Resistance is futile

Oh, give me a home
Where the sci-fi geeks roam
And the Borg and the Peacekeepers play
Where Babylon 5
Is forever alive
And it's always Colonial Day

Home, home at the Con
Where a costume is just de rigueur
Watch vampires pounce
And George Takei flounce
While surrounded by Southern grandeur

Yes, I am that much of a geek. I'm already planning to attend a party for GLBT Star Trek fans, a Q&A with George Romero and Sam Raimi (even with my whole zombie thing), and (frak me) President Gaius Baltar's State of the Fleet Address. I'm even toying with going to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Senior Prom.

I suppose I should give up the hope of ever getting laid again and should move into my parent's basement. Thank God they have room for my graphic novels and action figures.

See you in a week or so. Live long and prosper.

Theatre

Last night I went to DiverseCity Theater Company's Equality Playwrights Festival at the Clurman Theatre. Four one-acts all having to do gender identity. While all four were interesting and good in their own way, one of them was pretty damn brilliant. Veils, by Joe Byers, was about a soldier in Iraq about to have his first sexual experience with a local prostitute. Given that this play is about gender identity, neither the soldier nor the prostitute is what they appear to be.

It was a great little play.

Two of the others, Onna Field by Stuart Harris, and Cold Flesh by Jorshinelle Taleon-Sonza, were okay. Interesting concepts, but I had problems with the writing. Onna Field had a lot of very stylized language that the actors seemed to stumble on from time to time. Cold Flesh had an interesting concept (a woman investigating her husband's suicide and finding out about his gay affairs), but it seemed a little too easy for the main character to find out the truth about his reasons. Imagine a Law and Order episode where the detectives ask the first suspect if he did it, and he confesses. Too much, too quickly. Maybe if it had been stretched into a full-length play and the wife had to do more digging; I'm not sure.

The final play, Clean Living by Robert Askins, was the only comedy of the evening. It took on the whole "don't ask, don't tell" issue in a new and rather amusing way. Plus, there was a naked redhead onstage the entire time, which is always a plus in my book.

In all four shows, the acting, directing and production values were strong. Well, I would have made some different choices as a director in some of the shows, but I feel that way about everything I see.

The festival runs through this weekend, I believe. If you get a chance, you should check it out.

Choices

While working out on the elliptical machine tonight, I was faced with two choices:

1) Watch the big TV screen which some mouth-breathing moron had tuned to Wife Swap;

or

2) Watch the perky asses of the hot dancer boys who were using the machines in front of me as they swayed seductively back and forth.

Wanna guess which I chose?

[title of post]

Last night I saw [title of show]. I loved it. I want to see it again and again.

A few thoughts:

1) I wish I'd written it.
2) Since I can't date Faustus (a funny, clever redhead), I want to date Hunter Bell (a funny, clever redhead).
3) The show introduced a new word into my lexicon: procrastibator. I would like that inscribed on my headstone.

Anyway, the show closes on Sept. 9th (I believe) so go see it if you haven't yet. Hell, go see it even if you have.

Help

To my readers who are (or were) in theatre: Does anyone have a translation of Pierre Marivaux's The Dispute that I could borrow?

I know it's unlikely, but I don't want to purchase one and I thought I'd try this first.

UPDATE: Never mind. The library has it. God, I love this city.

But I want it now!

So after three weeks of eating (sorta) right and working out, I'm down nine pounds.

Naturally, I'm despondent. I can't help but think that the folks on The Biggest Loser would have been down . . . I don't know . . . like 40 pounds in that amount of time.

Yes, I'm losing slowly which is better, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I want to be skinny now. Right now, this instant.

My former shrink saw unreasonable expectations as one of my problems. Gee, you think?

Anyway, we'll see how this goes.

Joke

This Hasidic Jew walks into a bar with a bright orange frog on his head. The bartender looks at him and says, "Where on earth did you get that?"

The frog answers, "Brooklyn. They're all over the place."

Ba dum bum.

My Year Sunday of New Things

As a nod to Erik's blog, I've decided to list the handful of new things I did Sunday.

1) Ate chicken feet at the Golden Palace while having dim sum with Jase, Brian and Patrick.

2) Went to Coney Island and walked the boardwalk.

3) Had pizza at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn.

4) Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

It was a great weekend.

Venting

How fair is it that this cat received more press than any of my friends or family who've ever passed away?

I imagine when Baby Jessica passes on, there will be a national day of prayer and the flags will be at half-staff.

Last night

When I climbed the stairs out of the subway, the first thing I noticed was the flashing light. It looked like a Hollywood premiere.

I had my umbrella, but the rain hadn't started, so I was fine. But the lightning. It was like a sci-fi movie. Jagged spears everywhere, immediate booms of thunder. People were stopped on the sidewalks looking at the clouds. A couple of people had cameras out.

By the time I'd reached my street, the lightning and thunder had me rattled. Too close, too loud. A block away from my house, the rain started. Fat, heavy drops. By the time I had my umbrella opened, it was pouring. The wind whipped the rain sideways, catching my umbrella and rendering it useless. I ran the half-block down to my apartment. When I reached the scaffolding, I was dripping wet and my shoes were filled with water.

Once safely indoors, I looked out and marveled at the rain and the wind. The streets were filled with water and leaves. The wind tore at the branches and awnings. I could hear the pings as small hailstones bounced off my air conditioner.

Needless to say, I didn't make it to the gym.

This morning I noticed that the Lutheran church across the street had been cordoned off. Safety tape around the building, wooden barriers blocking the sidewalk and part of the street. My first thought was a bomb scare. Then I noticed the twin spires at the front of the church were no longer twins. One was now shorter than the other. And large pieces of carved stone had gouged chunks out of the pavement, ripped limbs from the surrounding trees and crushed the wrought-iron fence. I don't know if it was the wind or the lightning, but it's amazing what one relatively quick storm can do.

One other thing

Re: the whole blowing up airplanes thing.

I'm not good when it comes to flying. Haven't been since I was a kid.

When I was in my 20s, I was on a plane that hit an air pocket an dropped a fairly insane distance. That made things ever so much worse. From that point, even a little turbulence could make me start to panic.

But I dealt with it.

Then came 9/11.

At that point, flying became terrifying for me. I started having panic attacks while I was flying. If I fell asleep while flying, I would wake in a panicked state, sure that we were about to crash.

Since I couldn't deal with it, I let science help me out. I started flying with Prince Valium.

Now I take my Valium and use a pair of the noise-reducing headphones with my Walkman (yes, Walkman . . . not everyone has an iPod). Flying is actually fine, and from time to time is even fun.

The events in London (real or not . . . I'll leave that to the conspiracy theorists) may have screwed that up for me. Once again, I will be very worried while I fly and there is the possibility that I will be forced to give up my music and magic headphones. I'll basically be screwed.

I can't wait for the development of transporter technology.

Pretend I wrote something clever here

Last night I went to the gym considerably later than normal. I usually come home, grab a bite, and hit the gym around 7 or so. Last night I didn't get there until 9. Little did I know that the hotties come out at night. Seriously, there was so much eye candy, my workout flew by. And redheads. There were several really hot redheads.

That's the strange thing about my neighborhood. It's hopping at night. Restaurants are always packed with people at 10 or 11 p.m. Even during the week.

Ah well, considering the number of OTB Europeans, I suppose it's no surprise. But it makes me feel tired just thinking about it.

That being said however, my new workout time is officially 9 p.m.

And speaking of douchebags . . .

I have recently returned from a trip to Jesusland where I attended my high school reunion. Twenty years on and the popular assholes are still assholes, they're just fatter and wrinkly. On the flip side, the ones who were put upon and made fun of are really blossoming. I spent the evening talking to a girl who I was in band with. She is now a chef, looks stunning and is married to a comedian/writer who has an Emmy and is about to get his own series on Comedy Central.

It was one of those karmic victories.

I hope every single one of those bitches who were mean to her back in high school were eating their hearts out. Though she did seem pleased that one of the girls actually apologized for the way she treated her.

While it would have been nice if one or two of the people who made my life miserable back then had apologized to me, I will simply take comfort in the knowledge that I have a pretty fucking amazing life.