CityWOOF

Miscellania

Not too much going on…just working and doing the show.  We’ve had appreciative, if small houses.  A couple of published reviews, neither of them very good.  The reviewers just generally didn’t like the play, one complained about the set.  Whatever.  It’s an enjoyable production.

Going to see La Traviata tomorrow night, looking forward to that. I’ve purchased a bunch of Puccini and Verdi and Mozart opera recordings…I think I’m in danger of becoming an opera queeen.  I’m starting to really love it! Doesn’t do much for my “butch” image, but whatever…

 Went to see Guys and Dolls at Portland Center Stage Sunday night…fantastic production. Loved every mintute of it.

Went to STEAM, our local bathhouse Friday night…not good.  There were hunky hotties looking for other hunky hotties and then, well, the rest of us.  It was a drag, a waste of money and time.  I think my bathhouse days are over, at least until I lose about 40lbs.

Which I plan to do with my new Bodybugg.  It’s a pretty cool device that lives on your arm and measures how many calories you are burning as the days go by.  You upload that information directly from the Bodybugg to an online program and then you enter what you’ve had to eat.  It’s really the best way I’ve found of measuring your calories in/calories out.   I printed out a fat picture of myself and put it on the fridge to remind me…

QUESTION FOR MY READERS:  What would you like to see on my blog?  More of my daily life miscellania, or essays about what I think about stuff or….what?  Just curious. 

Have a great week!  Take a look at my Flickr photostream, link on the right.  I uploaded a bunch of pictures recently.

Opening Weekend/Anti-Heroes

OPENING WEEKEND

Opening weekend for Prelude To A Kiss is done, and we are up and running.  Friday night was great:  A sold-out house, friends in the audience, a very responsive crowd.  Saturday night’s house was much smaller, less than a third of what we had on Friday, but they were still very much there, very into the show.  Yesterday’s matinee was something of a bust…only 7 people watching our show.  Understandable, because it’s still summer in Portland and a gorgeous, warm Sunday afternoon is not something to be taken for granted here in Puddletown.  I hope more people will come to the rest of the shows.

I was once in a musical called FLIPSIDE, a full-blown, 2-act, choreographed extravaganza of a show…and for one performance we had only 3 people in the audience.  It was a Sunday matinee.  All three people were comped in and bussed in from a local nursing home.  They slept they whole time.  They applauded after the first number, but after that…nothing but silence. And snoring.  They were very old. Sunday matinees are not so good.

ANTI-HEROES

I’m rather fascinated by the somewhat recent trend in TV shows that feature protagonists who are anti-heroes: ordinary people whose circumstances drive them to become drug dealers (Weeds, Breaking Bad), cops with their own rules (The Shield) and even the serial killer who kills “bad people”  (Dexter).  It’s so interesting to be rooting for people who do bad things.  They are very well-written, these characters, and you find yourself empathizing as they dump the bodies.  Just something I find interesting.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Opening night, it’s Opening niiiiight…

Opening night for Prelude to a Kiss tonight.  We’re sold out.  I hope the audiences like it!  It’s a good play.

Farewell to my favorite movie review show/Hurricane in Houston

MY MOVIE REVIEW SHOW

When I was 12, I began watching a show on PBS called “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You”, which featured Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.  I loved it, because you could see actual movie clips from recent releases…right at home on your TV!  Very exciting.  I watched every week.  Then the show became “Sneak Previews” and eventually  “At the Movies”.   Sadly, Gene Siskel died after many years on the show, and I adjusted to the presence of Richard Roeper, who was very good.  Then, of course, Roger Ebert left the show abruptly due to illness, never to return. 

Now Richard Roeper is also gone.  The new version of “At the Movies” premiered last Sunday…and it is a mess.  I’ll probably still watch (still love those movie clips), but the show as I knew it for 33 years is gone.  The balcony set, the format…all changed.  The new reviewers just don’t measure up.   33 years I loved that show…it’s over.  It’s sad, but…oh well…nothing is more constant than change.  All good things must end.  It sure was a good thing.  So, goodbye to my Sunday night ritual…I will miss you.

HURRICANE IN HOUSTON

One of my best friends lives in Houston.  I saw today on the news that Hurricane Ike is forcing an evacuation of some parts of that the Houston area.  I called him to see if he was okay, if he was having to evacuate or not.  The part of the city where he lives is not being evacuated, but is in for some very dark and stormy nights…but he is all stocked up, he said.  With Copehagen snuff, tuna fish and poppers….

Pentecostals – Scary Sarah!

Sarah Palin is pentecostal.  The McCain lot will probably try and lie about that, or distort it, but she’s pentecostal.  Just like Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Jim Bakker and John Ashcroft.  Madame Palin attended an Assembly of God church most of her church-going life.  She doesn’t acknowledge being pentecostal anymore, because it isn’t politically expediant.

Pentecostals are psycho. I know, I was raised as one.  Biblical literalists, they don’t believe in science or reason.  It’s all about the rapture and the “End Times”, the second coming and the Anti-christ.  If normal, reasonable people knew what they are in store for by voting for a pentecostal, they would never do it.   

The pentecostals I grew up with were extremely racist, homophobic, bigoted people.  They are hypocrites by design.  They’ll seem very nice…just don’t cross them.  They are wolves in sheeps clothing. 

Do some research, America, before voting.  Voting for a pentecostal is voting for ignorance and stupidity.  Am I picking on this religion?  You’re damn right.  Sure, people can believe what they want.  But this extreme sect of Christianity is analogous to Islamic fundamentalists who blow themselves up.  Pentecostals, though, would never have the balls to harm themselves…just other people.  Like when they murder doctors who perform legal abortions. 

Sarah’s church also has an “ex-gay ministry”.   There’s so much and yet so little to say to say about that sort of lunacy.  It destroys lives.

And that’s my rant on pentecostals.  If people just knew…the 2008 Presidential race wouldn’t even be close.  I think McCain has screwed himself good by choosing this nutty whack-job as a running mate.

12 Bears in a Tub/Lost in the Wilderness

It was an adventurous Labor Day Weekend. 

I was invited to a BBQ at the home of people that I did not know, had never met.  Normally I would not have gone under those circumstances, but…they were both very attractive guys.  I kept hearing that voice of someone’s Mom (not mine) saying, “Go! You might meet someone!”  So I went.

Turned out that even though I didn’t know the hosts, I knew 97% of the other guests, which was…nice! All people I like, the people that make me glad I’m part of the community here in Beartown, OR.  The food was great, as was the company, then after the food came the hot tub.  At one point there were 12 of us crammed in it.  Naked, frisky, happy, fed bears all feeling good.  We soaked until after it was dark.  Other things happened, too.  I went home very happy.

Then, yesterday – After a 7-hour rehearsal and helping a new friend move (never buy a truck), I got lost in the hills and mountains outside Beaverton.  Driving around for hours, no idea where I was or how to get where I needed to go.  Nothing but trees and winding roads and…what’s that?  Banjo music?  Dare I get out of my safe vehicle and approach that shack, try to get some directions?  Why are they playing the banjo?

No signs, no indication of how to get back to civilization.  Finally, I saw a truck pulled off the side of the road.  Some teenagers, drinking beer and doing god-knows-what.  No banjos.   I saw them, slammed on my brakes and began backing towards them…probably scared the crap out of ‘em…but they knew the way out of the woods.  I made it home, running on fumes.  I was scared, frustrated and mostly angry about the lack of signage along the roads.  Not just angry, furious. 

But all is well now.  It’s just so funny to think that you could get lost in the wilderness right outside a city you’ve lived in for 15 years.

Prelude to a Kiss opens in 2 weeks.  It’s going well.

I’m no longer considering moving to Texas. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend!