Bin Laden? Never heard o' him.

"The Republican leadership priority is to have our troops hunt down, kill or capture terrorists before they try to attack us again at home," said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois.

I guess that explains why 1700 soldiers have died and Bin Laden (remember him? The fellow that brought down the World Trade Center?) is still free.



Follow up: I sent the following to Speaker Hastert

Recently a fellow in your office, Ron Bonjean, said the following: The Republican leadership priority is to have our troops hunt down, kill or capture terrorists before they try to attack us again at home.

I was wondering if perhaps the Republican leadership would amend this priority to include terrorists who have already attacked us at home. It has been almost 4 years and Osama Bin Laden is still free. And unless you have some intellegence report that says he's hiding in Iraq, our troops are in the wrong place.

And while you're at it, perhaps you could do something to catch the guy who was sending out anthrax. I know he's another terrorist who's already struck, but just for fun, why not bring him to justice?

Tag, I'm it

So GOB tagged me with a meme like a month ago and I'm just now getting around to doing it. That should explain why my plays/screenplays/novels aren't just leaping off the page.

Anyway, here you go Jeff.

1. Estimate the total number of books you've owned in your life.
I'll guess it's in the 1000-1500 range.


2. What's the last book you bought?
"Gay Haiku" by Joel Derfner (a/k/a Faustus, MD)


3. What's the last book you read?
I guess this could include the current book I'm reading "The Oxford Dictionary of Plays". If it's meant to be the last book I read before this one, that would be Gay Haiku.


4. List 5 books that mean a lot to you.
"The Last Days of Summer" by Steve Kluger
"The Swiss Family Robinson" by Johann Wyss
"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
The poems of Lord Byron
Any of the Tales of the City books by Armistead Maupin


5. Tag 5 people
Like I have 5 people who read my blog . . . um, Jase, Frank, MzOuiser, David and any of the Brians and Mikes

WYSIWYG

I think this was one of my favorite WYSIWYGs yet. The stories were terrific and almost all were laugh-out-loud funny. But I must say, the lesbian contingency was certainly graphic. I think I now know more about lesbian sex than any gay boy has a right to. Fisting, who knew? Sheesh.

My favorite of the evening was Matt, who gave the best reading I've seen him do (and that's with three WYSIWYGs under his belt). The story was funny and touching (he's posted it on his blog . . . read the comments, too) and his delivery was dead on. Fantastic.

Joe was a pretty close second with his story that managed to work in bathhouses, Oscar parties, dropping acid and midgets. And really, what more does a story need? Plus, Joe is funny, is a good speaker and is certainly easy on the eyes. There's a picture on his site; you'll see what I mean.

And though I have never checked out her blog before, Hanne Blank is my new queer mother-goddess hero. Her story was great.

I should also mention that Faustus did a couple of new songs (new to me, at least): a funny one about artificial insemination (kinda) and one that was really touching about unrequited love. Naturally, given the nature of my so-called love life, I was nearly in tears during the second one, but I bit my quivering lip until it bled and managed not to shed a single tear.

As for the rest, really, really funny. It was my first time with most of these bloggers, so I have a lot of reading to do to catch up. While I'm doing that, why don't you check out their blogs for yourself?

Matt (www.cowsinthebarn.com)

Hanne Blank (misia.livejournal.com)

Emily DePrang (pigeoninthesun.blogspot.com)

Joe (joemygod.com)

Bradford Shellhammer (bradfordshellhammer.com/weblog.html)

Jane Vincent (educatedslut.blogspot.com)

Dr. Faustus (searchforlove.blogspot.com)

Dan Fishback (cheeseonbread.com)

Thanks to Chris, Sparky and Andy for another great evening.

Note to self

Talk about Aaron's picnic, Broadway Bares, WYSIWYG and the hot little Latino that Time Warner sent to my house to hook up my cable.

All this and more coming soon.

I've moved

Okay, the move is more or less done. It was traumatic, as they always are, but it is over, so I'm happy.

I like the new apartment. I like the neighborhood.

I hate unpacking, but what can you do?

I don't have computer access, other than at work, but that should be resolved soon. Then I'll be back to boring your socks off with tales of my humdrum life.

Lesson learned

The reason I shouldn't try to do my laundry at 6 a.m. is that I'm not fully awake, even if I'm ambulatory enough to get downstairs and start the machines.

That explains why I didn't notice my wallet in the back pocket of my jeans.

At least my Metrocard still worked.

Weekend

What says 'Weekend' like Christian boy bands, hustler bars, gay movies and child killers? What, I ask you, what?

Thursday night I saw Altar Boyz with Frank. That was a lot of fun. They really nailed it. The painfully earnest lyrics. The proto-homo with an obvious crush on one of his bandmates. The dancing. All of it. While this wasn't 'Death of a Salesman,' it was one of the most entertaining shows I've seen in a while. I can't wait to get the cast album. I may even go see it again.

Friday, I met up with Frank and Stuff and went to the Famous Author Rob Byrnes Memorial Bar (East), a/k/a The Townhouse. Several of the um . . . working boys, were lookin' mighty fine. Of course the bar was also being visited by some extras from the latest George Romero film, so we decided to move on. We headed over to the Web so Stuff could do a little window shopping. I mostly just enjoyed the air-conditioning.

Saturday, I continued my NewFest adventures seeing two movies with Stuff and Jason, Afterschool Specials and Boy Meets Boy, both were screenings of short films. Several of them were standouts, most were good, one made me want to scratch my eyes out and scream 'Why, God, why?" If you ever get a chance to see a short film called 'The Mormon Conquests,' see it. It was brilliant. I'll try to write about some of the other shorts once I have a little more time.

Saturday evening, I went to see 'Thrill Me,' a musical based on the Leopold and Loeb story (two Chicago teens who, in the 1920s, kidnapped and killed a young boy, believing that they were the embodiment of the Nietzschean superman). The show was a little hit and miss. Part of the problem for me was that it was told entirely in flashbacks. It takes place at Nathan Leopold's parole hearing, with him being asked to explain what happened. He does so in narration and flashbacks of key scenes. I just got tired of having all the scenes introduced and then summarized after they were over.

Overall, it was an okay, barebones production (not much in the way of a set, though I tend to like that; music provided by a piano; simple costumes). Stephen Dolginoff, who wrote the book and music, is a good, but not outstanding, composer. A couple of the songs are really rather good; one of them, called 'Roadster,' was especially good. The problem for me was that the lyrics and the dialogue sounded too modern. Of course, I didn't expect it to sound like some sort of gangster movie and perhaps it was written that way to make it resonate for a modern audience, but it kept me from truly getting into the show. In addition, I found the book to be rather weak. There was very little dialogue to the point that I almost wish Dolginoff had either beefed up the book or gone the way of 'Rent' and had the entire show sung.

Of course, it's easy to be a critic. I'd suggest seeing it for yourself to decide. If nothing else, it was a fascinating story.

One more

You scored as The Beast. Your alter ego is The Beast! But that is only a name... you are kind hearted and sweet, people just misunderstand you. The Beast 88% Sleeping Beauty 63% Goofy 63% Peter Pan 56% Ariel 44% Donald Duck 44% Cinderella 31% Pinocchio 31% Cruella De Ville 19% Snow White 19% Which Disney Character is your Alter Ego? created with QuizFarm.com

Now I'm a Believer

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 94% Idealist 69% Modernist 69% Postmodernist 56% Existentialist 44% Fundamentalist 38% Materialist 31% Romanticist 31% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks to G.O.B. for this one

More movies

Monday night I went with the ever delightful Jase to see a couple more films at NewFest. We saw 29th and Gay and Mormor's Visit. I really liked Mormor's Visit, a sweet little film by Casper Andreas, about a gay man in NYC who is surprised by a visit from his little Swedish grandmother (the film is in English and Swedish), who has run away from her nursing home. This was a really lovely movie dealing with family and the desire for the freedom to be who you are. I really liked this and am interested to see what Andreas' next film will be like (Slutty Summer which opens at Cinema Village this weekend). Plus, Andreas is kind of a cutie . . .

29th and Gay was pretty good. It could have been a lot better with a little more money in the budget, but with luck this film will be well-received enough to ensure that the director's next work will be better funded. I thought the story was pretty good, a gay man dealing with turning 30 and living a life that is nothing like what he expected. The film was written by and starred James Vasquez (his character's name was James Sanchez); Carrie Preston directed.

This film suffered from some of the things you'd expect from a low budget film. Some of the acting was pretty uneven, there were problems in some places with lighting and sound, the editing was a little rough. I'm willing to cut some slack; it turns out that much of the film had to be reshot after a computer crash destroyed a lot of the footage (they talked about this in the Q&A section)

I also had problems with the story . . . some of it was a little too grounded in sitcom rather than life; I had the feeling that I'd seen a lot of it before and every plot "twist" was telegraphed way in advance. Plus I always have a problem with movies where the plain schlubby guy (with no offense intended to Mr. Vasquez) ends up with the really hot guy (in this case played by a really cute fella called Mike Doyle). I have yet to see that happen in real life . . . wait, that's not quite true. I have yet to see that happen in real life where money or some other kind of renumeration wasn't involved.

The roles of James' best friends were played by Nicole Marcks (as Roxy Hymen, gal pal and sounding board for James) and David McBean (as the super-arch Brandon Bouvier). I thought they were both terrific. I read in McBean's bio that he played Chicklet in a production of Psycho Beach Party. After seeing him in this show, I wish I could have seen him as Chicklet. I bet he was hilarious.

Anyway, this was a cute film and frankly a hell of a lot better than most of the dreck that falls under the catagory of 'gay cinema'. If it gets a broader release or comes to a festival near you, I'd suggest checking it out.

So in other news, I was watching Law & Order last night and saw a guy that I knew from grad school (well, I was in grad school; he was an undergrad at the time). It was odd. I'm getting used to seeing people I know on Law & Order . . . I mean every New York actor has been on the show at least once. But this was kind of unexpected. I was pretty amazed that I recognized him after ten years.

Let's see . . . what else? I'm catching up on Six Feet Under episodes. Um . . . I went to a charity event the other day at a Chelsea gallery (good swag: mostly CDs and such). I noticed Andres Serrano at the event; he's a big supporter of the charity. I was really blown away getting to see him. I think he's an amazing artist (his portraits are stunning). After that event, I went to another one at Crobar. Not the kind of place someone like me tends to go (as I understand, it's normally equal parts Paris Hilton ilk, poseurs and Jersey guidos). It was a beautiful club; large and open like Webster Hall, but tastefully decorated. Really nice.

Anyway, that's my life right now. I'm gearing up for my move next week . . . or rather ignoring my move next week until the last possible moment. I've got some theater in my future: Altar Boyz with Frank tonight, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Sweet Charity in a couple of weeks. Should be some good stuff.

Aaaaahhh!

The movers just called to see if I could make my move date a week earlier.

That means Monday.

I am not even close to being ready, but I suppose I could be if I really try.

Crap.

Yet another laundry list

And what have I been up to recently, you ask. Well, I'll tell you.

Theater:
Shockheaded Peter - Brilliant. Horror and comedy, Grand Guignol, music and a fine acting company all came together for a wonderful afternoon of theater. If it hadn't just closed, I'd suggest you run out and see it.

Flight - Very good. It got savaged by Charles Isherwood of the Times, but good reviews most everywhere else. Sad to say, the Times trumps most of the other reviews as far as the blue-hairs who go to shows are concerned, so the show is now very underattended. You should go see it while you can; it's really good. The play is about Charles Lindbergh and his wife, the trans-Atlantic flight, the kidnapping, the price of fame and how heroes often have feet of clay. It has a terrific cast: Gregg Edelman as Lindbergh, Kerry O'Malley as his wife Ann, Brian D'Arcy James as the Reporter and Andrew Polk, Rex Young and Victoria Mack as everyone else. I have a code that can get you a discount on the tickets, e-mail me if you want it.

Songs From an Unmade Bed - Um . . . okay. Just okay. While I thought the music in this "song cycle" was really good (lyrics by Mark Campbell and music by seventeen different composers . . . each did a song) and the actor (Michael Winther from Mamma Mia) was terrific, the show didn't do much for me as a piece of theater. I loved the songs (Campell is very funny, knows how to neatly turn a phrase and he and his composers really know how to work different styles of music) and I thought Michael Winther was funny and cute as the gay man whose love life was being explored in the songs, but I would have gotten about as much enjoyment out of a CD of the music and it would have been considerably less expensive than the $50 tickets.

Movies:
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - Blah. Uniformly blah. Great source material, several great actors, very nice special effects . . . and yet, blah. Save your money, wait until it's on DVD, then don't rent it.

Foreign Exchanges - A group of short foreign films that is part of the NewFest (NY Gay and Lesbian Film Festival). Some good, some absolutely unbearable. Old Black Ridinghood was an animated short that really grew on me. Another good one was a Spanish film called Maricon.

Straight Acting - A documentary about gay men who play 'straight' sports (rugby, rodeo, hockey) and what it means to be gay and/or straight acting. This one was done by a fellow rugger who is on the LA Rebellion RFC. It was okay. Rough, but okay. It was also very odd seeing a lot of folks I know on screen. All in all, this is worth seeing.

Original Pride - Another documentary, this one about the Satyrs Motorcycle Club in LA, the oldest continuously active gay organization in the States (it celebrated its 50th anniversary last year). This was really good and I hope you will all keep an eye out for it as it plays the various film festivals around the country.

No huge surprise

Natural Causes 100% Suicide 100% Posion 73% Bomb 67% Suffocated 53% Gunshot 47% Disappear 47% Stabbed 40% Cut Throat 27% Disease 27% Eaten 13% Accident 7% Drowning 7% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

For she's a jolly good fellow

In an hour and a half (London time), it will be her birthday (in New York, it won't be her birthday for six and a half hours).

Anyway, when it's June 1st wherever you are, be sure to wish her a happy birthday.

Sherry, you are a wonderful person and it's my honor and pleasure to call you friend. Happy 21st Birthday!!!

Civis astorianus sum (sorry, don't know how to say it in Greek)

So I got the apartment. Soon I'll be living in Queens.

Now I just have to pack and move.

Piece of cake.

Big, evil, razor-blade-filled piece of cake.

I hate moving.

Everything is covered in seaman

It's beginning to look a lot like Fleet Week.

See what I mean?

Frist blames Democrats

Today's game is to take a headline from the paper (paper . . . how quaint) or online edition of said paper and add the phrase "; Frist blames Democrats" to it.

My favorites so far:

Garth Brooks proposes to Yearwood onstage; Frist blames Democrats

Ashley Judd's bus gutted in fire at film shoot; Frist blames Democrats

Angelina Jolie says she never slept with Brad Pitt; Frist blames Democrats

Bright spot on Saturn moon baffles scientists; Frist blames Democrats

Roddick eliminated again at French Open; Frist blames Democrats

Sure, it's silly and juvenile, but it's kind of funny. Let me know if you see any good ones.

Movin' on up to the really, really east side

I put in an application for an apartment in Astoria. By this time next week, I could be an outer-borough dweller (sounds kind of like C.H.U.D. or something, doesn't it?). The pain I'll feel after giving up my Manhattan address will be somewhat offset by the extra $460 I'll have in my wallet every month.

You'll all come visit me, right?

Yabba Dabba Dead or They're Grrrrraaves

Last week, Fred Flintstone died.

This week it was Tony the Tiger's turn.

Since these things come in threes, I wonder if Shaggy's a little nervous right now? Ruh roh!

I'm not dead yet

Okay, I'm still alive, I just haven't been inspired to post. So here is a quick laundry list, some observations and a mildly amusing story from last night's charity event.

What I've been doing:

GBNY II - fun, fun, fun. A couple of my blogger crushes have been intensified by actually meeting the bloggers in question. Mark and Brian are the cutest couple, but you do not want to stand between them and Kenneth Cole sales items. Palochi is tall. Some bloggers can't hold their liquor.

Theater - Spamalot, Spamalot, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Avenue Q - celebrity sightings at WAVW: Pierce Brosnan, Mike Wallace, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, John Spence, Roger Rees. Best night of celebrity sightings yet, though I did see a lot of famous folk at The Play What I Wrote. Upcoming theater - Sweet Charity, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and something at the Irish Rep. I won all these tickets at my various charity events (I love silent auctions). If you're nice to me, I'll take you to some of them as my plus one.

By the way, while the overall quality of Avenue Q has gone down (in my humble opinion), due to the difficulty of keeping a show fresh after so many performances (especially with some of the cast members who've been in the show the entire time), Barrett Foa (who has replaced John Tartaglia) is pretty darn good and keeps the show enjoyable. He does a nice job with the characters he plays (Rod and Princeton) and stays true to the original portrayals of those characters, without just getting up there and doing a John Tartaglia impersonation. He's created his own versions of the characters and done it rather nicely.

That being said, he's also really, really, really easy on the eyes. I'm fairly sure that I'd give him rave reviews for reading the phone book as long as he did it with his shirt off. I jest, but the kid is talented. If you haven't seen Avenue Q in a while, you should go see it again.

Charity Events - I went to the Living Beyond Belief Butterfly Awards at B.B. King. I love this group. It's main purpose is to educate young people about AIDS prevention and awards those who help set up peer groups and AIDS prevention groups at local high schools. They're great. There were some celebrities there, including three of the cast of Tony and Tina's Wedding. They were pretty funny, to the point where I might actually go see the show (I'm not a big fan of interactive theater). There was an actor from the Putnam County Spelling Bee, John Tartaglia (formerly of Avenue Q and currently starring as that guy who used to be in Avenue Q), and someone else whose name and show I've forgotten. There were also reality TV "actors" from one of the MTV shows (Real World?) and Boy Meets Boy (or one of those type shows). Needless to say, I had no idea who they were, but the young folks seemed to like 'em.

Last night I went to the Live Out Loud event at the Chelsea Art Museum. Cherry Jones was the presenter and she rocked. In addition, I spotted Tom Dolby (of the Dolby Dolbys) whose book continues to get good press and great marketing, playwright David Drake whom I've had a crush on since college, Anthony Rapp, and a few people whom I didn't recognize, but judging by the way the cameras were flashing around them, they must have been famous. This is another great organization. They arrange panels of gay and lesbian artists, professionals, writers, athletes, you name it, to go to local high schools and meet with kids. They also give scholarships to kids who've been active in gay rights at their high schools. Five kids got scholarships last night and when I heard what all they'd done, it made me feel like a lazy slob. All in all a good time.

Oh, and I got lots of good swag at the charity events. Two Kenneth Cole bags, gift certificates, CDs, magazines, shirts. Woo hoo. Sadly, I don't need any of it and will likely give most of it away.

Apartment Hunting - This is slightly more fun than oral surgery. I'll be looking at another apartment today at lunch. So far, no luck. But I'm holding out hope. Just in case, does anyone have a really large refrigerator box? Maybe something in a split-level?

Writing - For some reason, now that I have little or no free time, I keep getting struck with inspiration. I'm working on a number of new plays, but since I'm staying up until 2 a.m. working on them, I'm being run ragged. It also seems, especially with the crap that James Dobson and his Pinnochio Bill Frist keep spewing, most of what I'm writing is agitprop drama. But then, writing is writing, so I shouldn't complain.

Work - Better than MAK.

So that's my life in a nutshell. Now let's see if I can keep up with this whole blog thing. And to give myself another thing to obsess about not doing, I've started a gay lit blog. I see it as a chance to write about what I've been reading lately (gay or not) and hopefully get some people to submit reviews of things they've read. If anyone is interested, let me know.

And here is my mildly amusing story from last night. Michael Musto was at the event. I've always thought it must kind of suck to be him because I'm sure he can't just go to a party and enjoy himself; he always has to be "Michael Musto of the Village Voice" and is always expected to be "on". Last night, he had a parade of people coming up to talk to him. Now maybe he enjoys it; I wouldn't, but then I tend to hate people. Anyway, he could barely get a sip of his drink or a bite of food without someone walking over to say hi.

The food at the party was a little on the scarce side. A few cater-waiters walking around with finger food, some breadsticks and wasabi peas strategically placed around the gallery, and some strawberries. The strawberries were tucked into the spaces between stacks of whole mangoes. Pretty presentation.

I guess Michael didn't want to nibble himself full. He grabbed one of the mangoes and just tore into it.

It was funny to see, a lot of guys in pretty, pretty clothes who looked like they hadn't eaten in ages nearly peeing themselves wanting to go over and talk to this kind of schlumpy guy sucking the pulp out of a mango.

Well, good for him. The mango looked really tasty.