Here’s to the people (Pilgrims) that came over to a new land (America), carried diseases and pestilence with them and then moved in on the Natives of this new land (that is if they didn’t kill them with the sicknesses they carried over)… Oh after all this was said and done…. they blamed themselves for being witches and started killing each other.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m just going to take this little moment in time to vent a tad on all the frickin’ road work that’s going around Milwaukee. I know we need it, but OMG it’s getting annoying!
There’s a street in the Third Ward around Milwaukee Street that should just be closed off completely due to all the work that’s being done on it… As of late, there is a detour made on one lane that goes North and the other lane has to travel on the bumpy madness heading South. It’s just very dangerous.
There has been many an accident on this particular corner with NO men working on it – now it just seems like one big mess is about to happen – - especially with winter a’comin and all. I guess my beef is with the City of Milwaukee and the fact that they should have just closed this road completely and focus on getting the road fixed up at once = but my further beef is with people driving in general: BE CAREFUL and PUT THAT GODDAMMNED CELL PHONE DOWN!
*sighs*
Ok, other than that bitchin’… I wish everyone a GREAT and SAFE Thanksgiving… especially if you have to drive through downtown Milwaukee.
Ok first off, congrats Brooke on winning the prize on Dancing With the Stars!!
(HUGS to Lance and Warren – oh, and an extra kiss on the cheek for Mr. Bass – - he is cute, c’mon).
That said…. Cloris was back and bein’ all CRAZY but one of the things she said resonated with me… The fact that she won’t be on Broadway with Young Frankenstien…. WHAT????
Cloris said that over 75% of Broadway shows will be closing in the next couple of months due to the economy. 75%.
Again, WHAT????
Could this be true???
Well, according to www.ticketnews.com, it IS true!! For example, Equus with Daniel Radcliff is closing in Feb after opening up just a month ago. Spamalot and Young Frankenstein as well. In fact, only 2 shows on Broadway made $1 million this last month: Wicked and the Jersey Boys.
Hopefully, while I’m there visiting friends in Jan. there will be shows to go see!!! Keep your fingers crossed, because me not seeing a show is more important than these economy issues, ok??
Thanks!!
Wow, this is kind of cool!! Since I’m such a GEEK and love GREEK (plays) this is a double pleasure for me! (Rude comments welcome for that last sentence, feel free to…) Anywho, Antigone is getting a face lift in NYC (hoipefully I’ll get to see it when I’m there next since I won’t get to 9 to 5 until sometime this next Spring or Summer! Here’s more info on the ancient Greek play from Playbill:
Too Much Memory features most of the original cast, including Laura Heisler (Coram Boy, Stunning, Everything Will Be Different) as Antigone and Peter Jay Fernandez (Pain and the Itch, Thunder Knocking on the Door, Henry IV) as Creon. Martin Moran (Titanic, The Tricky Part, Cabaret) is also part of the mix.
Performances play at Fourth Street Theatre (next door to New York Theatre Workshop), 83 East 4th Street, in Manhattan. The opening is Dec. 9. Gibson directs the piece, which is a project of New York Theatre Workshop’s Jonathan Larson Lab.
At the FringeNYC, Too Much Memory won the festival’s Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Play and played to sold-out houses.
“A theatrical explosion of myth and revolution, Too Much Memory retells the classic Greek story of Antigone and sets it firmly in the present,” according to the producers. “A timeless drama of family conflict and social turmoil, the play is a contemporary collage of mythology and modernity incorporating texts by Richard Nixon, Tom Hayden, Peter Brook, Anne Carson, Pablo Neruda, Susan Sontag, and Hannah Arendt.”
This is a first-time collaboration between husband and wife – playwright Reddin (Human Error, Black Snow, Life and Limb) and actress-director Gibson (The Ride Down Mt. Morgan at The Public Theater).
The production will also feature Aria Alpert (Four Women and a Waitress), MacLeod Andrews (Somewhere in the Pacific), Seth Numrich (Iphigenia 2.0), Jamel Rodriguez (Yale MFA 2008), Ray Anthony Thomas (Kindness, Human Error, Half Nelson) and Wendy vanden Heuvel (Not I, Mud, Resurrection Blues).
The creative team includes set designer Ola Maslik, costume designer Clint Ramos, lighting designer Joel Moritz, sound designers Eric Shim and Brandon Epperson, video designer Joe Tekippe and fight director Joseph Travers.
Too Much Memory will play Mondays and Tuesdays at 8:30 PM, Fridays at 9:30 PM, Saturdays at 5 PM and 9:30 PM and Sundays at 5 PM through Dec. 22 at New York Theatre Workshop’s Fourth Street Theatre, 83 East 4th Street (between Second Avenue and Bowery). Tickets are $20 and may be purchased by phoning (212) 868-4444 or by visiting www.smarttix.com.
This weekend my parents came to visit because I got tickets for my mom and me to see Neil Diamond on Monday night. The visit was great and I even got to see Ben at the Monster! (aka, Red Lobster). Had a Long Island Iced Tea, shrimp and great time with the folks and my brother. Sunday, my mom and I went to several wig places so she could find one she liked and we went shopping all over Milwaukee after that.
The concert was held at the Bradley Center in downtown Milwaukee – Sold Out. I forgot how many songs I knew from his songbook! He certainly is a charismatic performer. At one point during his set, he stopped to say that no matter who we are: straight/gay or black/white we need to stick together as a nation.
Pretty cool stuff, Maynard!
This morning before they left we got together for breakfast and they’re heading back as I type! Can’t wait to see them in a couple of days for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Clive Barker
I was at home sick yesterday and I was going through my stacks of books by my couch because I was a tad bit bored…. I noticed the book by David Armstrong – a photo grouping of *hot* naked men – that Clive Barker (his husband) signed for me the last time Clive was here. Clive Barker is an author of many, many books including Galilee, Imajica, The Thief of Always and the Abarat books (when are the others due out??). Oh, he was also the mastermind behind the Hellraiser movies.
My memory of the first Abarat book signing in Milwaukee, at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores, saw me helping Clive out by ushering people in and standing guard. Seems that many of his fans are, well, fanatical. He likes having people around him just in case. He had one fan come up to him and cut his arm during a signing once – not Clive’s arm, but their own arm. So, I stood by.
David Armstrong, his husband, came up to me during the signing and asked me if there were any ‘cool’ bars in town and I explained that Milwaukee really didn’t have a leather scene. He was surprised that I would think that he and Clive wanted to go to a place like that, with a *wink*. There was some downtime during the signing and David came up to me again. This time he asked me if I would be interested in doing a photo shoot right then in there in the limo in the alley… naked, for his next book.
Rare Flesh, David Armstrong
Ok, David Armstrong is a hot black man. I would be naked in his limo. I would be in a book.
I said, “no”.
I still kick myself for that, but there ya go. I have the book by my couch and there is a photo shoot of some guy in a limo. I always think to myself… ‘That could have been me’.
But I digress…..
After the 2nd Abarat book came out, Clive came again, this time without David and I got to talk to him a bit before the signing in the basement of one of our stores. He is actually a great person to talk to about writing and art. Oh, and his British accent helps too….
Here’s a photo of David, Josette (the publicist and all around neat gal!) and myself from the event several years ago. I found this on Clive’s web site: http://www.clivebarker.com/
David and Clive are both hotties, huh? …. did I make the right choice about the book? Who knows…
*sighs*
Happy Friday!
From – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marriage – - – What’s one more definition gonna hurt anyway? There are already 10… Just sayin’.
mar⋅riage
Noun -
1. the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.
2. the state, condition, or relationship of being married; wedlock: a happy marriage.
3. the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of a man and woman to live as husband and wife, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.
4. a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other in the manner of a husband and wife, without legal sanction: trial marriage; homosexual marriage.
5. any close or intimate association or union: the marriage of words and music in a hit song.
6. a formal agreement between two companies or enterprises to combine operations, resources, etc., for mutual benefit; merger.
7. a blending or matching of different elements or components: The new lipstick is a beautiful marriage of fragrance and texture..
8. Cards. a meld of the king and queen of a suit, as in pinochle. Compare royal marriage.
9. a piece of antique furniture assembled from components of two or more authentic pieces.
10. Obsolete. the formal declaration or contract by which act a man and a woman join in wedlock
I was just reflecting last night as I was reading Out Magazine’s Top 100 list – I actually met Cheyenne Jackson and got a chance to talk with him in New York City …and dang is he HOT.
Ok ok – - – truth time….
I did talk to him, but I was actually waiting for Kerry Butler, who played Kira to come out so I could ask her if she met Olivia Newton John at the premiere and what it was like and if Olivia said anything to her or gave her pointers or was she a bitch – you know – IMPORTANT matters like that.
So, I passed the time talking to Cheyenne. It was after the show and there were other Xan-Fans there and pictures were being taken, etc. I must say – he’s like one of those Ken-doll types and seemed fake at first (oh and his biceps go on for days) so I didn’t think too much of him after Kerry came along and I talked to her. But then, Cheyenne went down to little kids levels and talked to the kids that went to the show, then Kerry and him both stayed at the exit doors, along with some of the actors that played the muses and met with the audience, gave hugs, etc. long after the time they could have left to go home.
I was quite impressed! So, cheers to Xanadu (may it rest in peace) and congrats to Cheyenee Jackson for making Out’s List.
Check out who else made the list in this month’s issue (*hint* Ian McKellen, Tanner Cohen and John Barrowman are on it, too)
(HOTTIE)
See, another great gay role model, but I digress….
Proposition 8 is making people do all sorts of CRAZY things!
Our company just asked us to give a recommendation of a book everyone should read or give for the holiday season. I suggested the book, Anything Goes by John Barrowman and his sister Carol. I met Carol and his parents at a signing this summer at one of our stores in Milwaukee and she was amazing as were his parents. Very open and honest people. The book chronicles his life, focuses on his family a lot and follows him until the Doctor Who spin-off, Torchwood. He was also in the movie the Producers and has released many CDs – I also recommend these if you’re a fan or not – he has an amazing voice. John Barrowman is not just a great actor, but a tremendous role model for gay men everywhere!
Guess who has a new blog? No, not Hilary Clinton or Dinah Shore – not even Madame from the Wayland Flowers days. Nope not them!!
Ok Ok – I’ll tell ya…. It’s none other than the Queen of Easy Cheese: Varla Jean Merman!
Check out her blog here:
http://www.varlaonline.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&view=wrapper&Itemid=10
If you’re having trouble placing her… Here’s one of the many movie trailer’s from one of her movies….
Here’s a trailer for an awesome movie coming out! It was filmed in Chicago and stars Tanner Cohen.
Here’s where you can get more info on the flick and where it’s playing: http://www.weretheworldminefilm.com/#
From my travels Sunday - North Ave, Milwaukee!
Sunday I was feeling kind of nostalgic or bored, not sure which one – but anywho, I went around Milwaukee snapping shots at all the places I’ve lived since I moved here (turns out there are 7). It was quite the day! I’m sure people thought I was stalking someone! I wanted to do this just in case one of the places winds up destroyed or worse yet, turned into one of those condo thingys.
I’m putting them on a whole page in detail (see the Milwaukee Syns page) – if you’re interested!
Happy Monday!
I came across this today: Porn star John Melcio (aka Antonio Biaggi from Raging Stallion Productions) has started a company called the Eco Boutique (http://www.thegreenvibration.com/boutique/). How awesome is that?? A Blue-Boy going Green!
The boutique specializes in living green with organic body care, candles, gifts and even kid-friendly fare. Who knew?
Says Mr. Melecio (from a recent gay.com interview):
“I always had a little bit of interest in eco products, but I became more interested when I knew I had my niece,” he said. “I was thinking that I totally love my brother, and he’s having a baby which I adore, and I don’t want to see her suffering; ’cause we’re not going to see the worst of global warming, but she’ll be living 30 to 40 years from now and will have to see it. I wanted to make other people more conscious of this.”
Sounds like quite the giver, huh? I’m gonna have to do extensive research on this….
Have a GREAT, GREEN Weekend everyone!
Wisconsin Rally Against Prop 8 – California Marriage Ban
Undue the Damage of All Marriage Ban Amendments, including Wisconsin’s
Saturday, November 15, 12:30pm
Milwaukee City Hall – Outside (dress warmly)
200 E Wells Street
Milwaukee WI
Hello, I’m Royal and I’m an award show junkie.
I’ve been this way ever since my first People’s Choice Awards when I was 9 years old and I haven’t stopped since. It got worse when the networks got smart and started going on BEFORE the event to what they called a red carpet.
That did it for me – even worse, now some awards go to the post-show too!
Those bastards!
Last night I got such a fix. Yes, it was the Country Music Awards and there was Reba, Reese, Nicole, Billy Ray, Keith Urban, and all those fabulous gowns and hot suits. (And can I just say: American Idol alums Carrie Underwood and Kelli Pickler ROCKED!!!!!) I was in award show heaven. It’s funny too, because with this addiction one doesn’t know until the show starts that withdrawal did set in. Then it’s too late. You’re not moving from the couch until the last person (Shania Twain) comes out to give the last award out (to Kenny Chesney) – this was after the last group performed (The Eagles).
I know, I know. I’m a sad lot to you I’m sure! Oh well, at least I’m not in denial!
Next up: People’s Choice Awards: January 7th, CBS, Wednesday (Queen Latifah is gonna host). I’ll be the potato on the couch with wine and snacks!
Anyone out there riddled with student loans, in the middle of paying them off or maybe is thinking about getting one because of furthering your education?
Well hold on and take a look at what a co-worker of mine is reading: a GREAT galley from Houghton-Mifflin called The Student Loan Scam by Alan Collinge! He was just freaking out about it this morning as I was getting my morning coffee! It’s all about student loans and its connection between insurance companies, banks and universities themselves! It’s coming out in Feb. 2009, so get it on backorder somewhere if you can! This is one of the things that is helping fuel our mismanagement of the economy and it’s also keeping kids from thinking about furthering their education. Here’s more from the publisher:
Publishers Weekly (Monday , October 06, 2008):
Think credit-card debt is a problem? Take a look at the lives ruined through the corporate thug tactics, usurious fees and vicious harassment employed by some of the nation’s largest student-loan providers in this shocking exposé from Collinge, founder of StudentLoanJustice.org. The author had a manageable $38,000 in loansuntil he missed a single payment. Fees and charges quickly piled up, and his debt mushroomed to more than $100,000. The author reveals that since lenders make far more money from defaulted loans than they do from borrowers in good standing, they go to extraordinaryand illegallengths to force borrowers into default. There are currently more than five million defaulted loans on record, and incredibly, student loans are the only type of loan in U.S. history to be nondischargable in bankruptcy. The author exposes the engineers (and profiteers) of this predatory system and urges Congress to restore standard consumer protections to student loans, concluding with a call to arms for progressive changes, refinancing rights and a plethora of practical advice for borrowers. Comprehensive and stirring, this extraordinary book is whistle-blowing at its finest. “(Feb.)” Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
OK, I now officially feel REALLY old – the Nirvana-baby is 17.
WOW.
Just a quick little introspective.
Now, I start to mentally prepare myself for my 20 year high school reunion next summer….
*sighs*
My dear friend Sally sent me this article and I was going to give a little blurb on it for my blog – but this is too fine NOT to print in entirety.
Please watch:
Please read:
Olbermann: Gay Marriage is a Question of Love (By Keith Olbermann, MSNBC.COM)
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
Only now you are saying to them—no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?
I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage. If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.
The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.
How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.
And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.
You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.
This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:
“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”
Watch Keith’s video here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/
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