hilarious! Truly your wit does the land of Shakespeare, Swift, Wilde, and Coward proud.

(The ad can’t decide how to spell Pumbaa’s name, by the way; sometimes it has two A’s sometimes just one. There’s also an apostrophe missing from a possessive … didn’t you guys INVENT this language?)

My theory about the big pillar in Trafalgar Square: When they finished the statue of Admiral Nelson, they were disappointed in the detail work, so they said “stick it up way high on a column so nobody can see this looks more like a Gary Larson drawing.”

The British Ronald McDonald looks very different:



See? Much more British looking. But here’s the thing: they also have the regular Ronald – they had one of those benches where you can sit next to a statue of him. I don’t have a punchline about this. It’s just weird.

Oh, and while I was looking for that photo, I also discovered that apparently England has had a new “Inspector Gadget” show for a year now! How are American children being deprived of this?



Now I’m worried that you think I spent my whole time in London readings ads for American children’s movies and eating American fast food. NOT TRUE! I only went to McDonald’s once because they had the old-style apple pies … you know, the crispy ones with the blindingly hot filling? Ah … biss.

Usually I was able to avoid saying “bathroom” when asking where the public facilities were. But I couldn’t quite say “my wife is in the toilet.” Just a little too Trainspotting for my taste. I settled on “lavatory,” which is a word I’ve only heard casually used by my Brookline-bred grandmother.

England has GOT to get over the Spice Girls.

Lesson Learned from Staying in a Cheap Hotel in London: “Fawlty Towers” was a documentary.

At the Globe Theatre they kept telling us the story of how the first globe burned down. Nobody was hurt, but one guy’s pants caught fire, until it was doused with a bottle of ale. Lesson learned: if your friend catches fire, throw alcohol on him.

Dear Europeans: PLEASE STOP WEARING YANKEES CAPS! Look, I know you think that those are “New York” caps and you’re honoring 9/11, etc. But seriously, how would you East Ham and Arsenal fans like it if you came to the States and every fifth Yank had a Manchester United Jersey on?

Kinda bummed the Tower of London isn’t just a hair more Disneyish … like, audioanimatronic beheadings, virtual rack rides, etc.

There’s a legend that if the ravens leave the Tower of London, it will fall. I have this idea that they have to keep some spare ravens in a deep freeze in case of emergency. “Bloody Hell, Nigel, the ravens are flying away! Fire up the microwave!”

Joe Bloggs

Hallo, chaps. Back from my jaunt to Merrie Olde.

First off, I want to thank my mates Yaron, Dan, and Abe for doing me the favour of guest-blogging. They did a right corking job and I can only hope they aren't trying to manoeuvre me out of my position!

I apologise that today's entry is rather wee, but my better half and I just got off a very long aeroplane journey, followed by a tube trip to the centre of Boston, and we're both feeling rather fagged.

But I do want to assure you all that I'm not going to become one of those Yanks who goes to England and comes back talking like the Queen's his Auntie Betsy. You know what I mean, the lot who travel out there for a fortnight and come back having baked beans for breakfast, talking about aubergines and hedgehogs, saying "shed-yooal," and "leftennant," and "aluminium." Well, bloody hell, that just isn't cricket. Those blokes don't look half silly. It's all just a load of pretence.

I'd just as soon have you lock me up in gaol and throw away the key than you shew me proof that I've been rabbitting on like that. Blighters like that really get up my nose. Wankers.

Oh, and I might also add here that I'm dreadfully put out that I missed the reunion of my old flatmates from my University days. Next time, lads.

Right then. I'll labour give you the Ay to Zed of my trip in the days to come.

A Few of My Favorite Things
[by guest blogger Dan]

Well, friends, our time together is nearly done. Noah will be home soon, and we'll have to get all the drunk kids out of the pool house and get the toilet paper out of the tree in the front yard.

There were so many other things I wanted to blog about, like same-sex marriage, Ralph Nader running for president, Frank McCourt buying the Dodgers (no, not that Frank McCourt), and Democratic leadership on foreign policy issues, among many other topics. But my opinions on all of the above are pretty straighforward (pro-, anti-, undecided, and, as Gandhi said of Western civilization, "I think it would be a good idea") so instead of wasting too much more of everyone's time, I thought I'd just mention a few off-the-beaten-path websites that some of you might enjoy.

Ever wondered what happened to Mike Seaver? Well, he's now at The Way of the Master, helping you to sort through questions like "What should I do if I fear one of my loved ones is going to Hell?" Interestingly, his career in evangelism began when he lost Boner Stabone to lusting in more than his heart. Good luck, Boner.

Homestarrunner really makes my day. It's impossible to explain, and a lot more fun to explore on your own, but before long you will long for your weekly installation of the wacky capers of a megalomaniacal little shirtless guy who has a Mexican wrestling mask for a face and boxing gloves for hands. Just the claps! Just the claps!

Chowhound is a great place for foodies-minus-the-pretension, to share tips about favorite hole-in-wall Indo-Sumerian places with liquor licenses.

Can you recreate William Henry Harrison's 1840 victory over Martin Van Buren with an electoral college map and a couple of colored pencils? No? Then it's off to Dave Leip's Election Atlas for you!

Finally, I know it has a funny name, but give Yahoo! a chance. I have a feeling it may take off.

Okay, so this was a whole lot of fun. Thanks to Noah, the father of our feast, and to Yaron and Abe for stimulating our mutual self-love-fest into new heights of narcissistic pleasure (and by the way, Abe, I responded to the A-Rod deal with sabermetric precison only after I first yelled a lot). And to our readers, we did it all for you. So ... thanks, Dave.

First off, a defense of Noah:

Yaron recently tried to write an entry in the style of Noah, including the musing:

"... if Pluto was the family dog, then what exactly was Goofy? Some kind of man-dog hybrid?"

This is a terribly hacky joke, and not one that Noah would make. And it's a rip off of a "Stand By Me" digression. Also, Yaron, you said that Superman III had the Nuclear guy (it was Superman IV; III had Richard Pryor and a magical computer) and that Nomar was overpaid, two mistakes that Noah would never make. Dude, didn't you finish MIT in like fifteen minutes? Get with the program homey. (By the way, way to lose to that Indian guy on "Jeopardy" when not one category was about overpopulation or curry.)

But this isn't about internecine warfare, and I'm sure Noah won't be pleased to see my entry start off with vitriol and bigotry (if you're not familiar with this brand of banter, we use racist jokes to call attention to the absurdity of racism, not to affirm hateful stereotypes), and I'm sure he's not gonna like all the swearing and militia-separatist ehxhorting that's to follow.

When Noah asked me to spot-start for him, I wasn't sure what I was going to write about. George Steinbrenner has thoughtfully supplied me with a topic (while Dan approached the matter with thorough Sabremetrical precision, I plan to yell a lot). (I love parentheses.) (Also, cheeseburgers.)

I saw the story a little while back and thought it was just start-of-camp gossip, soon to wither and fall off the vine. Wasn't it two weeks ago that we started hearing that the Rangers and Red Sox had re-opened negotiations (of course now that I know how unyielding and determined (and apparently soulless) A-Rod is, I think they very well may have, if only for a meeting's length)? Not even the yankees, I was sure, would be in possession of the third best shortstop in Baseball, buy the best shortstop, and make him switch to third base. The cartoon-supervillain obscenity of buying the game's single greatest position player only to make him switch positions was unfathomable. Trading away a guy with one year and $5.4 million guaranteed to him to acquire the largest contract in American sports, securing an infield that earns over $60 million a year -- without a second basemen -- was impossible even for the yankees, right?

Here's the thing: yankees fans are like freakin' heroine addicts. They don't even enjoy winning anymore, they just need it to get back to normal. And George Steinbrenner is like their indulgent Dad, but instead of ponies and Nintendo games, he gives them heroine.

Unless you were born in New York City and the Mets murdered your parents, there's no excuse for liking a team that is trying so hard to ruin baseball.

And don't start thinking this is hypocritical -- I was against the A-Rod to Boston deal from the start. But even if it went through and even if I had been for it, that plan was to trade the second biggest contract in baseball for the first, and then address the unforgiveable decadence of having two all-star shortstops by, sorrowfully (so glad it didn't happen, G-d bless you number 5), trading away Nomar.

Okay, so there is no way to pitch to the new yankees line-up, which, on a day that Pedro, the best pitcher since Koufax, is throwing against them, would be:

Kenny Lofton
Derek Jeter
Bernie Williams
A-Rod
Jason Giambi
Gary Sheffield
Hideki Matsui
Jorge Posada
Enrique Wilson

A team where your 6-7-8 is Sheffield-Matsui-Posada cannot be dealt with. I'll definitely take the Red Sox pitching staff over the crew they have in the Bronx (Pedro/Schlling/Lowe is better than Mussina/Contreras/ Brown), but theirs is still nasty and they're going to be scoring eight runs a game. And they still have freakin' Rivera to close. Plus, I bet they'll get Soriano back when his one guaranteed year with the Rangers is up (he has an option of two more). Either that, or they'll come to their senses and Move Jeter to second, platoon Wilson and Cairo at third, and probably buy Eric Chavez in mid June. This is the beginning of a dark, dark period for the AL East. I'm aghast at A-Rod for going through with it (especially after becoming the Rangers' captain and spouting rhetoric like "I'm gonna be here for a long time"), Steinbrenner for swinging his money-dick around, yankees fans for celebrating when it's so clear that their overrated golden boy is about to be shown up every day by A-Rod and inevitably bumped to second, and Selig for approving it. But I guess Selig didn't really have grounds to veto, and Steinbrenner's meglomaniacal heartlessness is nothing new, and A-Rod really wants a ring even uncle George has to buy it for him, and if I were a yankees fan I'd be celebrating too, Jeter-be-damned.

Some good news:

Johnny Damon
Bill Mueller
Nomar
Manny
David Ortiz
Trot
Kevin Millar
Jason
Pokey Reese

Now, when I look at the Red Sox lineup it looks good. While A-Rod is the best all-around player in the game, I gotta say that Manny is the best right-handed hitter in the game and has a slight edge on offense (power, average, using all fields, walking). Looking at the lineup and comparing each man to his yankees counterpart (in terms of lineup number, I'll get to position in a second) I give the offensive edge to Johnny, Nomar, Manny and Pokey (as long as Wilson and Cairo play). Now on defense (and there's some complication here, 'cause we don't really know how A-Rod's gonna be at third (although, come on, he's probably gonna be awesome) and because Bernie Williams might be DHing, which would slide Matsui into center and he is nasty), I think the Sox have the upperhand at Catcher, Centerfield, First base, Second base and Shortstop as long as Jeter keeps his home. So a 5-4 split on defense and a 4-5 split on offense. All is not lost. But the way that yankee lineup goes together, the fact that you don't get a break till #9 and the batters alternate righty/lefty (or switch hitter) throughout, ain't nobody gonna stop them. Damn. I'm gonna watch every Red Sox game faithfully, don't get me wrong, and I'm gonna root as if I were an optimist, but this isn't gonna be the season I start laying big bets. And while the cry "yankees suck" is thoughtless and escapist, I gotta say I appreciate the sentiment.

Come back soon Noah, and bring some reason to these scary, confusing times.

J&B
[by guest blogger Yaron]

Let me just take a moment to talk about the Bush twins. I don't care what your politics are, I think you have to admire these girls. They're young, attractive, and hey don't let their status or the occasional schoolmarmish media reports get in the way of their having a good time. Barbara may be more cosmopolitan and Jenna may be more down-home country, but they both seem wholesome and fun-loving in a middle-America kind of way.

The New York Daily News has a story on Barbara dancing suggestively at a Chelsea nightclub with what appears to be her boyfriend, some young Italian actor; it quotes an onlooker saying, "she wasn't exactly Paris Hilton, but she's fun." Actually, I think it's a fair comparison: in their status as iconic partygoers, and in their celebrity encounters (fashion shows with Vincent Gallo, alleged bong-hitting with Ashton Kutcher), the Bush girls come off as nothing less than the red-state Hilton sisters. Actually I don't know that they're political at all per se; Jenna may be an environmentalist tree-hugger and Barbara may be an unrepentant supply-sider, but as far as I know they've never uttered any public political statements. That strikes me as the right thing to do; any attempt to try to preach their opinions through the media would come off as forced. The Bush twins stick to what they do best, which is exemplifying the fun-loving, beer-and-poolhall on a weeknight, dress-up-dance-club on a Friday night, American youth culture. AKA true American youth culture.

The First Twins - clearinghouse on all Bush twins-related information.

Thundercat
[by guest blogger Dan]

Saw Cat Power tonight in the Knitting Room. My friend Danielle got me in free because her friend was working the door. Score!

Cat Power is the nom de plume of Chan Marshall, an Atlanta-born, New York-based singer/songwriter and a famously eccentric antiperformer. I was unfamiliar with her work, though I'd always wanted to check her out.

All night, she sang from behind her hair, on a stage darkened so that the band was barely lit any better than the crowd. She frequently apologized to us, said numerous times that she was "so nervous," and speculated that we were mad at her because of her myriad requests to adjust this or that sound level. When her voice gave out in the middle of one song, she played tragic chords on the piano in frustration and seemed on the verge of leaving the stage before she picked up right where she had left off. Other songs seemed to end abruptly or trail off uncertainly, as though she were playing alone in her room. The overall effect was of watching someone on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen on stage. We figured she was having an off night, or (Danielle's theory) that she was incredibly wasted. But apparently, everything I just described is entirely par for the Cat Power course.

Despite all of this -- or, more likely, because of it -- her performance has a transfixing effect on those audience members who haven't left early in the set. She has a fragile little whisper of a voice that sounds like it's trying desperately to find its way out of the song it is lost inside. But, in moments of need, she can summon it up to great heights, warbling unsteadily but with a smokey intimacy and just a hint of southern Gospel twang. Her songs are straightforward and sparse, but they have a hypnotic pull and an inescapable emotional weight.

Her formula works well in general, but it's at its most transgressive when she applies it to "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," which she strips of its macho swagger and distills to a slow dreamy blues tempo. The chorus, which she sang tonight but normally omits, becomes a plaintive howl in the wilderness. It's a long way from Mick and Keith gyrating in front of a couple thousand screaming women.

Marshall could afford to attempt a little more variety in song structure and tone. Even with a three-piece backing band, including an excellent violinist, to provide texture and flavor, most of her songs begin to sound the same after a while. But she has made the hauntingly cockeyed 4/4 lullaby into her own unrivaled specialty.

Before she even sang the first words of her final song, she plunged off of the stage and into the audience while her band played on. Eventually, we heard her voice, which seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But she sang the entire song from the floor of the house, while her band played a powerful violin-driven ten-minute jam. She was then at her most steady and certain, invisible to her audience because she was inside of it. When things came to a close, she climbed back onto the proscenium and crawled off stage left on her hands and knees, like a refugee. The remaining band members accepted the audience's applause perhaps more graciously than usual, as though they had to make up the differential. Some of us might have been interested in an encore, but we could't bring ourselves to ask. We were afraid we might break her!

Valentine's Day Massacre?
[by guest blogger Dan]

Ahem. Well, let's try that again, after a few deep, calming breaths.

Bambino’s Curse has dubbed it “my bloody valentine.” As I soberly noted below, Newsday is reporting that the Yankees have all but finalized a trade that would send Alfonso Soriano to the Rangers for Alex Rodriguez. The other New York papers are being more circumspect, and ESPN is saying that it’s still far from a done deal.

Who has the best sources on this? We won’t find out for sure for a few days, but one would have to assume the trade is gonna happen, for a couple reasons. First, since the Sox wanted A-Rod, the Yankees have to get him. Otherwise it wouldn’t be the Sox and the Yankees. It’s tautological. Second, the only thing that ended up scotching the Sox’ deal for A-Rod was their desire to restructure his contract. Steinbrenner won’t let a few hundred million dollars get in his way – he’ll authorize the breaking of the bank. Why not? The Evil Empire will be paying the luxury tax anyway.

When the A-Rod/Magglio for Manny/Nomar trade was a glimmer in everyone's eye, I did the numbers and decided that it would basically be a wash on offense, but an improvement for the Sox in terms of defense, team chemistry and youthfulness.

So what about Soriano for A-Rod? How much better does this make the Yanks than they were at the end of last season? Answer: some, but probably not as much as you’d think.

Remember, the Yanks have to plug the gaping hole at third created when Aaron “Bucky Bleeping Dent” Boone blew out his knee playing basketball this off-season. He may or may not be able to play at all in 2004. Without this deal, the Yankees might have had to start the season with Mike “Sacrificial” Lamb or Tyler Houston “We Have A Problem” at the hot corner. But in order to see if they’ve gotten better since last year, we have to compare A-Rod to Boone. And in order to do that, I have to write several paragraphs of unbelievably nerdy stuff.

A-Rod is a much better hitter than Boone. Over the course of his career, A-Rod creates 8.1 runs per 27 outs, compared to Boone’s 5. We can divide by nine to find out the effect of having each player in your lineup. By having A-Rod in the lineup instead of Boone, the Yanks should score an extra .34 runs a game.

But without Soriano in the lineup, the Yanks will have to play Miguel Cairo or Enrique Wilson at second base. Cairo is slightly better than Wilson, but they’re both lousy hitters. Sori creates 6.3 runs per 27 outs, and Cairo creates 3.8. The net difference? By playing Cairo at second instead of Soriano, the Yanks will score .28 less runs each game.

So what’s the net effect of the trade? The Yanks get an extra six-hundredths of a run each game. An extra run every 17 games. Probably not even that. Cairo and Boone have played some of their careers in the National League, so their statistics probably underestimate their production compared with lifetime American Leaguers. When you look at OPS+ (OBP and SLG adjusted to the league average and adjusted for home park advantages), A-Rod (145) and Cairo (75) look pretty much the same as Soriano (116) and Boone (98). And Soriano is the only one who hasn't yet hit his peak age (he'll be 26 next year, A-Rod will be 28, Cairo will be 30, and Boone 31). He has more years left, and more time to improve.

The Yankees would probably improve on defense, though that’s hard to calculate exactly. A-Rod would have to adjust to a new position, but he would probably end up being a better than average third baseman, which is what Boone is/was. Cairo’s a pretty good fielder, and Soriano is not. His fielding percentage is below average, which would be fine if he got to more balls than the average second baseman. But he doesn’t; his range is below average too.

So the Yanks have improved, but not to the point that they’ve become the clear favorites in the division. However, this assumes two things: first, that they don’t run out and trade for a star second baseman, and second, that they continue to indulge their team captain’s demand that he continue to hog the most important position on the field.

If the deal goes through, the Yanks would be fools to play A-Rod at third. A-Rod is a Gold Glover, and, as most people know but no one in New York likes to say, Jeter is not a good fielder. His range gets worse and worse every year. When he makes a great-looking play, it’s usually on a ball that A-Rod would have made look routine. The smart thing to do would be to play A-Rod at short, and move Jeter to second. He would probably be better able to adjust to second than to third, and that way Joe Torre could avoid having to pencil Miguel Cairo’s name into the ninth spot in the lineup every day.

If the Yanks make that move, then they are definitely the favorites.

Well, c’mon, you didn’t think the Sox would be anything but the underdogs, did you? What fun would that be?

#@$%*#@*$%#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Item!

Thanks, yeah, I guess those weird pieces were subconsciously my inspiration. All done out of love, of course.

Item!

Gosh, Yaron, that would have made a really great Jackie Harvey piece!

Quick hits
[by guest blogger Yaron]

Dan's plea for help, and his valid point that Noah's audience is in rapid danger of losing their attention, gave me a thought: why don't I try my hand at a Noah-esque post? Even better, let me do it as a Larry King-style newspaper column. You probably won't hear from me again till Saturday, though (sorry Dan). Anyway, this should hopefully tide you Noah-maniacs over until he gets back:

How the Red Sox can regain the World Series: fire Nomar (he's overpaid anyway), hire the entire Cuban all-star baseball lineup with the profits! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?... Man, it sure is cold in Boston... Hands up if you like Gene Hackman! Did you see The French Connection, though? Overrated! For my money his best work was in Superman III, the one with that weird curly-haired nuclear guy. A stunning tour-de-force performance... How the Red Sox can regain the World Series: sell naming rights to Fenway! How about EMC Stadium? Sounds good to me!... if Pluto was the family dog, then what exactly was Goofy? Some kind of man-dog hybrid?... Don't you just hate President George W. Bush? I know I do... How the Red Sox can regain the World Series: simultaneous voodoo hexes...

An Abbreviated Initiation
[by guest blogger Dan]

So.

I'm pretty sure Noah actually told me I'd be manning the weekend shift, but he seems to have mixed up his assignments, and Yaron was loath to contradict our host's parting instructions. And so, at least once unto the breach go I.

Hi, all. I'm Dan, and if I've ever warranted comparison to Joey Bishop it was only in tandem with Noah's Frank Sinatra, while we were both attending the same women's college. We did a few shows together, had a few laughs, drank absolutely no beers (the man's the original Massachussetts Puritan), and I ended up getting to wear tails on a gorgeous night last summer the day Amanda made an honest man of him.

I work in New York City politics, but it's probably best that I avoid any intense discussion on the topic. My boss usually prefers not to read any of his flacks publicly expressing policy opinions without at least chatting with him first (and undergoing a pretty laborious editing process). That might seem a little paranoid -- who would find me blogging here? -- but stuff you put on the Internet has a funny way of taking on a life its own and spinning pretty quickly out of everyone's control.

So, without politics, what can I talk about that will keep the focus of the Smithian audience? I dunno. Theater? The Red Sox? You can rest assured I won't be discussing comic books for paragraphs on end. Worst. Blog entry. Ever.

I had preferred writing on the weekend because I keep a pretty hectic workaday schedule that will keep me from achieving my true blogging potential. Tonight, for example, I've got to hit the sack because I'm joining my boss for an 8am interview with Duke Castiglione, the sports reporter for our local CBS affiliate's morning news. You New Englanders may be more familiar with Duke's father, Joe.

Duke wants to talk about the Bloomberg Administration's proposal to put a football stadium for the New York Jets on the West Side of Manhattan. Today was a pretty busy day for me because the Administration announced the first piece of its financing plan for the stadium and its related components. Part of my job is organizing a coalition against the stadium -- which makes about as much sense in Manhattan as Rush Limbaugh does doing analysis for ESPN -- and we had to be ready with a response for the press.

So I guess that is my way of coming up with an excuse for signing off without coming up with anything deeper or more thought-provoking for tonight. I'll try to come back fresh for tomorrow. Or Yaron could feel free to just jump in here and talk out of turn if he's so moved. Abe's a little too aloof for that sort of behavior, but he's welcome to as well.

Whatever happenens, Noah, please stop reading this blog from England and pay attention to your wife, okay? We promise to put everything back just how you left it.

THOTS: Leaving on a Jet Plane
So this week, we’re commemorating the Beatles’ first trip to America. And Amanda and I are celebrating it by ... taking a trip away from America.

We'll be in London from Wednesday to Wednesday. It's gonna be really freakin' gear.

In my absense, the Blog will have three “guest hosts” ...

Wednesday-Friday you will be treated to the blogtastic stylings of Mr. Dan Golub, our own Joey Bishop.

Saturday-Monday you’ll thrill to the bloggerific muse of Yaron K., our own Dick Cavett.

And on Tuesday, you’ll get a full-on Blogjob from none other than Abe Smith, my brother, and our own Joan Rivers.

I’m back on Wednesday the 18th. And when I return I’m thinking of changing the title of the blog.

Why did I name the blog “Bag Gyp Ant Sand Bra V Ado”?

BAG: Because this blog is “my bag” in the sense that it is a sack or pouch which I use to carry things.

GYP: Because I promise never to rip off my readers ... given that the page is free, that’s pretty easy

ANT: Because aren’t we all just ants in the greater scheme of things. And aren’t ants just tiny six-legged, cannibalistic, incestuous humans?

SAND: Because we are all grains of sand in the universe’s ... what do you call those little sandboxes people put on their desk, with the rocks and the tiny rake you use to draw little designs in the sand?

BRA V: Being one of Russ Meyers’ better films, sexier than Bra IV, without the gratutious frottage of Bra VI.

ADO: After my favorite Shakespeare comedy AS YOU LIKE IT.

Seriously, I’m thinking of changing the name. “Baggy Pants” is kind of like “This Business we call Show” -- if somebody uses that phrase, you kinda want to punch them.

So what if I changed it to “Life in a Breadbowl” or something. What do you think?

Anyway, some parting THOTS:

I never in my life thought I would get so bored of a breast.

Ooh, since I'll forget later, I just saw an excellent production at Brandeis of A WINTER'S TALE. Sure, it was 3 1/2 hours long but it felt like 3 1/4.

In the song “Bust a Move” ... if Larry is my best friend, why am I the best man at his brother Harry’s wedding? Why isn’t Larry Harry’s best man? Am I caught in the middle of some sort of sibling rivalry where Harry is jealous of me because I’m so close to his brother? And will all of this get in the way of my ability to bust a move?

When you imgine the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, is it yellow with dots of some other color, or white with yellow dots?

So the sequel to Bring It On is called Bring it on Again? Not Bring it on Back? Bring on Some More? Please Bring us the Check? And don’t get me started on Lion King 1 1/2.

So when I’m doing laundry, I always unfold my dryer sheets. That only makes sense, right? You can’t just leave them folded ... actually, I have no idea what the hell dryer sheets do.

International Politics Punchline Without a Setup of the Week: He puts the “put in” in Putin!

My least favorite new game to play in Boston? Search for the Out-of-Order Parking Meter in 10 Degree Weather!

Okay, I’ll say it. Snoop Dogg playing Huggy Bear in the Starsky and Hutch movie is the greatest casting ever in the history of Hollywood.

Have you noticed that when Bush speaks he sounds like a Fifth Grader who has prepared a five-minute oral report on a book, then is told just before he begins that it was supposed to be ten minutes? -- “Tom Sawyer is a very ... important book ... the importance of this book cannot be overlooked ... this important book by Mark Twain.”

They found the missing Russian candidate. I tell you, Russians know how to have more fun with their elections. What if one of our candidates just “vanished” for a few weeks? On the other hand, I haven’t heard much from Kucinich lately ...

Either I’m getting hipper or the Gap is getting squarer, since I’m actually starting to recognize some of the music they play.

You know those slides before movies? Sometimes they show a still from a film and hide cups of Coke in it? I saw them do that with a frame from House of Sand and Fog. That’s right kids, somewhere amid this tale of socieconomic racism and suicide you can find the Pause that Refreshes!

Amanda dyed her hair dark brown recently. It’s really cool. It’s like I’m having an affair with her Italian cousin.

The TV show “Knight Rider” was many things. “A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist” was not one of them.

Okay, these new Dunkin Donuts ads with the extreme closeups of their new apple pie. That is the hottest pornography I’ve ever seen.

Doesn’t “beer” sound like it can’t be the real word for the product? Like, it’s really called “hopsanthanol” or something, but “beer” is the street term for it?

How is it possible that the Miracle on Ice movie has been out for five days and I haven’t seen it yet?

Could somebody write me a new Friendster testimonial. I don’t like the one that’s at the top of the stack now, but I’d feel rude deleting it.

Isn’t it weird to hear Sally Field listed as one of the major screen babes, along with Raquel Welch and Bo Derek in the theme to “The Fall Guy”?

Why didn’t some movie channel show the movie Groundhog Day on a constant loop on February 2. Shouldn’t that be, like, a law?

The big prize on “The Apprentice” last week was a chance to go to Yankee Stadium and meet George Steinbrenner. So, if I were on the show and told Trump “no thanks, I think the man is ruining baseball” he’d probably fire me but I’d be, like, guaranteed a front office position with the Red Sox, right?

I had this bizarre dream the other day. I had a play I’d written in the Boston Theatre Marathon. It was a parody of Double Indemnity which somehow ended with the Fred MacMurray character, who looked more like Danny DeVito, running through the streets, shouting crazy things, brandishing a Swiffer. And for some reason, the lobby display for the show was a department store manequin lying prostrate, covered with pizza sauce and mozzarella. Look, I NEED TO WRITE THIS PLAY!

One thing I'm planning to pick up in London is a CD single of "Gay Boyfriend." It was co-written by Anne Harris, who I went to Vassar with. They have a kick ass video, but the super-produced techno flavored mix sounds even cooler. It was a novelty in England, where they still have novelty hits.

And since you're dying to hear the theme to BATMAN'S MOON PATROL AND MONKEY ... here it is.

That's it folks. I shall return with tales of my adventures abroad. Be good to each other.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.

You know what was awesome this weekend? Every radio station playing the Beatles -- songs, interviews, news clips -- nonstop. It was totally freakin' gear.

And here we are, the 40th anniversary ... of a day 12 1/2 years before I was born. I'm digging all the talk about how important it was when the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan. I'm totally behind people who say that was the day the 60s really started ...

But really, what do I know?

Nothin'. I wasn't there.

Maybe I'm jealous. I don't really have a moment like that in my childhood when everybody in my generation was united, when we felt like everything was about to change, when the decade during which I knew I was coming of age was beginning.

I wrote a ten-minute play about this last year. It was called OHWELLWHATEVERNEVERMIND. It's based on the night when a bunch of us gathered at Eric Keenan-Gray's house to watch Nirvana play on "Saturday Night Live." Was I savvy enough to actually think "this is my 'Beatles on "Ed Sullivan"'"? Did I think the 1990s were beginning? The characters in my play do. But mostly we just thought it was pretty neat that our new favorite band was on TV.

But we WERE savvy enough to know that it was pretty lame when Nirvana destroyed their instruments. We knew that had been done before.

And that kinda sums up the 1990s ... no matter how cool it was, it was usually just a retread of something cooler from a previous era.

And because of that, Gen-X doesn't have a defining moment. Not a cultural one, at least. It'd be nice.

Enough about me, back to the Beatles. I've learned some really interesting stuff about that Sullivan appearance. Did you know that one of the other guests that night was Davy Jones, later of the Monkees. He was there to perform with the cast of OLIVER! I'm sure he thought it was a vitally important night for his career, but he'd never have guessed he'd make that career starring in a sitcom/band created to cash in on that night's headliners.

Interesting article about this here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17603-2004Feb5.html
It focuses on the comedy team who had the unfortunate fate to be on in-between the Beatles' two sets. Oh yes, Mr. Saturday Night is not purely a work of fiction.

And, yes, there's a comic book connection. Turns out one of the other acts that night was Frank Gorshin, to be known better, later on, as The Riddler on the Adam West "Batman" show.

Some interesting stuff about how comic books treated Beatlemania, as well as some nice personal stories about how the Lads affected his life can found on Fred Hembeck's Fred Sez blog.

Of course, there are plenty of Boomers who didn't catch the mania that night. My parents didn't really get into the band till "Rubber Soul" when the Lads were proving they really were more than just another pop band.

Whereas Amanda's mother NEVER became a Beatles fan. She and her friends laughed at these ridiculous kids with the silly haircuts ... and that pretty much remained her attitude to them to this day.

Wow ... 500 words already and I still haven't reached my point. 'Course, I'm not sure what that point is. What can I say about the Beatles. I'm a huge fan, of course, but who isn't? (well, Doyne, but she can't even handle a space cake) What can I say that hasn't been said? What new insight could I add?

Well, I can tell you who my favorite Beatles is.

Everybody has one, right? It's, like, a rule. You have to have a favorite color, ice cream, and Beatle.

Mine ... well, there's a story behind that. Are you suprised?

When I was a kid, it was Ringo. Prizing, as I always did, comedy above music, I liked the Beatle who, I thought, always kept his sense of humor. Ringo, I was sure, never took things too seriously, even when George was playing earnestly annoying sitar and Yoko was suggesting they add a chorus of castrati singing into honey-dipped galoshes.

It worked out nicely in my family. I liked Ringo. My mother liked John. Dad liked George. And Abe liked Paul.

I used to mock Abe for liking Paul. I used to mock Abe for everything. That was my job. I was his big brother.

And I thought it was SO LAME to like Paul best. He was the one Dana Carvey mocked on "SNL." He was the one who recorded silly love songs like, well "Silly Loves Songs." He was THE CUTE ONE! The one girls liked. It was not appropriate for a GUY to LIKE PAUL BEST.

I even used to throw a round a line I thought was hilarious: Why are people so disappointed with Bill Clinton? We knew he couldn't be a great president when he said his favorite Beatle was Paul. Even Chelsea likes John better.

Do you see where this is going?

Yep, Paul is now my favorite Beatle.

Why? Well, for one, I tend to like the songs he wrote more than the ones John wrote. I heard a great interview with Paul on NPR the other day, talking about how the "by Lennon and McCartney" byline wasn't always accurate. Paul really wrote "Yesterday," "Blackbird," "Let it Be," "Hey Jude," and several others by himself, while John wrote, say, "Nowhere Man" and "Ballad of John and Yoko" (which actually may be my favorite Beatles song ... this week). I'm probably wrong about some of these. Paul didn't want to remove John's name from the credits, by the way, though he'd have liked to reverse the order of names on the byline of the songs he really wrote (he worried that computers would wind up cutting off the second half of the credits in years to come, holding as he did, a ticket to the Sandra Bullock movie Miss Congenia). But anyway, you see my point.

And I probably like Paul's post-Beatles stuff more than John's. Really, isn't "Imagine" just a little overrated? Isn't "Maybe I'm Amazed" pretty cool? "Band on the Run"? Heck, "Live and Let Die" is pretty catchy.

I think Paul just gets a bad rap. He had (has, really) a great singing voice, and remember he had to play all those intruments left handed. John may have been a genius, but was Paul any less of one? No, he just didn't make as big a deal of it.

This is all flavored, of course, by the fact that I used to work for the guy.

Kinda.

If you didn't know, I used to work for Dera & Associates PR. Joe Dera used to work for one of the major PR firms, until he spun off his own smaller agency, more or less based on the one big client he took with him.

Guess who that was.

I was there in 1998, an odd time to be repping Paul McCartney. Linda had died a few months earlier and he was keeping a low profile. So mostly, I worked for other clients. But sometimes I'd have to take a call from somebody wanting to know what he was up to. And sometimes I'd stumble across the box full of condolence letters from fans that sat at the end of my desk. Or sometimes I'd have to send a fax explaining that Paul wasn't "The Fireman." (He was. He was also the Walrus.)

So the seeds of my Paul-fanhood were sewn.

But what really put me over the top was an interview I saw. They were rerunning some old Bob Costas "Later" interviews after "Conan" and I happened to catch his Macca interview. Costas asked him if there was any one message we should take from the Beatles.

Without missing a beat, and with utter sincerity and conviction he answered, "All you need is love."

That hit me like a thunderclap. "Oh my god! He's right! All you need is love!"

I'd never given much thought to it before. I thought it was just a song -- a fairly silly one, honestly.

But then I thought about it. "ALL you need is love."

Sure, food, shelter, blah blah blah.

But, really ... all you need is love.

Is it a naive philosophy? Maybe. Doesn't mean it isn't true.

But even if we're soooooo superior to this simple, hummable philosophy of life, I think we need to admire and respect a man who believes it so deeply, so truly.

Paul and Linda were apart only 11 nights in their entire 30-year marriage. This is a man who had everything he could ever want, who was genuinely bigger than Jesus. But what he learned was that all he needed was love.

And if I needed any further proof, a few weeks after I saw this interview, I met Amanda.

It's easy. All you need is love.

In Memoriam

I want to do a few RIPs for some recently departed celebs. I had never met any of these people, or even really experienced much of their work. But ... well, you'll see.

Helmut Newton -- This guy lived a truly fascinating life. Anybody who began life escaping from Nazi Europe, and ended it taking photos of nude supermodels is a hero in my book.

Bob Keishan -- "Captain Kangaroo" wasn't a big part of my childhood. Maybe he was on a channel we didn't get very well. I did watch him once in a while and he was certainly "on my radar." But I was a "Sesame Street," "Mr. Rogers," "Electric Company" guy. Nonetheless, I have endless admiration for a man who devoted his entire life to entertaining and educating children.

Mary-Ellis Bunim -- "The Real World" seems so pure and innocent now. I can no longer claim any "above it all" snobbery about reality TV, since I'm watching "Surreal Life," "The Apprentice," "Average Joe," "Survivor: All Stars" and even sometimes "American Idol." Um ... help me? But Bunim deserves vast portions of credit and/or blame for the reality boom. Y'know what? I think it's good for TV. TV writers -- a fraternity I'm hoping to join -- whine constantly about reality TV. But y'know what? It's gonna be around for a while. The craze will die down, but ithe genre will never go away entirely. If you (we?) as TV writers want to survive, we need to find ways for fiction to use the medium as well as reality does. Multi-camera sitcoms and formula dramas are getting increasingly calcified. Do new things -- look to cable, look to the BBC. TV is the most adaptable medium EVER. Make the most of it.

Ann Miller -- Here's the weird thing, the only three movies I've seen Ann Miller in were adaptations of stage plays, done by people I greatly admire but which nonetheless turned out less-than-perfectly. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU is, I think, the greatest comedy in Broadway history, and possibly the greatest American play. And it made perfect sense for the director of the film version to be Frank Capra (perhaps my second-favorite film director ever, or possible tied with Hitchcock for first). But Capra was a little ham-handed with his direction -- attempting to turn a story where one family serves as a microcosm for the country into something more like standard-bearers. Miller was also in the film version of ROOM SERVICE, one of the best American stage farces. The film starred the Marx Brothers, my heroes, but it wasn't a good match. The stage material wasn't changed enough to match the Brothers' personalities, nor did the Brothers tone down their own personas to fit the script, so ultimately neither was served. Then there was Kiss me Kate, based on the Cole Porter musical. That's actually not my favorite show, and the movie is pretty good. But they change "Too Darn Hot" from the smokin', hot guys and gals shakin' it, act-two-opener it is in the show to a solo Miller tap number in the opening scene of the film. Miller, of course, knocked it out of the park, but the cast included a young Bob Fosse. There wasn't ANY room for him and some more hot chicks? Anyway, the fact that these movies disappointed me had nothing to do with Miller, who was always a charming, likeable, and sexy screen presence. And she invented the side-bump.

By the way, the name of Miller's character in Kiss Me Kate? Lois Lane.

Which brings us to ...

Julie Schwartz -- Not a name you know, perhaps. But if you ever in your life enjoyed a superhero comic published after 1956, you owe him a debt of gratitude.

(Stop reading here if you'd like to avoid another geek spree)

Schwartz worked for DC Comics from the mid-forties to the 1980s. During that period he, as much as anyone else, saved the genre of the superhero and thereby, probably the medium. In the mid fifties, most of the Golden Age characters had ceased publication -- Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman held on, but they were under threat too. There was this guy named Frederick Wertham who was SURE Batman and Robin were gay lovers, so he tried to bring down the comics inudstry. He came close.

But luckily, DC comics had an editor named Julius Schwartz. He wasn't an artist, and he never wrote more than two or three complete stories in his life (he probably REwrote thousands of other people's scripts, though). Schwartz was the one who said "hey, what if we bring back the character of The Flash?" thereby launching the Silver Age of comics. Schwartz was a science fiction afficianado and, more than anyone, he's responsible for the sci-fi tone 50s and 60s comics had. He knew kids were hearing every day about Sputnik, transistors, splitting the atom ... and he knew that if he threw just enough "real science" in with the absurd fantasy, he could lure those boomer kids in. Now the Atom wasn't just a short guy who hit people, he was someone who could SHRINK TO THE SIZE OF AN ATOM!

But he also knew where sci-fi didn't fit. His editorial reign rescued Batman from the sci-fi silliness he'd been mired in. He launched the "new look" Batman which returned the character to his roots as a "dark night detective." He reinvisioned Superman for the 70s, making it an adventure series again, rather than "what trouble can Jimmy get into this week?" or "what obnoxious way can Lois try to prove Clark is Superman?"

If Schwartz hadn't renewed interest in superheroes, there'd be no Justice League, so there'd be no Fantastic Four, no Marvel comics ... and Toby Maguire would still be respected independent film actor.

Speaking of Silver Age fun, we're doing something kinda nutty over on the John Byrne Message Board. He's working on some new series for DC, but he can't yet reveal what it is. He's dropping hints -- a team book, some existing characters, some new ones, Batman appears but isn't a regular, there's a monkey. Somebody suggested that it must be a revival of "Batman's Moon Patrol." Of course, there never was any such comic, but we've decided this was some lesser-known series from the 60s just now getting an updated version.

Somehow this has snowballed -- people have found old Batman art which has him on the moon and tweaked it to seem to be "Silver Age MOON PATROL" covers. Somebody wrote the words to the 70s "Moon Patrol" TV cartoon. Somebody RECORDED a techno-flavored "Moon Patrol" theme. We've had threads about which artists did our favorite runs on the title and how the group was reinterpreted through time. All made up.

Yes, we're all tremendous geeks, but it's tremendous fun.

And we probably wouldn't be doing it if it weren't for my second-favorite Jew Named Julius.

Figure out which one was my favorite and the duck comes down.

Burks to the Future

I'll be brief tonight because ... well, because I need to work on that.

I'm pretty psyched about this year's Red Sox lineup. Of course it's awesome to have Schilling on board. And I'm sure Foulke will inspire me to make many of the same sorts of jokes I was making about Faulke in the Super Bowl piece.

But I'm especially pleased to see some familiar faces back.

I always liked Brian Daubach. He played hard, and often quite well. No, he's not going to give Kevin "Cowboy Up" Millar a run for the first base slot. In fact, it's not even certain he'll play on the major league team -- he's only signed a minor league contract. But I was sad to see him go last year.

My grandfather loves Daubach. He thinks he has the perfect swing. He was positive he'd hit .400 in 2001. He also thought Clark was a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination.

But it's nice to have that Amish-beard growin', old-glove wearin', Dobber back.

Did I mention that he's from downstate Illinois ... that he might have read my articles when they ran in the Alton paper?

But the signing that has gotten the headlines is Ellis Burks. Burks started his career in Boston in the late eighties. That meant he was key to the team just around the period when I lost interest.

I don't like talking about it, but when I was in high school, I really stopped caring about the team. I think it was the frustration of the 1988 and 1990 postseasons -- the Sox won the division, then lost ignominiously in the ALCS to the Bash-Brother A's in four games, both years. In 1991, I went to Fenway for the last time for eight years -- that was with my dad and brother, the time Abe caught a beach ball that was being batted around the bleachers and bit it to deflate it. He was 11.

The next season, I took part in a rotisserie league. I would probably have been just as well using my $50 as Kleenex. I had no idea about ANY team other than the Red Sox, and my knowledge of them was fading fast. I chose Carlos Quintana for the team and was told that he'd broken his arm and wouldn't be playing that season. Needless to say, I did not light up the league that year.

And 1992 was also the first year I spent at Summer Theatre. There was no trip to Fenway, and I really just stopped bothering. I had something more interesting to fill my time, I thought. (And yes, if I had to chose, I'd pick theatre over baseball. But I don't have to make that choice.)

I went to college with WAY too many Yankee fans. I don't think I even knew the Sox won the division again in 1995.

Then, in 1998 a few guys named McGwire and Sosa got me thinking about the game again. And, in all honesty, that unbeatable '98 Yankees team kinda captivated me, too.

In 1999 I made a return trip to Fenway and when I happened to catch the one-hitter Pedro Martinez threw against the Yankees on TV I was fully back in Sox camp. I watched that AWESOME series agains the Indians in the ALDS and was with almost my whole family as we watched that godawful garbage-on-the-field game in the ALCS.

But that period where I didn't care ... look, there are a lot of things more important than baseball. I know that. But, still ... part of being a fan means sticking with your team through thick and thin. It means you ALWAYS care about them, ALWAYS follow them ... not just when they're good.

This was driven home to me when I was covering a college baseball game in Illinois. I glanced at the roster and saw the coach of the visiting team was named Scott Cooper. Didn't ring a bell. When I interviewed him after the game, he said:

"Okay, I'll give you an interview, since you're wearing a Red Sox cap."

"Oh, are you a Red Sox fan?"

"I played for them for five years."

I fumbled through some excuses. But this was wrong. I'm supposed to be a fan of this team and I couldn't make that connection? This wasn't some bench warmer. He was an all-star twice. In one game, he hit for the cycle.

But the three full seasons he played? 1992-1994. The years I didn't care.

I'm not saying I had to instantly recognize his face. But I should have been able to say "You're THAT Scott Cooper?" and mean it.

I won't let something like that happen again. I understand what it means to be a fan now. A real fan ... and the Red Sox are the only team I feel comfortable calling myself a "real fan" of.

But I am a real fan. More than I was before my hiatus.

And having Ellis back makes it feel like I never left.

Loosened Sand Common Tsar Bach

Before we begin, I want to follow up on what I wrote a while back about my attempts to contact the schools doing CASEY.

I told you about the great email I got from Clary Middle School. And I did hear from the school in Midland, MI, too.

Turns out their production was in November. I should have figured this out when I saw that I had already been paid for that production. But the Eldridge site told me it was this weekend. So they must have been confused to receive my postcard in January.

Anyway, the director called me and we chatted. I’m worried that I was a little rude. I think once I learned that they had already had their performance and there was no way I could impart my wisdom to them, I shut down a little. I’m such an egotistical bastard.

But she told me about the production and we chatted about some stuff quite pleasantly, so the postcard thing seems to be working out.

For the two new productions, I recently found the REAL site for the Jordan High production. (though perhaps it’s really a middle school show. I’m not sure)

http://www.jordan.k12.mn.us/JHS%20/MSPlay/MSPlay.htm

It’s quite awesome. Anyway, my postcard to them went out in the mail today. I’ll see what happens. Their production is at the end of the month, so time is a little short. I might send an email, too, though I don’t want to seem pushy.

The other school, the one in Plattsburgh that I had to call, I haven’t heard from. I’m a little worried that the message didn’t get relayed. That one’s not till the middle of March, so we’ll see what happens. I’ll definitely send a postcard for opening night.

On the other writing front, I wrote the first three scenes of the Amsterdam play, which is currently called THE DUTCH COURAGE OF AMERICAN AMY. So far, so good, though it’s REALLY rough at the moment. That was two classes ago. For Tuesday, I brought in a rewrite of the first scene of ISAAC. We didn’t get to it, since I missed the first two hours of class. It’s probably not rewritten enough, though I’ve never been good at revision.

On to the comments …

That other news from Tuesday

So Yaron and I had a little back and forth about politics. As a financial mover and shaker, he tends to consider fiscal issues more than I do when addressing politics

Actually, I haven't decided yet who gets my vote. Seriously, I'm waiting to see who the choices are. Though I doubt Dr. Dean will be one of them.

Yaron | Email | Homepage | 01.29.04 - 2:48 pm | #

Huh, I was only joking when I suggested that. I assumed you were backing Bush all the way. I recall you speaking somewhat highly of Joe Lieberman on your blog. Would you actually vote for a Democrat?

Topic Pending
Then there was that day when I didn’t post till late and Dave decided to respond to issues he THOUGHT I should have been addressing.

In the mean time, random topics: is Boston being pulled into the whole election thing right now? Suprisingly, Washington D.C. doesn't get very much, since our votes are worth pretty much nothing.

I’m finding people around here distressingly unaware of the elections. Several Simmons students have been overheard saying things like “I didn’t even know there were primaries going on!” Um … every four years, gang.

Amanda did her bit by creating a bulletin board which listed every major candidate (Bush too) and their positions on issues . She couldn’t fit everything, so she focused on issues she thought would be relevant to Simmons students.

It was quite a big hit, so Amanda made the text available to RAs who might want to put up similar bulletin boards in their halls. So far three have done it. My wife rules.

Al Franken doing a radio show? They have channels lined up in Chicago, NY, Philly and San Francisco.... but no Washington D.C. How do people listen to the radio from 12-3 anyways? Don't they work?

I hope this network pans out, if for nothing else to prove how inaccurate it is to call mainstream news “liberal.” Very glad to hear Franken is getting this outlet, since I do find him awfully funny.

12-3 … gee, that tends to be when I’m in my car, doing errands or going to class. ‘Course, I’m far from average on the work-to-naptime ration. Think there’ll be internet broadcasts of these?

Does your brother get paid for each performance he does - or does he get a cut of the profits from food/drinks - or does he just do it for free hoping for a big-time contract?

Dave S. | 01.23.04 - 10:24 am | #

Abe makes some decent money when he plays a college or something, but most Comedy Clubs don’t pay their comics. If you think about it, they have all the overheard costs of a regular bar … supplies, waitstaff, rent, etc. and except for a pretty modest cover charge they don’t really charge enough to have extra cash to throw around. Emcees will get a nominal fee for the night, something like $20. So, yeah, the club experience is all about just that – experience, a chance to refine material, network with other comics and gain exposure. Casting agents do drop by clubs in LA and early on Abe was getting some calls from that … but that was when he had a much more marketable, clean-cut look and was doing much hackier material. Now that he’s more genuine, he doesn’t get as many nibbles.

This might also have to do with the fact that his manager in LA was an idiot (he’s also the one responsible for introducing Michael Jackson to the kid who’s suing him, by the way). Matthew Perry’s “people” were quite interested in Abe, but his manager didn’t let him see them. Now that Abe is mangerless, he’ll occasionally hear through the grapevine “Oh, the casting director for ‘Gilmore Girls’ has been trying to reach you for months.” Frustrating.

A (Tues)day in the life of a playwright, part two.

Then I wrote about how CASEY AT THE BAT gets done more than RAPUNZEL and Carolyn wrote:

>But, if I’m thinking commercially, it seems I should
>write more plays with large casts that appeal to teenage
>boys. Writing for women is just a dead end…

Ok, I do know you wrote this largely in jest, but I feel the need to comment (at length, apparently…)

Pretty much entirely in jest, honestly!

Despite the very scientific conclusion you have drawn , I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on this one. Speaking as someone who was involved in countless kid/teenage-productions (both as an actor and later as a director), the gender-related issue we had was never, “How do we get more boys involved,” but, “How do we find enough roles for the girls, short of just casting them in roles written for males?”

Right. I’ve been there myself. Though I do think many schools/camps/programs would like to lure more boys in, to open up the options as to which plays they COULD produce. F’rinstance, you get some boys interested with a play like CASEY and maybe you could do something a little more “girly” next, with all the boys you have now “hooked.” (‘cause often, even the girliest shows require a handsome prince, a foolish king, etc.)


Now, maybe this is due in part to the fact that my own experiences were in relatively closed environments where you pretty much knew what kids you had to work with from the get-go and what the approximate gender-breakdown would be, and attracting a whole slough of “other” kids from somewhere was neither realistic nor particularly appropriate (small, private school where the same, dedicated group of kids participated in all the shows, with few exceptions; theater summer camp where kids were enrolled ahead of time and all had to appear on stage at some point, etc.). But in my experience, the F/M ratio of theater-inclined teenagers is somewhere between 4-1 and 10-1, and the dearth of shows with gender ratios anywhere close to this is a CONSISTANT problem.

Carolyn | 01.26.04 - 2:09 pm | #

Hey, we both spent four years at Vassar, seeing Phil and the Department stage male-heavy shows – and this was in an environment which was 70-30 female even before you winnowed out the people who weren’t interested in auditioning.

The result is productions like “12 Angry Women” with an all-female case substituted for a an all-male one (in which several of the characters just don’t make sense), or the poor, hulking 13-year-old girl who had to play Bill Sykes in “Oliver” (actually, she was a real trooper and had a pretty good sense of humor about the whole thing, but still – like she doesn’t have enough gender ID issues?). OR scenarios in which a myriad of talented girls are competing for 2 or 3 female roles while the director scrambles to fill the male roles with anyone-with-a-penis-who-will-agree-to-appear-on-stage. All of it is very frustrating and unfair to young girls. Does theater have to be just one more experience that reinforces to them how much more important they would be if they were male?

I agree wholeheartedly. I have done my share of gender-switching as a director – the crew of the S.S. American in ANYTHING GOES was awfully female. But it does nobody a service to change roles that are really obviously male. And while I think can be beneficial to actresses to play outside their own gender once or twice, it’s completely useless to do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.

When I was hired to write THREE MUSKETEERS with women instead of men, I wanted to make sure I made them real women, and didn’t just put men in drag onstage. I think I succeeded. I kept the genderless attributes of the characters and modified the stuff that was male-only. Where Porthos had been a womanizing boozer, it was just as easy to make “Portia” a flirty party girl. I didn’t have to lose any of the courage or camaraderie, which was what's really key to the story.

I’m doing the same thing with TREASURE ISLAND for this summer. I really want to make it about Jim Hawkins looking for a surrogate family, with Silver playing “Dad” and a female Captain Smollett as a reluctant-at-first mom. I’ll keep you updated on how that turns out.But, yes, if you aren’t actually REWRITING a role to make it genuinely feminine, you’re insulting your actress and your audience, on some level.


Anyway, my points are:a) I think the conclusion that writing for teenage boys is what makes a script popular is off base (so to speak…).

From the informal polling I’ve done of the people I’ve asked, you may be right. The directors I’ve spoken to said they did not deliberately choose the show with that in mind, or at least not foremost in their mind. They were drawn to the humor, the characters, the themes, and the "literary" origins (apparently the poem is a part of many middle school curricula). Nonetheless, they did tell me they got a significant bump in the rates of boys auditioning.

On the contrary, though I haven’t read CASEY and I’m sure it’s a great show, based on your description it sounds like something the groups I’ve been involved with would have passed on based solely on the gender-breakdown.

I should mention that CASEY is pretty gender-balanced – one more male speaking part than female (that one part is male only because I wrote it for one specific actor and I understand schools often change “Lenny” to “Lenora”). This is a world of co-ed Major League Baseball. There are also several genderless roles and a chorus, which could be anything.

Meanwhile, we were thrilled whenever we found gems like Ashman and Hamlisch’s “Smile” which has a chorus made up entirely of teenage girls, several meaty female roles, and some male roles as well. I’m guessing that the popularity of CASEY relative to your other scripts has more to do with the fact that it’s recognizable but still unique (as you point out, there are a lot of “fairytale” scripts out there to choose from, and probably few like CASEY).
b) It’s a shame how few plays there are out there that give girls/women an equal opportunity to shine. Not to get too preachy, but Noah, you’re a cool, feminist playwright. You don’t have to buy into that shit.

I promise, I really do try to lean on the female side in my plays (and I really was joking about the "dead end"). Ultimately, the hero of CASEY is Jimmy Blake (though I know one school cast a girl in the role), but his female friend Lefty is heroic, too. That really is my only male-skewing children’s play.

My adult plays … well, I try very hard to write good stuff for women. All my original full-lengths have at least a gender balance if not tipped in favor of women. My shorter stuff, I’m afraid, is more male. I resisted this for a long time, but … I’m somewhat reconciled to the fact that I have to write the ideas that come to me, and those tend to be male-centric. My attempt at writing an all-female one act, TEA PARTY ON A TRAMPOLINE, was disastrous.

I’m not saying I’m ever going to stop trying to write good stuff for women. I feel a genuine obligation, when I see talented actresses out of work, while FAR LESS TALENTED men thrive.

But it’s hard.

Then again, the hard is what makes it great. If it were easy, everybody would do it.

c) Jeez, maybe I need to set my OWN word limit...

Carolyn | 01.26.04 - 2:11 pm | #

No, no I really would love it if this blog became a genuine forum for discussion.

Speaking of word limits, I know Dave doesn’t mind me going on for 2000+ word entries, but would the rest of you prefer I kept it a bit more terse?

The Vagina Dialogue

And speaking of women and theatre … the VAGINA MONOLOGUES controversy.

Yaron, Dave and I had a lot of back and forth about this on Yaron's site. Basically it broke down like this: We all agreed that the play had merit and could be beneficial to people. But Yaron felt that the benefit couldn’t outweigh the disruption the play was causing in town by violating societal boundaries. Well, I’m not living in Amherst right now, so I don’t know what the reaction has been. I know there have been frantic letters to the editor, but we always used to say that every typewriter in Amherst had a key that instantly typed out “I am shocked and horrified” for the purpose of Letters to the Editor. There's always some bug up somebody's poopshoot.

My feeling is that since the play is being performed behind closed doors, requiring a ticket to be seen, after school hours, it’s not really interfering with the life of anybody who’d rather avoid it.

Here’s Dave’s comment on my original piece:

You know, for a small town in the middle of Western Mass, Amherst sure does get the Nations attention every so often.

I'm suprised that they are staging it at ARHS - not that I mind, but because they *know* it would cause an uproar. Although, I think ARHS is probably the best spot to do it, due to the liberal locale, it is a much larger step than doing West Side. (Speaking of which, how the hell did that get cancelled? It's a friggin' historical musical... nothing *anyone* wrote during that time makes *anyone* look good...)

Dave Samonds | 01.21.04 - 10:35 am | #

I forget if I’ve used this joke here before, but back in my day, when we used to ask if we could do WEST SIDE at ARHS, we were always told we couldn’t dance well enough.

Yeah, I just understand people who complain about old-fashioned attitudes being expressed in old literature. Are we really going to dismiss all the good things about, say Huckleberry Finn because it has racist slaveowners?

God, it still makes me angry. Particularly since I didn’t hear any articulate voices on the “cancel the show” side. Who were the school board listening too? Just the length of the petition? Didn’t we all see Heathers? People will sign a petition for ANYTHING!

Not a THOTS, not Quite a Topic

Then I had that day when I just kinda blathered on, and Dave replied …

I'm a bit distraught by the disappearance of Spaulding Gray. I purchased on of his CD's on a whim - I had a long road-trip, and I figured a story/monologue would keep me captivated - and *really* enjoyed it. (I believe it was "Monster in a Box")

We haven’t heard anything further about this, have we? What’s the deal? There’s no corpse, right?

Well, I certainly hope he shows up hale and hearty, but it is kinda fun to have a literary mystery like this again … though he is out-Pynchoning Pynchon and out-Sallingering Sallinger.

Despite living in Washington D.C. and trying to do everything I can to avoid politics,

Interesting practice for a lawyer …

I feel as if I've gotten pulled back in. I dislike the majority of the democratic candidates - but I'm so fed up with the current administration, I feel like I should do something. I've fallen into the Clark camp - best choice so far, in my mind, although I'm reluctant to contribute money, as law-clerks don't quite rank on the high-end of the financial spectrum... Plus, how frustrating must it be to contribute to a candidate who *doesn't* end up winning the primary.

I’m quite worried that all the new people Dean got interested in politics will lose interest now. Potentially, that’s his greatest contribution, energizing a new generation. But as he fades into obscurity, is he taking the Deaniacs with him? Kerry’s not exactly the most charismatic leader in the world. I just hope Dean fights just as energetically for the eventual nominee.

And why does the country care so much about what people in Iowa and New Hampshire think? Out of *all* of the states, those two would probably in the lower half. …
Massachusetts would definitly be in the top half, California too. Probably Washington state, New York and Pennsylvania... But Iowa? Heck, let's just leave it up to Louisiana and South Dakota... C'mon, have some respect for the party.

Dave S. | 01.16.04 - 10:20 am | #

I’m sure some more politically astute person can tell me why I’m dumb for thinking this, but isn’t it profoundly undemocratic (yes, I know the US isn’t a true democracy …) to have the same state get the first primary every year? Especially when you consider that New Hampshire’s politics are pretty much extreme left and extreme right and no middle? To paraphrase A. Whitney Brown, why are we allowing our presidential candidates to be chosen by a bunch of pine needle sniffing maple syrup junkies?

(My father has a pretty funny column about the Massachusetts/New Hampshire rivalry here)

I guess I can understand why we couldn’t have all 50 primaries on one day, but why can’t we rearrange the order every four years? When was the last time the Hawaii primary had any significance, f’rinstance? Shouldn’t their votes have as much significance as ours?

Okay, maybe in the past you needed to have the first primary in a geographically small state so the candidates could campaign all over it. But in this mass-communication age, does that matter? Would it really be harder to start in, say Illinois?

Of course, if you ever suggest changing this, New Hampshire will scream like scalded cats. Live free or bite me.

Alison also chipped in that day:

I actually didn't know about Uta Hagen's death.

I agree with a lot of what you said about actor training. What I thought was so impressive about NYU's grad program when I worked there was that instead of taking a bunch of Hamlets and Ophelias (a la Juilliard), they wanted interesting people - character actors. And there was a major emphasis on play in the curriculum. And they also trained your voice, body, etc. It was (probably still is) very well-balanced. But then when you look at the alumni/ae, there are relatively few big stars (unlike Juilliard or Yale), but lots and lots of working actors. But I think the average American audience member responds most to actors who are pretty and charismatic. The rest is gravy.

Alison | Email | Homepage | 01.19.04 - 11:14 am | #

The NYU grads I’ve seen have been excellent. I also think Brandeis tends to turn out pretty strong actors. But, yeah, when I saw that one Yale Rep show with the grad actors, I was seriously distressed at how mannered and sucky many of them were.

Yeah, I dunno about the “turning out stars” thing. I mean, would Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, David Alan Grier, etc. not be stars if they’d gone to NYU? Would they be better actors?

Well, my instinct is that Yale was good for them, because it wasn’t as self-important and calcified back then. Who has Yale Drama turned out in the last 15 years? (seriously, I don’t know, who have they?)

And of course, I’m suspicious of anyone who prizes being a star more than being a working actor to begin with. Just as I’m suspicious of audiences who only want pretty and charismatic.

Abe auditioned for NYU recently and got a day-one callback. I don’t know what the progress since then has been. I think he’d be good there. He’s an excellent actor with a great deal of talent – a healthy dose of training would probably serve him well.

I think I confused some people with that entry. I certainly did not mean that I was opposed to acting training. I think it’s terrific. I think every actor needs some training. I just think that the way a lot of programs train actors has proven detrimental.

As a writer or director, would I rather have a talented actor with no training, or an untalented actor with tons of training? The former, because I could train that actor.

Would I rather have a talented, UNTRAINABLE actor? No, since untrainable would also mean undirectable.

And that’s the mailbag. Keep those cards and letter coming. Don’t forget to play GUESS THE PILOT and let me know if you’d like to guest-blog next week.

Lou Sends Andy Males

Say the title out loud and it’ll come to you.

We’ll get to your letters shortly (I love pretending to be more important than I really am).

But first, a few words about new stuff on the site. For one, I’ve changed the font from Helvetica to Palatino – screw that sans seraph crap.

I’ve also added some new links to other Blogs …

Fluffy Irish Women Act Silly is a page by Hannah Laurin, a friend of mine whom I directed in a production of ANYTHING GOES. She also created the role of “Old Lady Mergatroid” in my and David Nields’ THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS.

Jacobus is Jake Kamins, a Brandeis student who played Cody in the first workshop production of INSTANT MESSAGE. We’ll be acting together in LOSING THE GAME this spring (more on that later).

Trisarahtops, and I am AMAZED no one else had grabbed the URL www.trisarahtops.com, is Sarah Collins. She was a high school friend, and my just-good-friends prom date nearly TEN YEARS AGO. This makes me feel genuinely ancient.

I’ve also added a link to a page of links (I know) full of some of my favorite entries in this blog. I focused on the comedic ones – the THOTS, the Reagan movie (which has some new material now, btw), the letter to Nomar, etc. Have a look and see if your favorite entries “made the cut.” And let me know if there are some others I should include.

What? You haven’t memorized every word I’ve ever written? You don’t spend countless hours at cocktail parties remembering my witticisms? I’m shocked.

Okay, while I’m on my ego trip, let’s discuss this, too: Next week, Amanda and I are taking off for a week in London. Yes, we’re awesome. But that does mean I won’t be blogging for that week. So … I thought it might be fun to have one or more “guest hosts” for this blog. Would any of you be interested in posting an entry one of the days I’ll be gone? Surely there must be some topic of concern you’d like to get off your chest …Okay, if you’re interested, drop me a line -- smithnoah@aol.com -- I think it could be a hoot.

Okay, on to the mailbag …

THOTS: Grist for my Fevered Brain

Why was there maple syrup at a sushi bar?
Alison | Email | Homepage | 02.02.04 - 11:17 am | #

It was one of those vaguely Chinese buffets, which tries to be all things to all people, so they include food like French fries and soft-serve ice cream, as well as sushi. Y’know, ‘cause all Asian cultures are basically the same.

There are people who eat two sticks of a Kit-Kat at the same time? Freaks. They are obviously MADE to be eaten one at a time. Since you asked, I personally go even further and dissect the individual sticks, eating one layer at a time. But that's just b/c I'm way too OCD for my own good.
Carolyn | 02.02.04 - 10:20 am | #

Well, yes, you are. This poll question didn’t yield the overwhelming response I was hoping for. Okay, I’ll show my hand: I like to bite into two sticks at once. I find the ability to insert my tongue into the ridge part of the overall Kit-Kat experience. Okay, that sounded dirty. Then again, I guess I kinda like big food, for lack of a better word. I love those giant Kit-Kat bars, and you’ve heard me discourse about gummi. I also tend to put several French fries in my mouth at once …Okay, it’s pretty clear, at this point, that I’M the weird one.

Perfect Pitch

This was where I gave my three pitches and asked which one you guys liked and which you thought my professor chose. Again, not overwhelming response. Sigh … I need to have friends with less going on in their lives.

I won’t give away the answer yet, since I would like to hear more about what y’all think …. If y’all have time

No question about it for me - the first one was by far my favorite. (Not to speak poorly of the other two, of course.)

Okay, one vote for the newspaper one. This is the only one I personally have “lived,” since it’s based on my time at the Journal-Courier. I quite enjoyed that job, and I learned a lot from it. I’m sure I’ll dip into that well of experience more than once before I hang up my quill.

The first one gives you that "Ed" kind of feeling, but you could easily see where about 5-6 plotlines could be pulled from it, without having to interject any specific scenarios.

Ideally, less cutesy than “Ed.” Probably, I had “NewsRadio” in mind.

Plus, I always dig the "sharp tongued young female reporter" types...

Me too, when I’m rich and famous and DC Comics lets me write that Superman play I’m gonna write the most kick-ass Lois EVER.

The characters seem like they would be the most enjoyable to watch - plus, sports are the great tie-in: If you love sports, you can enjoy the references. If you're not such a huge fan, high-school sports are a great way to keep it simple. Plus, high school sports are a great reference point - still seemingly pure since the kids aren't spoiled professionals yet. Yet they can mean the world to the kids...
Dave S. | 01.30.04 - 11:44 am | #

I’ve said before that spending a year immersed in high school sports was my just desserts for those days when you and I, Dave, would sneak out of pep rallies to go to Bruegger’s. But, man, in those small towns in Illinois, it was SO FREAKING IMPORTANT. The Journal-Courier is also a VERY good small-town paper, by the way.


If you had to pick a lead to play the main character, and I'm talking someone famous... someone who I would recognize, who would you pick for the part? (You could probably get a good discount on a used "friends" character..)

I'd think someone early 40's, hitting that rough time in life when you look back and see how far you've actually gotten...

Interesting, I totally see Marc as under thirty. Since he’s based on me at 25, after all ...

How about a Pseudo-cast list for the first show - I'd be curious who you'd pick.

Dave S. | 01.30.04 - 1:43 pm | #

I’ll do you one better … lets cast all three:

SPORTS SECTION/INKSTAINED HACKS

Marc (the would-be novelist) … Fred Savage

Sam (the creampuff editor) … Kevin Nealon

Jill (the wisecracking reporter) … Zooey Deschanel

Jake (the sneaky lead reporter) … Paul Reubens

Katie (the spacy photographer) … Arden Myrin

Buzz (the weird paste-up/tech guy) … Mitch Hedberg

Hettie (the ballsy Editor-in-Chief) … Conchata Ferrell

STUDENT LIFE/IN LOCO PARENTIS

Lizzie (the heroic assistant dean) … Alyson Hannigan

Corey (the tough, sarcastic assistant director of res life) … Zooey Deschanel

Marta (the pushover Res. Life Director) … Corinne Bohrer

Marlon (the former NBA player who has become the Athletic Director) … Eriq LaSalle

Wally (aka Walrus, the unreformed party animal Activities Director) … Joel Murray

Junyoung (the Plath-reading secretary for the office suite) … Sara Tanaka

Joanne (the Dean) … (that actress who played Rachel’s boss on Friends … the one with the crush on Chandler?)

GOLDEN BOY/THE ADVENTURES OF GOLDEN BOY

Fred (the cartoonist) … Wallace Shawn

Hannah (his daughter) … Marla Sokoloff (she’s probably too young to be a lawyer, though … maybe Leah Remini? She already has a show ... )

Jay (the younger comic book writer) … Jason Schwartzman

Golden Boy … Animated, with the voice of Patrick Warburton

Okay, some of those were a little rushed (Paul Reubens?). And sometimes I just cast actors who I want to see get more work.

Wow. 1300 words already. I'll have to continue this tomorrow.

See you then.

You Can’t Beat the Breast

Yeah, it bothers me that 75% of the post-Super Bowl coverage hasn’t been “was this the greatest Super Bowl ever?” even though the general consensus seems to be “well, top three, at least.” No, it’s all been about breasts.

Abe does this joke about how, before he got a girlfriend, he’d have to find subtle ways to let gay men who attempted to flirt with him know that he was straight. For instance, if they said, “I like your shirt,” he’d say, “Thank you. You know what I like? NFL Football and vaginas.”

I think he’s on to something there. Clearly we associate football with sex. We have, on the field, the sexual ideals of each gender – the muscled men of war, and the dainty flesh-revealing women whose only purpose is to please men and encourage their endeavors. (No, that’s not MY ideal, but when we have nationally televised playwriting competitions where the men are cheered on by witty career women with whom they are monogamously involved, we’ll talk)

(Oh, and there are female playwrights in this scenario, too, but I’ll let them decide who cheers them on)

But the sex and football thing -- this is why the uproar over this bugs me. Are you telling me that up the indicent, this had all been wholesome family entertainment? Was Janet Jackson showing substantially more skin than the lingerie-clad backup dancers? Than Christian good-girl Jessica Simpson? Than the cheerleaders? Than the women in the ads?

Well, of course, Jackson crossed the line. Because, as we know, you can show almost every inch of breast and be perfectly acceptable, but the second a millimeter of areola hits the open air we are CORRUPTING THE YOUTH OF AMERICA.

Look, I’m sure there were kids watching. And I’m a big fan of letting kids be kids. I know I spoke favorably of adolescent sexual experimentation a few weeks ago, but I completely agree that before puberty, life should be sex-free. There are so many other things that should occupy children’s minds and attention. Sex should not be one of them (though I do think kids should know the specifics of “where babies come from” early on, in a clinical way).

But, if this hadn’t happened, would these upset parents have been fine with the halftime show – with Nelly’s crotch grabbing, with the IMPLIED sexuality of the Jackson/Timberlake duet up until that point? (The two are former lovers, right?)

(Oh, and were they bothered that they had to explain to their kids what these ads for Levitra and Cialis were all about? Especially that part about the four-hour erection?)

And really? What did we see? A very brief flash of what appeared to be a breast covered with a sparkly pasty, followed by an instant cutaway. Amusingly, the long shot we went to was of a fountain-of-pyrotechnics spurting into the air in an undeniably ejaculatory display.

Was I left wondering “was that her breast”? Of course I was. Would I have more or less forgotten about it? Yeah, though it probably would have lingered in my brain longer if “my team” hadn’t been playing. Would a kid who saw it have forgotten it by the time the next farting-animal ad aired? I think so.

But the media just wouldn’t let it go away! Slow motion, blurred-out replays, which ultimately allowed for better viewing of the breast than the actual performance, were EVERYWHERE. To say nothing of the fact that as mainstream a website as Yahoo News was showing multiple unobscured still photos of it.

This reminds me of the elephant-dung Virgin Mary painting at the Brooklyn art museum a few years back which turned all of Rudy Giuliani’s facistometers up to overload. If he hadn’t made a stink (pun marginally intended) about the painting, it would have been seen only by some dedicated art patrons. Because he cracked down on it, the painting was on the news EVERY night and EVERYBODY knew about it.

Wasn’t there a game to cover? Isn’t there an election going on? Do we really have to devote this much news-hour time to this issue?

(I admit I participated in this. I called WEEI’s “Wiener Whiner Line” – a “record your own one-liner and we might put it on the air” phone line on Boston’s leading sports radio station – with the “illegal use of hands” joke. But, c’mon, that’s a pretty good line. I doubt I’m the only person who thought of it, but I do think it’s funnier than the “he should have gone for two” joke that EVERYBODY else made. And no, I don’t know if my joke ever aired.)

And you say, well, it’s sensationalism. This glues eyes to the screen. Well, then why doesn’t “20-20” air “The Making of Girls Gone Wild” specials? When an actress’s nipple accidentally slips out of an Oscar night gown, there might be a joke or two on Letterman, and still caps on prurient websites, but the media usually considers this a time for “discretion.” (E!, who constantly show that clip of Ashley Judd flashing her fans, is a whole ‘nother animal.)

The difference, of course, is that this was (probably) all planned. And if Jackson WANTED us to see this, surely it’s okay to show the clip over and over and over again in pieces about the decline of American morals.

So, am I totally okay with the thing? No. I’m not. And it’s not that I think breast-baring is inherently wrong, though a family-hour program should not be allowed to turn into a “Girls Gone Wild” video. No, what bothers me is the way it occurred.

The number had been a back-and-forth dance of one-upsmanship. She was flirting/seducing/fending off him as much as he was to her. They were clearly equals, and, if anything, she, as the older more experience pop goddess had the upper hand. Then he sings “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.” And he rips off her clothes. Suddenly, the dynamic is changed. She appears shocked and shame-facedly covers herself. She suddenly looks very small and he – for the first time in his career – looks like a MAN in control of his sexuality rather than an overeager lovestruck teen eagerly showing that he can produce a wispy beard.

If Jackson had stood tall, thrusting her bared breast out to the camera, proud of her sexuality and her ability to shock, that would have been one thing. This is, after all, the woman who sang “Control,” who told us to call her “Miss Janet,” if we’re nasty. It would have been the final beat of “yeah, top this!” which is what the whole number had been – Jackson would have won by a nose, as it were.

As it was, it played like a rape. He had “Control” and she, who has used her own sexuality to her advantage for years, looked like an innocent victim. That dynamic should never be used for entertainment.

So the issue raised is: what exactly was intended. At first we heard “it was an accident.” Then Timberlake says something about “costume malfunction.” Jackson was quiet for a long time and finally admitted that there had been supposed to be a “costume reveal,” but not that it went that far.

Okay, so do we assume this means he was supposed to rip off just the leather, revealing a red bra underneath? He just grabbed too many layers?

Possible. I’ll buy that that was possible.

But then, why wear your best nipple shield?

Maybe she always wears it. She has discussed body piercing in interviews, right? And even admitted that she has a pierced nipple? (Amanda and I have an ongoing debate as to whether the jewelry required a pierced nipple or it just fitted over it snuggly, like a snap)

Look, if Jackson always wears a nipple shield, she’s STILL the least weird member of her family.

Second on our discussion of pigskin and … skin: the parties.

Amanda and I headed out after the game to check out the scene on the street. We bundled up and went up to Fenway and the clubs around Landsdowne Street to see if a near-riot was raging. There were plenty of people, but they weren’t really staying in one place (though the cops weren’t doing as much “move it along” as the did after the Sox first victory over the Yankees in the ALCS). So, because it was cold, because we both had work to do in the morning, and because I wanted to see “Survivor” since I kinda, sorta, a little bit know Ethan Zohn, we went home.

Apparently, we just hadn’t gone far enough. A few hundred more feet away, in Kenmore Square, the REAL party was happening. Trash fires, pole climbing, nudity, car flipping etc. Of course, those Northeastern students, who ALWAYS have to prove they’re just as good as BU kids, played the “vehicular homicide” card.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I went to the victory rally at City Hall. (Boston’s City Hall may be the ugliest building on Earth, by the way) Just me and 1.5 million of my closest friends. I hopped on a ludicrously crowded D Train, missed half my class, and stood in the cold for an hour, listening to some obnoxious high school girls who were Bush supporters say that “Dean could drink his own piss.” (The Dean supporters didn’t win any fans by holding up signs which blocked people’s view of the parade, though they took them down pretty fast)

And it was awesome. I got to see the team ride in on duck tours. I got to see the air filled with confetti. I got to see Brady and Kraft brandishing not one but two Lombardi trophies. And I got to hear garbled, poorly amplified speeches, which didn’t really make much more sense when I heard them later on TV.

But, did I see any breasts?

(That is, after all, the topic of this entry)

Of course. It seems I wasn’t in the prime flashing location. The places where people had been camping out since the morning, drinking orange juice bottles half-full of vodka were where the real action was. For people like me, who didn’t reach Government Center till noon, there wasn’t quite as much going on (I did get to see the window of a Starbucks get broken, though).

Not that that stopped my neighbors from demanding some skin. It amuses me that we really have reached the point in our culture where at any large celebratory gathering, it’s just ASSUMED that women will be removing their tops. There was one young man with a sign that just said “TITS.” Others were screaming for every woman who climbed on her boyfriend’s shoulders for a better view to flash them. Every time a woman would appear at the window of one of the office buildings, the crowd would beg for boobs. Um … you know these women WORK THERE, right? It’s generally not considered good workplace etiquette to “put ‘em on the glass.”

And then when a woman in our area did flash us, people were disappointed. See, she was a little overweight and not the prettiest girl in the crowd. But guys, c’mon, FREE BOOBS! You didn’t even have to ask her what her major was. Is public nudity so commonplace now that we can actually get picky about it?

Well, maybe it is. I don’t necessarily think this increased laxity about “indecent exposure” is a bad thing, since I’m a big fan of … breasts. But it probably wasn’t appropriate in the middle of the day, when there were a lot of kids around. After midnight around Kenmore Square is another matter entirely.

But what it all makes me wonder, more, is how far will this go? Will the taboo against bare breasts be eliminated entirely? Will topless beaches become as common on Cape Cod as in the south of France? Will female lawyers, news anchors, doctors, Senators, etc. come to work showing off their own nipple guards?

When the Pats win Super Bowl LVIII, will there be a kid carrying a sign that says “B.J.?”

God Bless America.

So Much Other Stuff

No real entry today. Today I focused on updating the much-neglected "Other Stuff" page on my website. I've added a ton of comedy pieces, scenes, and plays. Take a look. Not a flashy page, but if you've been wondering what people write in MFA Playwriting programs ...

http://www.noah-smith.net/other.html

Oh, and hey, don't forget to play everybody's favorite game GUESS WHICH PILOT NOAH'S PROFESSOR CHOSE. It's the January 29 entry down below.

Ta.

38 Special

THOTS During the game

6:46 Yes, 20 minutes late. Why? Because on Superbowl Sunday, Star Market is staffed by idiots.

6:48 I guess missed the Pats 3-point attempt ... then again, so did Vinatieri.

6:54 Um ... why do the Greeks and Trojans in this Troy movie have English accents?

7:15 The jokes will come when the Pats have a lead.

7:18 Does the Son of Sam law apply to these kids in the Pepsi ad who got prosecuted for downloading music? Is Pepsi allowed to pay them for this ad?

7:24 Hey, if Carolina won this game, would they stop playing “Sweet Caroline” during the 8th Inning at Fenway?

7:30 That’s right, when you think of horse farts, think of Budweiser!

7:31 Charmin commercial ... gayest ad EVER!

7:38 Block kick ... ARGH!

7:42 Vrery nice vrork, Vrabel!

7:45 The Brady-Branch comes through! 6-0 Pats.

7:45 That’s the stuff, Adam! 7-0 Pats.

7:49 We don’t hate you, “He Hate Me” -- but we worry that you hate yourself.

7:49 Now that I think about it, if your name is “Rod Smart,” why do you need a nickname? I mean, if you were a porn star, you could pick a worse name that “Rod Smart.”

7:56 Hello? Best defense in the league? Shut these bastards down, please!

7:59 A freak accident gives Carolina a TD 7-6 Pats

8:00 Grr... 7-7

8:04 Now that’s a throw! Brady-Branch again!

8:05 That NFL “This is what it’s all about” ad? What the hell was that all about?

8:05 David Givens, you are almost enough to make me like the city of Houston. 13-7 Pats

8:09 Adam-antiu m! 14-7 Pats

8:12 Cousin Sal from “Jimmy Kimmel Live” kicks a field goal. 14-10 Pats.

8:23 Janet Jackson sings a four-year-old song.

8:24 P. Diddy sings a 23-year-old song

8:26 Diddy now rapping to a 30-year-old song

8:27 Kid Rock sings what is app arently the only song he knows.

8:30 Amanda points out that Janet Jackson’s outfit looks like one of the Wicked Witch’s guards from The Wizard of Oz.

8:33 And for the grand finale ... Janet Jackson’s right boob!

8:34 She looked genuinely surprised. Did Justin improvise this? Couldn’t he have done this with Britney three years ago?

8:36 Warren Sapp boldly asserts that if HE were facing Miss Hannigan, he would beat her much faster than Little Orphan Annie did. Really, honestly, it’s just thos e Panthers who are tough!

8:42 Streaker! And apparently not everything is bigger in Texas.

8:46 I’m no expert, but if your only freakin’ job is punting a football, shouldn’t you be, like, good at it?

8:55 Incomplete pass? No Cats fumble? No Pats recovery? Cough--bullshit--cough.

8:56 When you think of bestiality, think Budweiser!

9:03 Now that’s punting!

9:04 Cialis “works for 36 hours”? I do not want a 36 hour erection! Who do you think I am? Sting?

9:11 An ad for Gillette. Y’know, like Gillette Stadium? What’s your stadium named after, Carolina? Massengil?

9:20 Am I crazy or does the Pats’ logo look a bit like John Kerry?

9:21 You bastards! Totally in! Fauria was totally in!

9:22 ‘S’all good! ‘Twan’s got it! Proud to call him a relative. 20-10 Pats

9:23 Vinatyrranasaurus! 21-10 Pats

9:29 Okay, that was a hell of a run. 21-16 Pats

9:31 “Duh ... I’m John Fox! I wanna go for two! Duh duh duh!”

9:36 When you think responsibility, think Budweiser!

9:41 Faulk you, Carolina!

9:43 Shit.

9:47 “Illegal Use of Hands” cal l. Exactly what Janet Jackson is probably accusing Justin Timberlake of.

9:51 No no nonononononono! Fuck. 22-21 Carolina.

9:53 Phew. No conversion.

10:01 I like David Givens much more than his sister R obin.

10:05 Just had a Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally moment, thanks to Mssrs. Brady and Vrabel. 27-22 Pats

10:07 Now that’s how you go for two! 29-22 Pats

10:08 I admit, I thought that “faster than the speed of sound” car ad was having technical problems.

10:12 I don’t know who these morons in the AOL Top Speed ads are, but I have one request for AOL. Could you, like, suck less?

10:14 How are the Pats letting this NFL Europe wussbag make these passes?

10:16 Ack! Grgh! Grble! Grfftn k! 29-28 Pats

10:17 Miss miss miss! Shit. 29-29

10:17 Okay. This is where the Pats were two years ago ... let’s twist again like we did last summer.

10:24 Add me to the list of people ready willing and able to marry Tom Brady.

10:25 Pleaseadample aseadampleaseadampleaseadampleaseadampleaseadam

10:27 Deja vu all over again. 32-29 Pats

10:28 You know what? They should put a circle around that 4 on Vinateiri’s uniform because I like to call him Mr. Fantastic!

10:29 It’s all I can stands. I can’t stands no more.

10:30 Please, please tell me that was really Wang Chung in the Subway ad.

10:33
PHIL SIMMS: (Tom Brady was) not sacked in the postseason.
AMANDA: Did he just say “nutsack”?

10:40 Gee Tom, I was kinda looking forward to tearing the city down.

Fans of a sports team are lucky to get one unbelievable last-minute championship victory in their lifetime. Pats fans have two now. You couldn’t ask for more than that.

Well, you could have asked for better defense that didn’t allow three TDs on impossibly long pass plays. You could hav e asked for Vinatieri to get those first two kicks.

But ... shut up. We just saw one of the most exciting Superbowls ever. We just saw our team continue a 15-game win streak.

Thank you guys. You’ve given us an incredible ride. See you in September.