Another Brilliant Weekend June 29, 2008

Friday was fantastic…it marked my last day in the paint shop at school, ever, and although I feel tied to that place and will miss it, I’m ready to move on.  Friday night, Anchors, Matty and I went to try and see Get Smart.  Steve Carrell is funny and I can tolerate Anne Hathaway, mostly.  Get Smart was sold out, and the next closest movie time was for Kung Fu Panda.  Now, I love Jack Black.  However, I never would have spent the movie and seen that movie if I weren’t already at the theater.  I am glad for this happy accident.  Kung Fu Panda kinda rocked.  The three of us were the only group without children in the theater, that was interesting, but we all laughed our faces off (spurred on by a three year old in the row in front of us, who would laugh whenever we did, which just made me laugh harder).  I approve of Kung Fu Panda.  I might even go so far as to say I recommend it.  

Saturday, I woke up, had lunch with Anchors and my roommate, and then started the tedious process of packing the studio.  I officially want to Poke My Eyes Out.  I hate moving, the physical act.  It fucking sucks.  It’s hot and sweaty and dusty and nostalgic and I’m tired of it already when I’ve hardly begun.  Soooo, to make things better, a group of us went down the hill to the bar at about 7:30, and by 11:00, we were at the titty bar up the road from school.  I, myself, had never been to a strip club before.  How did I make it to almost-30 without going to a strip club?  Friends, you may have failed me.  Better late than never, though…better late than never.  I was pleasantly surprised that there was nary a fake boob in sight, and the woman who was the headliner for the evening was the plumpest of the bunch.  There were only a handful of skinny girls, and the rest were just…normal.  A few would have even been considered overweight from a medical stand point, but mostly, they were all hot.  Except for the headliner.  She liked Anchors, though.  Didn’t even want her money after she rubbed her head in her crotch… Giggety giggety.  

Today, I woke up with a bit of a hangover, and promptly engaged in the best cure known to man: lazy river tubing!!  It was pretty perfect.  We were running late, as usual, and the people running the shuttles were not happy with us, and then it looked like it would storm, but we had perfect timing, in the end.  The rain didn’t start until ten minutes after we’d gotten out of the river, and we arrived just in time to catch the shuttle back to our cars.  Idyllic, really.  I love tubing more than most things in this world.  Really, I do.  

Tonight, I’m having dinner with a few friends, and then I’m finishing up work on all the puppets for the Pied Piper.  These past few weeks, ever since graduation really, I can’t shake the feeling that my life is charmed, that I am so lucky to get to do what I do, with the people I do it with, and that I ought to give thanks each and every day that somehow, this life is working out in a most spectacular, unconventional, magicalmystical way.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  

Is this what happiness feels like?  Boundless gratitude for simply existing?  

Oh, and Amanda…that old post, your memories through someone else’s words, I didn’t ever imagine you’d read those words.  I hope you know I meant you no ill will.  Quite the opposite, in fact…

Weeds, Season 4 June 14, 2008

…starts this week.  I am SO excited.  I re-watched the last four episodes of season 3 (if you don’t know about it, check out watchtvsitcoms.com) to get myself back up to speed and fully prepared for what’s about to happen.  

I won’t be terribly surprised if they end up moving to Pittsburgh, but I feel like that’s a little too obvious, given that Shane is going crazy and won’t stop talking about Pittsburgh.  I’m not sure how they are going to handle The Move…that cuts out the characters of Conrad, Haylia, Venetta, Celia, Doug, etc etc.  It would become a show just about the Botwin family if they were to move cross country, and while I would still watch, the true charm of this show lies in the brilliant ensemble they have assembled.  

This Monday, the day after tomorrow, 10 pm, Showtime.  Looks like The Botwins are heading south of the border.  

Well, that’s finished. May 23, 2008

I had my last art class today, turned in my last final project, cleaned up the paint shop one. last. time.  I feel a little crazy, in the most manic Highest Highs and this other feeling that I can’t quite pinpoint.  Maybe mourning?  I get hit with these waves of brief-but-intense emotions that I can’t even properly identify, and I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry or to hit my head on a wall until I drift off into a sweet, vacant sleep.  

I didn’t know what to do with myself after my class ended this afternoon.  We had just spent three hours eating popsicles and chatting and smoking cigarettes and looking at the other class’s translucency finals, and then there was nothing else for me to do in the paint shop.  That’s never happened before; it was a bizarre sensation.  Granted, I’ll be working there for three weeks over the summer and I’ll have p l e n t y to do, but I’ll get paid for that, and somehow that makes a difference.  That 7,000 square feet of big, colorful, cluttered, controlled chaos has been my home away from home for three years now.  I’m really gonna miss it.  I walked into HoJo’s office at the end of class, and said, Thanks for teaching me so much cool stuff.  I’m out of your hair now.  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and just mumbled, Come give me a kiss, and I could tell he was feeling the same tight squeeze in his lungs that I was feeling, too.  I never knew what it might mean to me to really, truly have a mentored student/teacher relationship; I see why Plato wrote books about it.  It can be a true and powerful love, based on knowledge and respect and then friendship.  Although, I guess I should have seen it coming a mile away that (Of Course) myself and the Bitchy Old Queen would grow to love each other like we do.  His absence in my daily life will be sorely felt.  

Speaking of absences being sorely felt…P (whose blog-name is FireBall from now on) leaves in a week.  Eight days, to be exact.  I am little saddened by this.  She seems a little saddened by this, too.  I can’t tell what’s going on between us right now…  To the untrained eye, it would appear that we are dating.  To me, it feels like we are dating.  I mean, for the most part, it’s just the two of us spending time together alone, and if we don’t see each other every day, we have at least an hour or two of text-based conversations.  We are both women that have a history of sleeping with other women.  Both of us always put perfume on riiiiight before we see each other (I wonder if she’s noticed, too), and yet still, not even a kiss.  I can’t figure it out.  She looked so good today, dressed up in the sauciest-yet-totally-tasteful Business Casual I ever did see, and I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked, but we were in a small, tight room with lots of her peers and our instructors swarming everywhere…unfortunately inappropriate in that moment.  It would be nice to be able to stop turning this over and over in my brain.  There’s only one week left til she leaves.  She’s got a lot to do.  I’ve got a few things to do.  It’s bad timing.  Dammit all to hell, it’s bad timing. I suppose I’m just scared that if the moment passes, it might slip away before we even get a chance to see if it’s as amazing as I think it could be.  I think maybe she’s scared…or maybe now that we’ve gotten to know each other better, I’m not the person she thought I was…I just can’t tell.  And I don’t know how to ask.  

On a completely unrelated topic, we saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night.  Don’t waste your money.  I thought it was awful.  I woke up this morning, still angry at Steven Speilberg.  Harrison Ford is clearly a rusty actor (and he’s had some weird plastic surgery), Kate Blanchett couldn’t even manage a believable character, and the choices that were made where CGI is concerned were heinous and totally opposite of the spirit of the original movies.  I believed Indy was about to get smushed into the cliff by the tank because a double was really hanging off the side of a tank, gouging into a canyon wall somewhere in Egypt, on set for Last Crusade.  The giant stone ball that chases him down the corridor in Raiders of the Lost Ark, that was appealing because that ball was really chasing him.  Sure, it was a movie set, probably in a sound stage in Burbank, CA, but I believed it was a lost treasure cave in The Amazon.  The gritty realism has vanished.  All I have to say is: George Lucas, you can take your CG monkeys and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine.  If you see the movie, you’ll know the monkeys I speak of.  I can’t believe the ending, either…I mean, really!  Anyone that knows Indiana Jones knows that  t h a t  would never happen. Boo.  Such a let down.  

 

 

Yesterday was good, at least. May 15, 2008

OK.  Now that there are only sixteen days left until I am officially College Educated, now I’m freaking out. Tomorrow, in the second to last scene painting class of my life (unless I decide to go to grad school at Yale…not likely.), I have to take the exam to get into the union.  Mind you, this is a fake union test, so I don’t have to pay the 3K, and I only get four hours, instead of eight, to paint a 4′ x 8′ flat in a highly complicated land/sea/sky landscape, framed with a dimensional wood moulding (mahogany), complete with striped drapery hanging down over the wood moulding.  I’m nervous.  It’s not that I feel like I don’t have the talent to do this, its that any human might want to vomit blood at the thought of painting a mural at a frenzied pace for four solid hours, while an old queen sits behind on a chair with a clip board and the collar of his polo shirt popped, noting every move you make, every stroke you put down.  It’s nerve-wracking. However, this is the last test I have to endure of my entire scenic painting career at this place, and I have been waiting for this day for three years, knowing, for better or for worse, that it signifies a passing.  

I turned in my first final today, that felt good.  First Last Final exam.  Bizarre.  Where did these four years go?  I didn’t learn enough!?!  All of a sudden, I find myself asking questions like, “If someone asked me to create a cityscape in three point perspective, would I know how to calculate the multiple vanishing points?”  The answer is no, and that’s why there are books to tell you things like that, but somehow I wind up feeling guilty that I didn’t retain that equation.  I’m ready.  I’m not ready.  I’m so ready.  What the hell am I gonna do now?  

Grad school? I’d be awesome at restoration!  

Or maybe this job I just applied for is actually a job-in for Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock, coming soon to Broadway.  The time frames do line up…

I think I am having an existential crisis.  Last year, I would have punched myself in the face if I heard that sentence pass my lips.  I think maybe that’s because I didn’t really know what it meant?  Or maybe because I had no frame of reference in my own life, never having waded through existential matters…maybe because I’m just At That Age.  Whatever the case may be, I might be happy, but I am  c r a c k i n g  under the pressure that the two weeks in front of me are about to exert.  This sensation is new to me…complete, abject terror as I think of student loan payments, and shiny, light-hearted optimism at the interesting way my life seems to be shaping up.  Someone (like, oh…say, a shrink) could maybe see that as manic, and I won’t lie…I kinda feel like I’m digging in for traction in the middle of an euphoric cyclone.  Cuckoo.  

Change is good.  But what the hell am I supposed to do with a sudden, nagging need to find the meaning in what I create?  The message is the medium? How can I create a style that’s identifiable and somehow fresh? Shit like that.  Good thoughts, but really?!? brain, right now?!? This can’t wait two weeks?!?  

Side note: the new Gnarls Barkley album, The Odd Couple, is my favorite new jam of 2008.  The album is a bit less aggressive than their last (St. Elsewhere), but also a bit less diverse.  That being said, I have not been able to get the songs out of my head for the last week, solid.  It’s great.  The lyrics are intelligent and sweet, the beats are infectious, and Blind Mary will make you dance…try it and see what happens.  

 

You Want Some Who? February 29, 2008

Winter term is over.  Already.  I mean, I still have arts finals next week, and academic finals the week after, but the classes are pretty much done.  This is blowing my mind.  I had an inkling that time would become something of a rubberband slingshot, but I didn’t expect it to go quite this quickly.   The great thing is that the slingshot ends with a huge accomplishment, immediately followed by a fantastic week of sun and surf, then spending the summer painting a show that is personally important to me, and moving to L.A. when the lease runs out.  The unfortunate thing about the slingshot is that rubber bands have a tendency to snag in hair and they sting when they snap.  Everything that is happening is wonderful and great and exciting and I feel like I’m on the right path, like a tuning fork is vibrating inside of me, but it will not be painless or easy, and I will probably curse a lot.  16 days to Hawaii.  I’m beside myself I’m so excited.  I’ll get to see an old friend from Asheville when we are in Kauai, which is such a lovely bonus!!  I’m wishing for the days to pass quicker, and panicking because I’m getting my wish…somehow that sounds like Heller’s definition of Crazy in Catch 22.  Project Runway last night…oh my gaaah.  Christian is a stand-out talent but his stuff is starting to all look the same; the silhouettes and angularity are ever-present.  I think I’m throwing in with the Jillian camp.  She’s good.  I like her style and her attitude, saucy but still dignified.  She needs to quit with the high-waisted shorts and sweater combo, however.  I’m sad Chris had to go, but The One Dress that Rami made was, in fact, kinda gorgeous.   I’m ready to see the runway show. I went clothes shopping last night…not a single pair of pants that I own would stay on my body.  I have already dropped two pants sizes, come to find out.  It was pretty amazing and I spent too much money.  But I got The Cutest pair of green capris…you know I will rock them right.  In Hawaii.  In 16 days.    And I’m still girl crazy.  

Dick Clark Is A Robot January 3, 2008

I’ve been thinking for years, ever since he had his stroke, that Dick Clark was actually made from cast resin, with strings attached to his hands, like a marionette.  It really depresses me to see him on TV, doing his Rockin’ New Years Eve thing…Madame Tussaud must be really proud of herself for this one.   If New Years Eve was any indicator of how 2008 is going to go, I’m in for a good year.  Myself, R and M hopped in the car on Sunday and headed to DC, to visit Ashantaleezay; of course, it hasn’t rained in for-fucking-ever, and then it torrentially pours the one day we have to drive.  The drive wasn’t awful, though…no nasty traffic, which is a first, where DC is concerned.  We spent Sunday evening in A’s apartment, catching up and having some laughs; A had to work early Monday morning.   On Monday, R and M and I went toodling around DC while A was at work having carpet installed (”Is that code for something?”—M).  We found a cute bagel place to eat a late breakfast and then continued down to the Mall to take in some culture.  The metro was quite impressive; not only was the architecture inside the station at Gallery Place quite pleasing, but there were cushions on the train!  And carpet!  We had intended to hit up the Nat’l Portrait Gallery as well as the Spy Museum, but after getting our fill of espionage, drinks were in order, so we proceeded to some brewery, where we watched an old crazy have the time of her life, talking to herself.  Her cardigan was on backwards, and she wore a double strand of pearls, maybe to accent her shiny-gray dreads she had stuffed into a beanie…Whatever the case, she was having more fun than anyone at the bar.  She just laughed and laughed at whatever her imaginary companion was saying.  I’m still curious about what their conversation was about.   Monday evening, after resting and getting ready and having a photo shoot, we all ventured into Adams Morgan to meet up with Party Monster and Co…lots of old friends from high school that I hadn’t spent a New Years Eve with in twelve years.  It was quite the event.  We rolled up in Party Monster’s older brother’s loft apartment, two blocks of 18th St, which was busting at the seams so many people were packed into the streets.  Cops had to shut the streets down to auto traffic; they were just too many people everywhere.  We had the luxury of enjoying a roof terrace…we watched some far-away fireworks, and the Homeland Security helicopters circling around Important Buildings over downtown.  We also got plenty of New Years whoopin’ and screamin’, shuckin’ and jivin’ done.  Apparently, a baby lives below PM’s brothers, so we were supposed to be quiet in the house…which was an impossibility, with the Forces of Evil reunited again.   After watching the ball drop (and seeing the Persian Princess’ national commercial debut at 11:46 during Rockin’ Eve celebration!) we all headed down to 18th St, into the throngs of drunk and hostile people.  New Years Eve can bring out the worst in people, I think.  We went to the Pharmacy Bar, which was playing some lousy metal when we arrived, but Party Monster straightened that out shortly, and got the DJ to play some good dance jamzzzz.  My ears are still ringing from dancing too close to the speakers when Boston came on.  It was an awesome time.  I Did Not make out with anyone at midnight, which was a bit of a disappointment, but I had a great time, regardless.  That’s saying a lot…no New Years kisses, and it was still the best New Years Eve, yet.   I got wasted off of half a shot of whiskey, over ice.  I will be a cheap date forever.   We finally got into bed at about 4, and I promptly had a giggling fit that lasted an hour.  We all woke up at about eleven, went and had lunch in Dupont Cirlce with A’s sister and her girlfriend, and then packed the car and headed home.  I slept most of the way back, and had the most fascinating and entertaining dreams about being friends with Cher.  She can be quite charming when she feels like it…  As we were pulling into R and M’s home-base city, we got to laughing so hard, I almost peed myself.  I couldn’t see or breathe, and we were shaking the car, the three of us were laughing so hard.  It was a good way to conclude an amazing, brief road trip.   I love my friends.  They are truly the best in the world.  My friends can beat your friends in a dance-off, any day!   

“Dear Lord, I Mean It!” December 28, 2007

On the eve of returning home to prepare for New Years and my next-to-last trimester before I get my effing BFA, I am feeling like, for all my crankiness and general Grinch-like holiday tendencies, I had a great time these last couple of weeks.  Pretty ideal, really. 

I’m feeling great…I’ve lost about 28 pounds already, which is awesome.  Most of my incisions are healed–the big one, containing the Dreaded Port is still tender, and bleeding just a tad–and I’m off of the liquid diet (which, come to find out, can make a person appreciate the taste of food Real Quick) which is pretty exciting.  I haven’t gotten nauseous except for once, after my first run-in with the mayonaisse in my Grandma’s famous egg salad.  Not bad.  I can’t speed walk yet, I have to move at a healthy but slower than normal pace…the up and down movement gets uncomfortable after a while.  I’m still not entirely acclimated to the fact that there is a foreign body inside of me, and I can feel it, inside and out.  It’s not bad, just…creepynew. 

I spent some more time with the friends from high school after Christmas…that may have been the highlight of my holiday “vacation”.  They’re all doing so well, and they’ve (we’ve?) all turned into pretty cool, grounded, productive adults that can still have Real Good Times together; I appreciate the relationships that you can just walk back into, like no time had passed at all.  Those are the ones that endure forever, I think. 

Me and Dad took Little Brother (who I shall call…Tiny Man, because he is) to see the new exhibit at the art museum, a decent collection of expressionist work, mostly French, some American and English.  The two scene stealers were a particular Monet (the name escapes me) of a multi-story building set on a waterfront, and an artist I’d never heard of: Potthart.  His gorgeous use of a triadic color scheme in purples, oranges and greens made for one of the most gorgeous and loose interpretations of the ocean I’ve ever seen.  Tiny Man got bored about a half hour in, but he was a good sport and talked about the paintings he liked and disliked.  I feel some responsibility to try and help him learn to love art; he’s a math and music guy all the way, who also happens to be a good visual artist with no confidence about being creative.  He’s 9, and he’s interested in what I’m interested in, so hopefully I can be the Good Influence I aspire to be for my much-younger brother.  He’s a really cool kid.  I like spending time with him.  Alot. 

My mom and I have seen a lot of each other, which has had it’s tense moments, but we parted laughing and smiling with no hard feelings, and that’s saying something.  Mom and I don’t make good house mates.  I never have figured out why. 

And holy moly, it’s 2008 next week!!  It blows my mind every year.  Time is crazy. 

Gold Is The New Black October 23, 2007

Firstly, I hate midterms. They make me feel antsy and unprepared, when in actuality, I have kept up with the reading and paid attention/participated in class. I don’t have much to worry about. Even so, I flip through my notebooks while studying and I see the full page drawings of dancing elephants and ghostly hot dogs (it’s early in the morning, I can’t know) and I wonder what my teacher was talking about while I drew that. I took two tests today, and I think I did well, and relatively fine, respectively. Now, I’m loopy-tired, and wired on caffeine, and my brain is rebelling from doing an ounce of homework, as if it’s hit max. cap. for the day, and like the dry, hard ground outside my door, when the rain finally pours, all I get is run-off. So here I am, blogging, without any clear idea of a single interesting thing to say.

OH! I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Like I said, my brain refused work tonight–and I just realized I’m justifying Taking One Night Off–ridiculous! I can’t say that I’d recommend spending 8 bucks to see it, but then again, the magical colors and grand scope and scale would be lost in translation to an 18″ TV screen, but frankly, I was bored. Cate Blanchett is never less than stunning, and she didn’t disappoint, but I found the plot movement a bit slow at times. There were a few scenes of bothersome violence and brutality, but hey! it was the Inquisition, so I guess it’s totally justified. There was this one scene of a traitor in a form-fitting body cage, and there were spikes on the cage that closed at the face, so that metal prongs would bury themselves an inch or so into the victim’s cheek and forehead…gruesome. Geoffrey Rush is convincing in his role as Protestant advisor to the queen (I love him…he’s another that can do no wrong in my eyes), and Clive Owens is the well-dressed ‘pirate’ Sir Walter Raleigh (they don’t teach that in the local schools, that’s for sure); strong casting, decent writing, a half hour too long. Most notable, in my opinion, were the costumes and the wig design. I gasped out loud several times, Elizabeth’s dresses were so gorgeous; the subtle shift in colors from beginning to end (pastels to rich, saturate greens and purples) gave me Eye Boners. The hair styling was awe-inspiring, too…the silhouettes were incredible, plain and simple. I’m glad I saw it, it was an excellent way to spend a Monday evening procrastinating, but I didn’t love it. I will say this; the fire ships were fucking awesome, any way you look at it.

I have finally settled into the rhythm of school, finally. Its not so hard to get up every day before 9 o’clock…yeah, I know, quit my bitching, right? but why do you think I’m a theater major? It’s the odd hours. Anyway, it doesn’t hurt so bad anymore, which means I’m not always in a bad mood these days. I think maybe that’s a relief to everyone that has to see me every day…this past month and a half has been really hard, and largely unhappy. The fog is starting to clear a little, and I’m smiling a little more, breath comes a bit easier, and I don’t cry every day. That’s a step in the right direction.

I can’t believe it’s almost November. That’s fuckin’ wit me right this minute.

The Revolution Will Be Televised September 25, 2007

Warning: there are spoilers contained in this post, from tonight’s episode of Weeds.

Once again, I have to say, I fucking love this show. In my opinion, it is the edgiest, best written melodrama on TV in the past decade. What I love so dearly is the fact that this show has the balls to talk about what everyone is doing anyway, and just not talking about.

Topics dealt with in this evening’s thirty minute installment included a) the federal government’s continued support of school programs that have forgotten about that little clause detailing how Church and State can’t be in the same room together in order to receive federal funding, b) this country’s obsession with porn—in light of, or because of?— the puritanical leanings of government regulations in regards to nudity and sexuality, and c) a realistic portrayal of a woman having sexual needs outside the confines of marriage, or even a relationship, that is purely, selfishly pleasure based (and she doesn’t apologize for it!!). Bravo, Showtime, I would give you Respect Knuckles if I saw you on the street.

Yes, I agree, this representation of the Family Structure is totally and completely fucked; Nancy is a neglectful mother that consistently makes poor decisions, endangering herself and her children. I wish I didn’t believe this model applied to a frighteningly large portion of the population, but I’ve known people like her, myself, and I can only imagine that the Legions of Teenaged Parents in this country are making some pretty bad mistakes themselves. Before I’m misunderstood, I will add this disclaimer: I am aware that there are many millions of people in this country that would make good parents, but they don’t seem to be the people having babies (for the most part) these days, at least in my tiny chunk of the world. Sure, there are lots and lots of exceptions to this vast generalization I’ve just made, but I’ll stick to it, because I hear the stories from my friends who teach elementary education, and I see that something is going Very Wrong with the youth of America. God, I sound so old. My grandmother probably said the same thing in the sixties, when the kids were all smoking dope and having sex in the grass…but they were getting high and making love. Now a days, you only hear about how second graders are stabbing each other with their No. 2 pencils, and how fifth graders are getting knocked up. Where does the responsibility for that failing lie except with the parents? Ooh it’s ugly, it’s a harsh reality, a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s not going away.

Sure, the show Weeds takes place in an affluent suburb in California, but the problems are the same everywhere; we’re all being brain-washed by TV’s and magazines and advertisements selling us the Beauty Standard and our religion, and everyone is susceptible to those numbing, apathy-inducing trends. We’ve all fallen prey. Nancy Botwin is a drug dealer and a mother, and I’d guess that a cursory glance at prison stats would reveal there’s a lot of women in this country who’ve had to make similar decisions. Is she making good choices? No. Does it really happen? All the time. Do we talk about it? No. Why not? Because if we truly recognized that this country is going to hell in a sanitized, homogenized, medicated, Star Spangled handbasket, we might actually have to step away from the TV and the Internet and do something about it. I’m guilty of this. We all fall prey.

I’ve gotten a bit off topic…This is what I’m trying to say: I was truly excited to see full frontal nudity, both male and female, and hear factual, intelligent criticism of the aggressive Christian take-over (from the mouth of a 10 year old, no less!) inside the same thirty minutes of Prime Time. It might be cable, but at least it’s on the air. When Andy caters the porn shoot, and we see the Giant Black Cock and the Two Hairless Pussies, pounding away, I wanted to clap. I’m sure it will be reviled as pornography; I say it’s a relevant and accurate cross-section of a huge population of Americans. You know you’ve watched some porn. Chances are good you might have even liked it; there’s so much of it available, there’s a kink for everybody. Men, women, children, we’re all watching porn. Isn’t it time to stop vilifying sex and a plant with medicinal and agricultural value, and start vilifying violence, poverty, and religious rule?

Weeds says yes.

PS–When MLP’s panties came off at the end, I almost wet myself. That woman is a fearless actress. She does need to eat a cheeseburger or two, however…

Ultra Clutch September 12, 2007

I went to see Hairspray, The Musical this evening, with a group of wig and makeup and stage management students. We were the only ones in the theater. Ox sang in his glorious, perfect falsetto for the duration. As a die-hard fan of the original Hairspray, produced in 1988, directed by the legendary John Waters, I had a chip on my shoulder, lets say. I feel that 19 years is not necessarily a long enough amount of time before movies start being reproduced. Write something original, someone. Also, the gritty slums of Baltimore are polished up and made to sparkle, ala musical theater; anyone who has visited Baltimore knows that it resembles John Waters version much more closely in real life. Yeah, they added some rats and a tipped over trashcan, but it lacked The Filth that John Waters always favored in his Baltimore. I won’t say that I didn’t enjoy it…I did. Any mainstream movie that casts a pretty fat girl as the lead gets my vote; the addition of the formidable Allison Janey certainly helps, and Queen Latifah sealed the deal (I like to call her Velvet Thunder, in my head). However, that being said, I disliked two things, primarily.

1. I thought it was a little tacky to bring so many of the actors from Hairspray ‘88 into the mix. These are two completely different movies. The locale and the characters names are the same, the general gist is there from one to the next, but they are not the same story. To have John Waters portray a flasher during the ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ number was a stroke of Hitchcockian genius; when Jerry Stiller showed up as Mr. Pinky, and Ricki Lake as a brooding talent scout, the gag had gone too far.

2. The trend of putting famous skinny people into fat suits needs to come to it’s ridiculous end. There are plenty of great fat actors; use them. No, they will not have the name recognition of John Travolta, but I guarantee they will be more convincing in their roles. How many fat drag queens have I seen in my lifetime? I mean, dozens. Drag queens can dance just as good as John Travolta (sometimes), and they usually end up looking more like Tina Turner; high kicks and lots of rapid, tiny steps in their high-high heels. It has been suggested that JT was cast because of his dancing abilities, but I don’t buy it. His big number at the end was totally lackluster…a queen from Trailer Trash drag night could have outshone him. His facial prosthetics made his eyes look much too close together, and his affected effeminate lilt was obnoxious and made him sound mildly retarded on a few occasions. All in all, I found it offensive; get a real drag queen to play the role of the mom, or else get a real woman…a straight man was not the right choice there. Divine must be rolling over in her grave, having the likes of Revolta replace him.

Oh, but Velvet Thunder looked delicious in her final costume…gold metallic fabric and brilliant red plumes everywhere. Yum.

I’m glad I got a student discount price. My opinion: not worth $9, definitely worth matinee or $2 shows.

Today, I only cried once. Things are looking up.