Big News

Hollywood star John Malkovich has landed a starring role in the next Harry Potter movie, playing evil Lord Voldemort. The Dangerous Liaisons actor's daughters Amandine, 13 and Lowrie, 12 - huge fans of the fantasy franchise - convinced him to appear in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. But he will have to share the part with a computerized puppet - at the beginning of the film, the wizard is supposed to be so wasted by his own evil he is barely a skeleton. A movie insider says, "He is perfect for the role. He will play the 'restored' human version of Lord Voldemort and has a spectacular fight scene with Harry at the end of the film." Mike Newell has taken on directing duties on the fourth Potter picture, which recently began shooting.

What is the connection?

I was five and he was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
He wore black and I wore white
He would always win the fight
Bang, bang, he shot me down
Bang, bang, I hit the ground
Bang, bang, that awful sound
Bang, bang, my baby shot me down.

Then...

Try to make some sense of it all
But I can see that it makes no sense at all
Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor?
I don't think that I can take any more
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

RICE

My effort for the weekend is really to take things as slowly as possible.  I was s'pozed to go over to my parents house tomorrow after work, but I think instead I am going to go home, make cornbread, have a sandwich, watch a movie, do laundry... relax.  I am gonna have to drive downtown to see The Talking Cure at the Taper, so I want to rest before that.

I saw C9 tonight.  SOO good.  It really was wonderful.  It's a great play, of course, but I think that you guys really have a lot to be proud of.  I was very moved by the play.  I was a wreck by the end.  That Betty monologue at the end really is some kind of amazing empowering female thing.  I just feel so happy for her and so shocked and so appalled at her society and so delighted that she's found herself and so surprised that she's still scared and so proud that she doesn't cry about it anymore.  The play's finale is such a beautiful moment.  (It could be slower still, in my opinion... I wish they would take time and look at one another and recognize one another.)  But... WOW, guys.  You have to be very proud.

I think, especially, what Cloud 9 reminds me of is the huge span of years—the vast space of time that humanity has crossed to get even to the place we are now in the gender wars.  What a fantastical, wonderful idea that a woman who was raised by Victorians could grow into a woman who appreciates her son's homosexuality and can learn to love herself as a whole person separate from men.  I might cry again just thinking about the enormity of that!

Perhaps tomorrow I will write about ritual in the theatre.  I feel a new Statement of Purpose in the wings.

I rerecorded my voicemail... this one is especially for Justin and Elizabeth... at least, they'll get the joke, though I think it is funny whether you know the joke or not.

One more thing from last night's meeting

At some point I ask them to tell me about their theatre company, and they sort of say "yadda yadda, we've been operating for such and such years," and I'm nodding and saying, "OK" and then I ask "Do you have a mission statement?"

I get laughs and then the statement: "It changes all the time."

At this point I'm totally serious and before I can stop myself I say, "Wow.  You should know it by heart."

Everyone in 2SP knew the mission statement by heart.  We could quiz each other at any time and everyone could quote it.  I was kind of blown away.

WORK

Okay, I am supposed to be working on this client. I PROMISED her I would do her work today, but I just don't want to do her work. What I want to do is nothing. I have no boss today and no supervisor and I just don't feel like working. These are the days I wish I were in retail.
Bleh. I guess I will begin her work now.

From Ashley

1) Go into your LJ's archives.
2) Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3) Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4) Post the text of the sentence in your lj along with these instructions.

"I am such a sucka."

Royalty

I spent this evening with Kim.  I was supposed to be there with L. Bisesti, but I was relieved to find out that Kim was going and I wasn't going to be stranded and alone the way I was at The Wind Cries Mary.  So I met Linda and some folks from some class of hers for The Royal Family at the Ahmanson Theatre.  I could write a review, but the play was really too boring for all of that.

I have no idea why someone would want to produce an enormous, bloated show like this one.  I liked Kate Mulgrew, and I would have seen Marian Seldes in anything, but most of the actors wouldn't have known funny if it but them.  The main problem is the direction.  The director can't decide what the Hell to do with this enormous cast and this enormous set and this ancient play.  So it's a period piece played as if it were a satire written last year.  What I'm saying is that, on paper, it's a witty, clever, very funny, very fast paced play, but in this production, it attempts to be a witty, clever, not-so-funny critique of 1920s theatre people.  It fails.  Miserably.

High points: there are FOUR dogs on stage, all of them live, none of them ever bark, and all of them perform perfectly.  One of the best bits in the show is early on when Seldes bends down and picks up a tiny little dog that has been sitting on a chair for at least ten minutes and has been so still and quiet that you hadn't even noticed the little pooch was there until she was in Seldes' arms. 

There is another really transcendent moment at the very very end, but it's mostly nonsense.  Biggest criticism of the show, and I know this is an easy one to make: everyone in this play is exactly the same at the end as they were at the beginning.  It's all very "ho ho ho" and "isn't life clever" but I wasn't sold at all, and neither was Kim, or even Linda for that matter.

I was an awful boor to poor Kim tonight.  I apologize.  Sorry for all the complaining.  I guess I need to get out more.  One glass of Reisling and I'm waxing on about futures and companies and friendships and a whole lot of personal B.S.

Meeting with Zamora tomorrow at 8:00p.  Break a leg to all those in Cloud 9.  I need to finish reading Shrew again before I see this guy.

Free Ballin' it

Yeah, so I didn't do laundry last night and I ought to have.

The score for The Hours, I think, is the most beautiful score to any film ever.  I may be overstating it, but right now I can't think of a score I have listened to as often.  The music for The English Patient is wonderful, too, but the reason I like that is for the Bach and the Hungarian folk music.

The sink is up and running.  It looks so nice!  I ended up cutting the copper tubing at the juncture where it attached to the old hardware.  Then I simply replaced the old hardware with the new.  No plumber, no plumbing tape, no plumber's putty, no plumber's crack needed.  Okay, so it did take a really long time to do all of this, but it was mainly because I didn't have the right tools handy.  I knew how to do it the whole time.  Dad had the handiest little gadget that cuts copper tubing without smashing it.  (To hacksaw the tubing would have resulted in something similar to the smashed pieces of bread you get when trying to cut homemade loaves with a bad knife.)  At any rate, this little gadget is a small square about the size of a California roll that fits around the tubing and cuts it simply by spinning around it.  So slick.  Cutting the pipes took less than five minutes and I had the sink installed and distributing fresh, lovely water by 11:30p.

Doing shit like this (e.g. replacing headlights, replacing doorknobs, changing tires) makes me feel a little bit funny.  I know it's a standard thing to think that someone like me who cares about fashion and doesn't like to get dirty and is a director for the theatre wouldn't know how to/couldn't possibly want to/should never attempt to do things like this, but that's just silly prejudice.  I don't feel like I'm overcoming prejudice or anything like that by replacing sink fixtures.  I also don't feel like I'm breaking any personal gay barriers... the notion that a gay man isn't handy around the house is just nonsense.  I don't even feel any more masculine than normal.  As a matter of fact, I feel pretty masculine most of the time. 

What I do feel is something I think most young men struggle with.  I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point Western societies started stopping a lot of normal rituals.  We still have a few: marriages and funerals being chief among them.  But there are no rites of passage whereupon children become adults.  We're supposed to become adults when we turn eighteen, but then, we still can't drink and we still can't rent cars.  ...And we all drink anyway, way before we turn twenty-one, and so even that age has lost its real significance.  I don't know about you, but I was drinking heavily already at age sixteen.   And so when does a boy become a man?  When he dies for his country?  It's a little too late to be a man at that point.  When he kills someone and then is tried as an adult?  That certainly is a way for a person to get society to recognize a boy as a man, but I wouldn't recommend it.  At this point in society, so many young people are having children that even parenthood doesn't necessarily mean adulthood.  The only real ritual left is marriage... and people like me are not allowed this ritual.  It is no wonder gay men want the right to be married, even if not in a church—personally, you wouldn't ever catch me getting married in a religious wedding—it is the only ceremony left that tells a boy that he is now a man.

I own property.  I have a mortgage to pay.  I educate people younger than myself.  I have learned to go to the cinema alone... and enjoy it.  Most of the time, I still don't feel like I'm a grown man.  Being able to repair my own sink, or replace my own doorknob, or change the headlight on my car: these things make me feel like I'm growing up.  They signify something.  And so being able to replace my sink is not just an excercise in plumbing.  It becomes my own rite of passage on Allen Avenue in Pasadena on 26 April 2004. 

And maybe I'm being foolish, but I hope one day to be able to get married, too.

The Heat

I really want to go home and fix my sink. I think there was a song a while ago called "fix my sink" that I heard on KCRW when I used to listen to that station. I distinctly remember being in my car and near Ashley & Elizabeth's old place on Citadel. I was probably on my way to do yoga with Kelly Norris.

Derek doesn't want me to move away, but I am going to eventually. I have to go to school at some point.

I told Linda I would take the job for next year, so I will be directing in the Black Box for 2004-2005. She wants me to do Winter, but I think I'd like to do Fall... so I don't get stuck with the leftovers from Twelfth Night. I am giving her five plays to read: Greenberg's The American Plan, DeLillo's Valparaiso, Melissa James Gibson's [sic], plus Pterodactyls and Raised in Captivity, both by Nicky Silver. We shall see... I think I'd kind of like to do [sic].

I haven't talked to Zamora yet. I guess I'll wait for him to call me... at least until tomorrow.

I think I think I think

I think I figured out how to fix my sink in my sleep last night. I have not been sleeping well at all.
Today I am up at 8:00a to be at work by nine, and then I'm "workin' 9 to 5" [insert music here].

It was so frigging hot here yesterday. Not that I am not used to such weather, but I am never prepared for it in bloody April.

I was gonna try to do yoga this morning... maybe tomorrow. I was up far too late attempting to repair my faucet.

Off to work...

This post could have been...

It's so nice to have a man around the house, even if I'm the man who's around.

I was gonna be cool and brag about how I put on the new faucet in my lavatory, but it has not yet occurred.  I can't fucking figure it out!  What I think, is that the faucet company that sold me this thing gave me a raw deal and I really need to get water shut off valves and shit.  I am returning this shit tomorrow I swear.  I also think that there is no way that my current faucet mechanism comes apart.  I really don't think it does that.  I don't know, but I am damn frustrated and so I am leaving it until morning and going to bed.  I can try to fix the fucking thing tomorrow when I'm feeling like I can take more risks like just yanking the shit off.  We'll see.

I said "fuck" a lot this weekend.  I'm basically okay with that, too.

Fuck.

Kevin Spacey

This is my bitch entry for the week...

Okay, this is what I hear:

On 4/19/04: Hollywood star Kevin Spacey has been brutally mugged in a London park. The Oscar-winner told police he was attacked and his mobile phone was stolen while he walked his dog in south London's Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park at 4.30am on Saturday. But Spacey - who was treated in hospital for a minor head injury - stunned police by returning to the station where he reported the crime, to withdraw his claim. A Scotland Yard spokesperson says, "He had a head injury and said he'd been robbed of his phone. But he returned and withdrew the theft allegation. As far as police are concerned, there's no crime to investigate."

Then we hear on 4/20/04: Spacey appeared on BBC Radio 4's respected Today show Monday morning to explain the bizarre series of events. He reveals, "I fell for a con and I was, I think, incredibly embarrassed by it. Some sob story about someone needing to call their mother and could they use my phone. It was such a good con that I actually dialed the number myself, and then when someone answered I finally handed my phone over, and this kid took off and I ran after him and it was 4am and I tripped up over my dog and I ended up falling onto the street and hitting myself in the head." The Oscar-winner was so angry and humiliated at the time of the crime, he went to the police. Only after he calmed down, Spacey returned to the station to admit he hadn't been attacked. Spacey says, "I'm extremely upset. I feel like the biggest fool that's ever lived. I march over to the police station and I say I got mugged and I'm thinking that they're gonna run out and find this kid a block later, and of course they take me to the hospital and they were very kind and that's one of the reasons I went back on Saturday morning to the police station. I woke up after a couple of hours' sleep and I thought, you know, there's a difference between assault and theft and it just wasn't on for me to not come clean about my own level of embarrassment, and being humble at the fact that I got taken by the oldest con going. But it probably was good that I got bonked on the head because I obviously wasn't thinking."

Now he's joking that David Beckham paid Spacey to take him off the front page of the papers for a day or two.  Ha.    Ha.

Now, I am not a suspicious person, and I don't usually read tabloid reports (the British press seems to be even worse than the Stateside press), but I have a few questions about this silliness.

First off, let's just stop right here: Why was the man in a dark park at 4am?!?!?  If he would just come out already, he wouldn't have to cruise public places for sex... he could actually try dating someone.  I mean, who is he kidding?

What makes the red man red?

Yesterday I watched The Last Detail.  Great flick... I'm surprised it wasn't more well-liked by critics.  Jack Nicholson is great.  It is definitely one of my favorites of his career.  So cool.  His name is actually "Bad Ass" in the movie.

Today I am off to have Yum Cha with Debs in Monterey Park.  We haven't been in a long time.  Mike isn't coming, but we go without him all the time.  He has to work or something.

I am totally following through on my Statements of Purpose pledge; I am proud of myself. 4 more, at least, by June 30.

Last night D and I saw I'm Not Scared by Gabriele Salvatore.  Great movie!  I really loved it.  It's this thriller about a boy in Italy in the late 1970s who finds another boy hidden in a hole at this abandoned house.  Really creepy and exciting.  I don't usually go in for this stuff, but this movie is dealing with other stuff too, and we all know I'm a sucker for little children as protagonists.  They're so idealistic and innocent.

Statement of Purpose Part Four

The goal of educational theatre is to teach the doing of theatre to young artists.  Standards are to be kept high any time we are doing this work of education.  We set the standard by the impeccability of our own work and we must hold others to that standard.  We must expect our students to bring their own work to the table and not excuse their failings.  A student with an excuse is still a student who did not do the work.  And a student who does not do the work is unacceptable.

Statement of Purpose Part Three

The goal of each night of theatre is to entertain. If our audience is not liking the play, we are not doing our jobs. This is not to say that we do not want the audience to occasionally be uncomfortable, but we want them to have a good evening. It is not our mandate to punish the audience or preach to them. Let others do that. Let the theatre entertain.

Ah for a Lazy Saturday

I love these lazy Saturdays!  The last 3 weeks I have had to run off to work at LLL, but this Saturday I slept late and then paid bills and then spent some time at repose in the sun in these great white linen shorts I have.

I have begun to read The Taming of the Shrew but have not yet finished.  It is a short play.  I am not yet halfway through, but I have been thinking about what Zamora wants, and I am not sure.  He mentioned something about Kate and Petruchio in a boxing ring... I dunno about all of that stuff.

But I was thinking about CSULB and the people they have there and that got me a little excited.  Linda did have some really good folks in R&J.

I hate thinking that Kevin thinks that I am all gaga over him.  This is so not the case and it really irks me that he thinks that.  He was all cocky with me last night like I was drooling over him or some such shit.  Not so, man.

I just finished reading a small article in praise of Mary Renault and her fiction concerning gay men in ancient Greece.  Hmm.  I should probably check out one of her books, but I'm not really into fiction that much unless it's dramatic.

I guess I will take Linda up on her offer and direct at CSUP in the Fall or the Winter.  I kind of hate to do the Winter, just because Twelfth Night is going on and it will have such a big cast... but even so... there are people who don't want to do Shakespeare and I can direct those people.

I have to do some kind of workup for Shrew.  I have to really think about this.  I am totally amenable to doing it any which way they please... the whole point of having me as a director, I would say, would be my skill with the language... not necessarily my ability to invent (artificial) approaches to the text which will make the audience go, "Oh, how clever!"  This is not my goal.

I think I'd like to go see I'm Not Scared if I can this evening.  I called D and left him a message, but no response yet.

I caught a little of the EME show last night, which was cool.  I talked to Jensen a little bit about his role as Cathy in Act II of C9 as well.  He seemed to not really understand his own thematic purpose as a character.  We talked about it for a little while, or rather, I talked about it and told him how important Cathy is as the next generation of these people.

My mom

My mother sent me an email this morning that said (among other things): I am getting ready to buy our golf dinner tickets.  I would be happy to purchase one for you and even for a companion if I can be assured you would like to attend.

She can be so supportive sometimes.  It makes a brotha feel loved.

If Zamora can front me gas money, I'm taking the CSULB job no matter what play it is.  I'll talk to him today.  It'll be a lot of work, I'm assuming, but I just want to direct again.  This is not me compromising.  This is me feeling like I haven't done any real work in a long fucking time.

Loves of a Blonde

Last night Sarah and D and I went to AMPAS to see Loves of a Blonde and hear director Miloš Forman speak.  Trés cool.  I swear this "Academy Gold Standard Series" is the greatest thing.  I've been to the first two, and I guess this goes on like every 2 or 3 weeks.  A rare film every single time, and usually a cool guest... all for $5 and free parking (unheard of in Beverly Hills).

The film was great, and Forman is obviously a pretty brilliant guy.  The interviewer was asking dumb ass questions though.  It was okay, because Forman was giving great answers to the pedantic questions he was being asked.  (He says he consciously made Nurse Ratched a less obvious villain not only to psyche the audience out, but also because he says he knew nurses like this... women who were actually very nice to you if you played by their rules and obeyed them completely... "It's a whole other kind of evil," he said.)  But the interviewer failed to ask about Forman's own cinematic influences and Czech contemporaries not to mention his opinions on contemporary cinema.  Ah well.

After the film, we went to the original Toi on Sunset.  Yum.  Good curry and then green tea ice cream for dessert.

I'm damn tired today, and, I think, a little irritable.  Hmmm.

This Song Always Makes Me Think of My Sister

all the world just stopped now
so you say you don't wanna stay together anymore
let me take a deep breath babe
if you need me, me and neil'll be
hangin' out with the DREAM KING

neil says hi by the way
i don't believe you're leaving cause
me and charles manson like the same ice cream
i think it's that girl
and i think there're pieces of me
you've never seen
maybe she's just pieces of me
you've never seen well

all the world is
all i am
the black of the blackest ocean
and that tear in your hand
all the world is DANGLIN'...
danglin'... danglin' for me DARLIN'
you don't know the power that you have
with that tear in your hand
that tear in your hand

maybe i ain't used to maybes
smashing in a cold room
cutting my hands up
every time i touch you
maybe maybe it's time
to wave goodbye now
time to wave goodbye now

caught a ride with the moon
i know i know you well
well better than i used to
HAZE all clouded up my mind
in the DAZE of the why
it could've never been
so you say and i say
you know you're full of wish
and your "baby baby baby babies"
i tell you there're pieces of me
you've never seen
maybe she's just pieces of me
you've never seen well

all the world is
all i am
the black of the blackest ocean
and that tear in your hand
all the world is DANGLIN'...
danglin'... danglin' for me DARLIN'
you don't know the power that you have
with that tear in your hand
that tear in your hand

with that tear in your hand

Taming of the Shrew

Linda called me and said that John Zamora wants to find a director for Shrew for the summer theatre program he has going.
I may just do it. I would get to direct in that beautiful studio theatre they have.
What do you all think?
Would any of you audition or consent to design?
Hit me back.

Acting

I am rebelling against work, and since Steve left for The Netherlands today and Nancy left work at 2:00p, I decided to finish the play I started at lunch.  It was Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band.  I am not sure that I am completely sold on the play, but this play made me want to act again.

I gave up on acting what feels like ages ago, and in truth it was right after Tartuffe.  After that I started working as crew.  Since that time I have done three separate Shakespeare shows, and I did each for a very specific reason.  By the time I went to the Voice Intensive in 2002, I had stopped considering being a better actor a goal of mine.  The VI convinced me again that it was something that I wanted to do, and so when I came back I did Othello.  Since then I played Rosencrantz in Hamlet... something I always wanted to do.  And since then Tybalt in R&J, and that was strictly because I felt like speaking again.  It isn't that I don't think I can hack it or anything as maudlin as all of that, but I stopped considering myself an actor because I found that I never wanted to play any of the characters I was given... by this I don't mean that I didn't like the roles I got, but that I feel like these characters are nothing like me and that's boring.  They aren't saying anything I want to say.  They aren't dealing with anything that I deal with.  I generally play pushovers or cowards, and I am occasionally a pushover and a coward, but not for the reasons these Shakespearean clowns are.  I never felt like they were current.  This bored me.

I realize that this is because no one I was working for was doing work about me.  No one was directing plays that had a character with whom I could really identify.  (I do identify with Iago, but that's a whole other issue.)  To remedy this I started directing work that was about me: plays that were chock-full of characters with whom I could identify.  But what I ended up doing was giving other people the opportunities I so longed for.  Not that this is a bad thing... in actual fact it was a very good thing.  I found where my talent lies and where my passion truly lies.  I am too much of a micro-manager to not be a director... and I am a good director.

But sometimes... I think I want to be an actor again, if just to play a character like Michael in The Boys in the Band.  I would love to play gay characters with flaws and loves and demons.  But playing straight characters from plays that are 400 years old is just not challenging.  I mean why bother putting myself on the line as an actor to say something like "You climbed over the house to unlock the little gate"?

I think maybe that this is a depressing entry.  I apologize.

Here comes the Bride

I just saw the best western made since Unforgiven.  And if you didn't like Unforgiven, I just saw the best western made since Shane.  It was entitled Kill Bill: Vol. 2.  Not as interesting as Vol. 1, and not nearly as satisfying, Vol. 2 is a film without a heart, which would be okay, but it seems as if it's trying to have one.  It doesn't, though, it only knows heart when the heart is exploding.  That's not to say it's not good... because I already said that's it's the best western since 1992, but it's a genre piece and nothing more.

Michael Madsen is wonderful, and Darryl Hannah has never looked more fabulous.  David Carradine is not sexy no matter how hard he tries to be, and Uma Thurman is pretty damn near close to fucking brilliant.  This is a tough, tough movie, that spits nails and winks at the audience.  It's a revenge film that kept me guessing until the very end... and it has a sublime ending.  So sublime that, finally, after all of that... it becomes a silent movie: the only way it can tell us the end is through a title page.

Tarantino knows what he's doing, there's no question about that.  But I don't think he feels very much, and as we know, I am all about feeling.  He is unquestionably a skilled writer and director, but I want to love the characters I watch.  I want to be emotionally affected (perhaps this is why I have such a love-hate relationship with Spielberg).

Vol. 2 is brilliantly shot, by the way, and if the cinematography doesn't get an Oscar nomination, the Academy ought to hang its golden head in shame.

The HOA meeting was still going on when I left at 9:40p!!!  There were 6 board members to begin with plus me, Debra from next door, Martha (my friend), Rosie and her husband (can he please shut up!), Galindo from downstairs, some guy from my floor who talks to me in the elevator, and some guy who I befriended at the last meeting.  Plus Erika Woo, who I fucking went to school with, who was in the fucking Bakkhai was there!  She lives in 124.  Who knew?  These are the only people who came to the meeting.  We decided on a new management company.  We fired our old management company.  We picked a contractor to paint the lobby and the stairwells.  We discussed paint colors.  We picked a contractor to lay new tile in the lobby.  We had a hearing on fines for some asshole who owns a condo on the first floor and rented it out to vandalizing motherfuckers.  The board put their foot down on his ass.  I was pleased.

Dean, the board president, was totally checking me out and almost blew a gasket when I left abruptly at 20 minutes to ten.  I felt good about it.

Steve is leaving for Europe tomorrow.  Life is great.

Now that I've seen the new Tarantino, I need to get out and see Young Adam with Ewan MacGregor.  It's supposed to be pretty hot stuff.

Oh, did everyone see the trailer to Hero with Jet Li before Vol. 2?  Let me tell you, that fucking movie looks so awesome!  I have always loved Zhang Yimou and his use of color.  You should check out Raise the Red Lantern, Shanghai Triad, and Ju Dou if you haven't seen them before.  They all are superb films.  Plus they all star the GORGEOUS Gong Li.  And it is about time that Hero was released in the States.  Miramax has had that thing on a shelf since late 2002!  I hope they don't cut it too much before they release it.

Evaporated

Tonight I have to go to a meeting for my homeowner's association.  Boo.  It's supposed to last 2 whole gigantic fucking hours, too.  What could we possibly discuss for 120 minutes!?

But it is all okay because after it is over I am high-tailing it to the local cineplex to see Kill Bill Vol. 2.  I am dying to see it.  I was supposed to go with Jaime and Dyson but he has to study or some such shit, so that's that.  I even invited the roommate, but he is sickly obsessed with Final Fantasy XI, which can't be healthy, right?

Steve is going away to Europe tomorrow.  God Bless Europe!  Today he got in a shouting match with one of our employees.  He was quite literally screaming at Mark in his office, "Get the fuck out of here," etc.  Seriously.  I don't understand this.  I don't think I've yelled at anyone in like 5 years.  Maybe more.  I can't even remember the last time I yelled at someone.  The last time I raised my voice was in Gross Indecency rehearsal, and only then because Andrew got himself waaay the fuck out of line.

If anyone wants to see Volume 2 in Pasadena after 9p, text message me.

U Got It Bad (in the words of Usher)

Be wise.  Be smart.  Behave your heart.

Jaime and I made April 19th resolutions.  I resolved to finish at least four more "Statements of Purpose" by June 30th.  This is actually do-able.

I watched a movie today and I don't want to give away the ending, so I'll just have my discussion and not mention which movie spawned the topic.  I hate hate hate movies where the queen dies at the end.  Fuck the guy who can't tell the other guy (usually the more fem guy) that he loves him.  Fuck that guy.  And fuck the part of the movie where the fem guy dies.  And then fuck the other guy again when he realizes how much he loved the fem guy once he's already dead.  Fuck this plot and the thousand times that we've seen it.  I am opposed to watching these kinds of movies, and generally I refuse to do so.  I recently got this one on Netflix as a recommendation from the Film Bitch and so I was excited about it.  I love the romance and all, but I am so sick of the plot where the gay guys or lesbians don't end up together.

I feel like this idea of the gay people ending up apart and alone is some kind of idea foisted upon us by straight society (and also the closeted--dare I say suicidal--society of early Twentieth century homosexuals like Lillian Hellman and emulated by late Twentieth century homosexuals like Terrence McNally).  These stories where one of the couple that belongs together--and would end up together in a Hollywood movie--ends up dying of AIDS, or dying in some other horrific way, or one of them ends up going "straight", or they just end up apart because of vague notions of sin or guilt or duty.  Give me movies like The Broken Hearts Club or All over the Guy or Maurice any day over movies like Nico and Dani or Get Real or Kissing Jessica Stein or Mambo Italiano or The Kiss of the Spider Woman any day of the fucking week.

The Baskin Robbins flavor Key Lime Pie really is quite delicious.  I recommend it to all.

Two Day Update

Okay, first off, Love's Labour's Lost really wasn't that bad.  In the first place it was only an hour and a half long, in the second place, along with the boring parts there were also some really nice moments, plus one fall-on-the-floor-funny sequence involving Leo and a banjo-(uke)lele.  I want to definitely thank Aaron, Kim and Wahima for their hard work.

Yesterday I met Ayana and all of her family at Disneyland.  They were an hour late so I was at Disneyland by myself for an hour.  What does one do at Disneyland by one's self for an entire hour?  I followed a cute guy for about 10 minutes just to see where I would go and then I had a spinach salad at the Orleans Cafe and then I listened to swing music at the Carnation Plaza.

As I said, the entire family was there.  They were there mostly to see shows, though, so Peggy, Ayana, Edana, Naila, Alonna, and Eli all went to see Snow White and since Nathan wanted to go to the rockets, Nicci and Jason and Nathan and I went to Tomorrowland.  So we took Nathan on Star Tours and the Rockets and then we saw the Buzz Lightyear show.  (Cheese times a million).  Then they all wanted to go on Autopia, and since I have a car and I don't much like driving it, much less toy cars where I can't use my cell phone, Ayana and I went on the Matterhorn and talked a while.  Then we met the fam again and rode the train to Main Street.  I left there and drove to my dad's house.

My parents have decided they're not moving.  Whatever, again.

Dad and I went to South Coast Rep to see Safe in Hell.  My friend Madison is in the show, and she had warned me ahead of time that the play was sort of uneven.  Dad liked it.  We talked about it all the way home (a good 40 minutes).  I hated it.  I realize, that what I take away from a show is how I feel about the show and not specifics from the show.  If the show has me laughing all the way through, I leave saying the show is great, if, like this show, there are 20 minute chunks without a laugh, I am going to leave pissed off.  The ending is almost tragic and not even close to comical.  This show is very uneven and I would recommend it to no one.  The casting is all wrong, too.  Which is not to say the actors aren't good.  Every one of them is very talented, but the play needs weaker (shorter/ganglier/less pretty) actors than the actors they have in certain parts.  The main problem is the direction.  This may not be an easy question to ask, but I wish the director had asked "Is this a comedy or a drama?"  Then maybe I would have an answer, but as it stands, I have no clue.

Disneyland in the middle of the day makes me sunburned today.

I saw my old friend last night too.  Hi!

I am also really sore from all the walking.

Yay, I get to see Vol. 2 tomorrow.

I have to go to work now.  Get your violins out.

Love's Labour's Lost

So we are done rehearsing for Love's Labour's.  Finito.  I realized today that there are a lot of things that I am good at.  One is helping an actor who has talent hidden somewhere up his or her ass to realize this talent.  The second is that I know how to teach Shakespeare.  I really do.  I had a session with just Daniel and Kristy late in the afternoon that I am sure helped him a lot to really talk to the audience.  It was good.

The third thing is knowing how to cast a show in the first fucking place and not to cast shitty people in the show.

After the last of these Shakespeare readings, I took Linda aside and offered to help.  I knew that I could.  The first thing that I said was that the things needed to be shorter, and I offered to cut the play accordingly (BTW: without intermission, this version of Love's Labour's Lost runs a total of an hour and 35 minutes.)  The second thing that I said was that we need to cast actors who are capable in the largest parts, and the actors who are really talented and who can speak Shakespeare (by this mainly I was talking about Aaron, Wahima, myself, and Justin) in the servant parts... the really funny parts that are so often done poorly.  We don't need to prove anything, and so we don't really mind playing smaller parts and giving the bulk of the learning experience to inexperienced actors.  This was not heeded by Linda.  At all.

She changed her tune, by the way, about the payment for the Black Box season: she said she meant to say $100 more than last year instead of $100 less than last year.  I need to talk with her.  I am still very leery about taking a job here again.  This LLL experience has really soured me on the place.

I am dying to see Volume 2.  I can't wait until Tuesday.

Peace out and much love to all.  I am gonna go prep for a warmup that I'm leading.  As stated previously, this evening I am being billed as dramaturge: Aaron C. Thomas.

Gin & Tonic for Breakfast

I had a dream I was in a play, and it was a good play written by (of all people) David Ives, but it was about baseball or some other sporting event.  I remember none of the specifics of the show, but I was good in it, and I was the audience favorite (hey, it's my dream).  Mike OT was in it too and a whole bunch of other guys.  I forget where it was, but at the end of it, Christine and Kathy and Kristen came.  Kathy & Kristen had watched it but of course Christine didn't.  At some point, too, I was hanging onto the car they were riding in trying to talk to them and they just kept driving and talking to me as if nothing were different.  (But I didn't feel like an outsider).  Who knows.  My alarm went off.

Yesterday, after watching Summertime with Katharine Hepburn in the afternoon, I headed to the Derby for my dad's birthday.  Mike paid.  It was very nice.  That place really is the nicest restaurant.  Matt Kingston was our waiter.  Mike Nicolarsen works there, too, and so does Cassandra Haddon.  My god, it was like a First Lutheran reunion.  I guess Dustin, who is now the manager, got them all jobs.  Matt was cool.  He is gorgeous, now, of course.  Seriously beautiful in the way I like white guys to be beautiful.  He told me he loves me.  Typical stuff.

Went to El Pescador last night in honor of Julie's birthday/Easter.  Many were there: Bobby, Julie, Anna, Lisa, Betsy (Anna's sister), Scott (he comes to everything, now), Jaime, Zack, Sarah, and someone else from Starbucks named Jamie who everyone called "The Other."  Plus me, though I showed up around nine.  I smoked about 5 cigarettes.  I didn't drink too much, though, because my mom had called me from Hawaii and told me not to.  And it's not like I needed to drink.  I was already talkative from the 2 gin and tonics I had at the Derby.  So I just had one really big margarita.

I wasn't gonna tell Anna about the Matt thing tonight, but then she asked where we went and I said "The Derby" so she asked if I saw him... etc.  She got just like I did last week when she was telling me about when she saw him.  Not that I want to compete, because what I really want to do is support her in everything she does, including pursuing Matt if that's what she wants.  But, I felt a little better about the whole ownership of Matt thing because in actuality, she doesn't feel like she owns him either. (Here ends the petty paragraph).

We had SO MUCH FUN at El Pescador last night.  Derek was drunk off his ass and so was Julie and she was opening gifts and the girls were all singing Karaoke: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and some Madonna song, too.  It was really a blast.  I left around 11:30p, because I have a rehearsal to run this morning.

I am excited for today.  I have plans.  We shall see.

Mike and Debs and Dad were extremely supportive of my decision not to take the CSUP job and they lots of good advice.  I was grateful.

Jeremy called me twice to invite me to Kill Bill, Vol. 2, and Kim Porter called me too.  I felt loved.

Fucking Julie and Bobby went to see the movie in the afternoon because they knew they'd be busy last night.  I don't think I'm gonna see it until Tuesday!  I am so jealous of all who did.

There's a Slicktown, Barnaby

Last night, Ms. Wahima and I went to Old Town and walked around to show off her infinitely fabulous shoes.  The two of us were going on and on about these shoes all night.  They look so good!  We went to the Paseo after we ate and she convinced me to see Hellboy... which was not bad at all.  I still hate the idea that a PG-13 movie gets to be as violent as it wants, but because there's no blood, it still gets its rating.  It seems so bogus... and quite frankly, I prefer to see some blood in a movie.  Hellboy has some really revolting scenes but it still is okay for 13-year-olds (!)  Whatever.  This is an old song of mine.  By the way, Spider-Man 2 looks like it's gonna fucking rock.

Hellboy (as predicted by Jeff Wells) has a great ending.  It really is good times.  And Hellboy himself is damn funny.  BTW: I could not think of Selma Blair's name through the whole movie.  She is so not important to me as a performer.

James Snyder called me yesterday and we sort of caught up.  I was at work.  I was glad he called, though.  I hadn't heard from him in a long time.  (I seem to get a lot of calls from folks during the season of taxes.  Thank god it will be over soon.)

Sorry to the EME folks.  I will not be attending the show this Friday.  I wish y'all would try keeping it on the day you say you're gonna have it.

Linda and Bill offered me a directing job for next year... for less money than I got this year.  When I heard that, and after this whole LLL fiasco, my heart sank.  I feel like a longsuffering wife just waiting for the department to change, for them to see that it is I who truly loves them.  They won't though, and I just keep feeding this.  Grrr.

Happy Tax Day All.

Shakespeare

Why are there whole classes about how to act William Shakespeare and not classes about how to act, say, Molière, or Tennessee Williams, or Neil Simon, or Eugene O'Neill?  Are any of these playwrights easier to act than Shakespeare?

I think I know the reason.  First, these playwrights are just as difficult to act, and in actual fact are usually more difficult to act than William Shakespeare.  The reason we teach Shakespeare instead of O'Neill... there are rules to acting Shakespeare.  We can act Shakespeare "by the book."  There is no book about how to act Williams or O'Neill or Simon.  So we don't teach Shakespeare because it's more difficult.  We teach it because it's easier.  We, as educators, feel like we know how to teach Shakespeare and maybe we feel like we don't know how to teach the others.  I almost hate to say it, but we teach Shakespeare because he's much easier to put into a box than anyone else.

President Bush

I have been listening to his press conference for the last half hour or so, and I made a promise to myself after he took a couple of questions: "If he doesn't answer the next question, I'll shut it off."
It's such a waste of time listening to him. The worst part is that I want to believe. I really do. I disagree with his moralist politics, and I think his foreign policy is sorely lacking, but I really want to believe he's telling the truth. The problem is, no matter how many questions he's asked, he just won't answer them. He talks after they finish asking the questions, but he doesn't answer them. Ever.
"Do you feel personally responsible for 9-11?"
Bush: "No one could have predicted they would use airplanes as missiles."
"A lot of people claim that you don't admit when you do something wrong, Mr. President. Do you think that's a fair criticism?"
Bush: "Sadaam was a bad guy."

I had to shut it off. I can't even listen to him anymore. I just want to go in there and scream JUST TALK TO US!!! LEVEL WITH US!!! TELL US THE TRUTH WHETHER IT MAKES YOU LOOK BAD OR NOT!!! I just feel like he's lying all the time. And it's not that I hate the Republicans, or even his administration. When Dr. Rice talks, I believe what she's saying to me. When Donald Rumsfeld talks, I believe the man. When Antonin Scalia talks, I believe him. When Bush talks I am waiting on the edge of my seat for something that sounds like the truth and it never comes.

Doughnuts

I really want a doughnut.  Something jelly-filled or an apple fritter.

I could just go to the doughnut shop before I go to work, but I probably shouldn't.

I think I will.

No Monday in Your Sunday Clothes

Derek was in fine form tonight.  We were both late.  What's retarded is that we call one another to say that we're gonna be late when we both know that the other will be late too.  He was sooo fucking funny tonight.  He had me in hysterics.  I love his dry deadpan delivery of everything he says.  :)

We went to Borders...

and then we went to Barnes & Noble's...

and then we went to the Target...

ALL of which were closed.  They like their Christianity in Montclair, I guess.  I think it's so weird.  While we were at Borders several people drove up: no small number of customers for a Sunday evening.  So weird that it was closed.  I know I'm an impious irreligious motherfucker, and if I had religion I would probably want the day off too, but you'd think that a bookstore would have a few employees who were Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim or Atheist and could therefore let all their Christian employees have the day off but still be open to paying customers.  Oh well.  No sweat, really, I just think it's strange.

I have to go to bed now because I am going in to work at 8:00a.

I want ice cream, but there really is no reason for me to eat that.  So I won't.

For Julie's birthday (which was on the 8th), we're all going to El Pescador in Whittier on the 16th (my Dad's birthday).  I know I took a friend who wasn't one of the constants to El Pescador once... I think it was Justin.  I don't know if he still reads this blog, but if you do, Justin, did we go to a crazy karaoke restaurant in Whittier once after seeing the Kurt Weill revue at Whittier College that Josh Machamer directed? 

Wow.  Old times, I guess.  When I was in high school, we used to go to El Pescador all the time because they didn't card.  I remember for some reason ordering a "lava colada" which was some fruity strawberry beverage.  The alcohol was in there somewhere, but rather indefinable at that.

I feel the room swaying and the band playing one of our favorite songs from way back when.

Karaoke.  I don't think I have ever performed karaoke in my whole life.  I don't feel sad about this.

Okay, my bioré strip is dry.  Good night, all.

Caesar!

Caesar!  Caesar!  Caesar!  A woman was yelling this name repeatedly on the north side of the house when I left home at 7:00p this evening.  Caesar!

When I returned at 10:30p, in the parking garage I hear what sounds like a small boy 7 or 8 yelling Caesar!  Caesar! 

Someone's pet must have run away. 

I had a Caesar salad for dinner.

Headache

I am sad about the headache that I have.  I am meeting D in Claremont in less than an hour though and who knows what fun we'll have!  It's nothing really that spectacular spectacular, but it will be a nice break.

This morning I went to Old Town to see Yankee Doodle Dandy.   Now, I do not consider myself un-American, but flag waving really at any level makes me uncomfortable.  I start to feel a little weird.  I do not understand the whole idea of patriotism.  I don't think my country is better than any other country, and frankly the whole idea of the nation as the main actor in world politics feels very weird.  I don't think that I feel any more connected to someone in Boston than I do to someone in Vancouver.  People from Tucson are to me no stranger than people from London.  I feel strange making a big show of uniting myself to people in Boston and Tucson instead of people in Vancouver or London.  I guess, too, I am not terribly excited about the fact that I live here.  Not that I am miserable in any way.  I love life and all, but I don't honestly feel that this country is any better than anyone else's, and I think it very strange that a lot of people actually believe this.  I am happy to take ownership of people like O'Neill and Albee and Williams and Kushner, but I have just as much respect for people like Lorca and Wilde and Ibsen and Chekhov. 

Maybe, too, it has to do with the fact that I have no desire to come to blows (I almost wrote "fisticuffs"... this comes into my head as if it were normal conversation!) about anything.  I don't believe in violence.  I don't believe in war.  I don't believe it profits people much of anything.  Now, uprisings against dictatorships and elitist classes and horrible motherfuckers like Saddam Hussein, I am all in favor of.  But these are conflicts that come from within as opposed to going somewhere to kill people.  This has kind of gone somewhere I didn't mean it to go... what I think I wanted to say was that, though I appreciate George M. Cohan songs like Give My Regards to Broadway and Yankee Doodle Dandy, that song Over There really creeps me out.  The idea of selling war to the American public is something I am very much opposed to.  Writing a little song so that we can sell war as if it were Fruit Loops is some serious false advertising.

Wahima likes my voice mail message.  Yay. 

Jill comes home tomorrow for a week.  Double Yay.

I don't think Kill Bill, Vol. 2 comes out until 4/16.  Sorry, Wa.

Love yourselves.

Mornin' All

I guess I know that not everyone likes Steve Reich, but I'm not sure I get why.  His work is so amazing.  I was just listening to the first 20 minutes of "Music for 18 Musicians."  Badass shit, I swear.  Speaking of which, Leo had to confess that the Philip Glass I was playing last night was really nice.

I have to leave to go to CSUP in 13 minutes, but today I am on top of things.  I have invoiced Linda and I am ready to do the work I need to do today.  PLUS, we'll be done at 3pm and then I can chill for the rest of the day.

The roommate's girlfriend and her sister (!) spent the night last night, so they kept me up late and woke me up early, naturally.  Although, Eddie has been nothing like Keegan Michael Brown and his 3am returns to the house drunk off his ass.

Guatemalan really is the best coffee in the whole world.  I'll have to remember to tell Carlos Dardon.

I would like to see Nói Albinói tonight, but we shall see if that happens.  I may just come home and watch La Guerre Est Finie.

Today is a day for red shoes.

I am very worried for Emmitt and for Elizabeth.  I hope everything goes well today.

...and a voice keeps saying this is where I'm meant to be...

I am such a sap!

Was that me? Was that him? Did a prince really kiss me? ...And kiss me? ...And kiss me? ...And did I kiss him back?

I just finished watching Mr. Holland's Opus.  Of course, I cried.  I once had a teacher like this... someone who touched me in ways that I am not sure I can ever describe.  Someone who gave me ways to say things I never thought possible. 

Joanna Gleason has a cameo at the end.  It made me want to listen to Into the Woods.  She is just amazing in that show.

Is it always 'or' is it never 'and'?  That's what woods are for... for those moments in the woods.  Oh, if life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one.  But if life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one.

I finished my State tax return tonight, and Leo came over and we finished his tax return too.  Then we sat and gossiped and talked about hot guys. ;)

I told him all about this boy Ali Ara who is the reason I got into theatre in the first place.  So typical, Aaron joined for the cute boys... really just the cute boy: see Ali wasn't necessarily a drama-type person.  He was just this hot guy a year older than me (or rather a grade above me and two years older than me) who sat behind me in World Lit.  He was on the football team and the basketball team and the wrestling team and he was in ROTC.  He convinced me to audition for the drama group in H.S. (called Reveille for some reason or other... I think it had something to do with evangelizing). Then, of course, Ali didn't even audition.  Naturally, every boy who auditioned for drama was asked in as they had so few.  So I got in, and got to spend no time with Ali because of it.  I did, however, get to be in the hideous morality play Everyman. ;)

Can't we just pursue our lives, with our children and our wives 'til that happy day arrives, how do you ignore? All the witches, all the curses, all the wolves, all the lies, the false hopes, the goodbyes, the reverses.  All the wondering what even worse is still in store.  All the children.  All the giants.  No more.

Anyway, Leo left at like 9:30 and I watched Holland's Opus.  I'm gonna go to bed now.  I get to get up and go to a rehearsal where I'm in charge.  It has been so long since I've been in the driver's seat.  I hope I have a set tomorrow.  Hey, a girl can dream.

Leo is so funny.

Cheers, loves.  I hope poor Emmitt can get better.

Why I love the internet

Ayana called me yesterday and she could remember the first line of a poem that she just knew we used in Bakkhai, but that's all she could remember. Of course, I just put the line into a search engine, and up it comes. This is by Rumi:


Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.

Go Pound Sand!!???

Where does this expression "pound sand" come from?  I mean, who was actually putting sand up their ass, and who decided that a correct verb for this was "pounding?"  Very strange.

I am becoming sensitive about cursing in public, I feel.  The other day, my cousin Angie was cursing up a storm, and I was getting really self-conscious.  Not that I am opposed to cursing (fuck shit ass bitch cunt shooby-do-doo-wop), but I have a very strong sense of propriety, and I don't think it's polite for people who don't know me to hear cursing in my vicinity.  Maybe this kind of has something to do with the whole "people that other people see" thing (The Wreck on the Five-Twenty-Five).  But there really are certain behaviors that don't need to go on in public: cursing, discussions of poo, explicit sex.  In general, these things are banned in my house in addition to mentions of terrorism/cow. (Notice how I refuse to discuss her by name, too, horrible vitriolic bitch that she is.)

I don't know where I am going with this, and I will naturally curse in my journal all the time, but in public... like in a shop or on a street, cursing just isn't necessary.  I wonder whose influence this is.

I am supposed to give Linda some plays I would like to direct next year.  These are my ideas:

Pterodactyls, The America Plan, and Valparaiso.

Hey Aaron: you want to direct something this summer?  What?  Can I act in it?

 

Suit yourself

Today was Julie's birthday, and though she cannot drink and it is the Maundy (sp?) Thursday, we decided to hang out after their church services.  So we all met at BJ's in Brea circa 9p.  It was nice... I was very well dressed, had cupcakes in tow, and had a first rate gift for the birthday girl.

Side note: the gift is not about getting the recipient something they'll use or love or even like.  It is about making the giver of the gift look good.  I give fabulous gifts that people love, but the reason for this is that I shop with the philosophy that the whole point is that I look good to everyone at the table... not just the birthday boy/girl.  It sounds vain... but think about it.  Gifts are about so many things... will she/he like it?  will he/she use it?  will she/he appreciate the thought that went into this?  Why not make it about what it is about in the first place: me?  Anyhow...

So I got Julie this enormous purse/basket in flourescent pink for going to the beach.  Inside the purse was the most interesting vase I have seen in a very long time: 2 panes of glass with a vase in between them... it's very hard to explain.  Julie loved it.  She even got up from her end of the table and came and hugged me.  Very un-Julie.

Okay: layout.  I sat on the end of the table.  Clockwise: me, Anna, Jaime, Lisa, Scott, Julie, Bobby, Chris, Anita, and Derek.  I talked mostly to Anna and Jaime and Derek.  Bobby and Julie were fighting (as usual) (?).  I also successfully cornered Scott twice and got him to talk about theatre and what he's doing.  If the CSUP folk get their shit together, he really ought to go to a Shakespeare training camp in the summer.  He said his school is gonna try to do Hamlet next year. (!)

2 beers is my limit, I feel.  Any more than that and I am feeling no pain.

Donations

March has turned out to be a month full of me donating money to people. I am not sure why this is, but everyone who wants money has contacted me in the last 30 days. I mean, I want to give to these folks, but it's not like I have extra cash lying around to hand over to every Tom, Dick, & Harry.

Did everyone remember?

Cobain died 10 years ago yesterday.




















.

Buddhism

Tonight I saw the incredible Spring Summer Autumn Winter and... Spring.  Wow.  This is definitely a movie that was meant to teach me.  I came out of Dogville feeling self-satisfied, arrogant, and confident that most of my political leanings were accurate.  I leave Spring... feeling like there is much that I need to work on for myself.  There is much that I could do that I do not do.  There is much to teach and there is much to learn.

I feel like crying again.  This movie has made me feel so full emotionally.  I am going to go to bed soon, but I wanted to get this out.  I got out my journal from the Voice Intensive, ostensibly to look up the song Madison sang to me yesterday, but then I began to reread it.  The things I have written in this book!  The wisdom that I have chronicled in this book is amazing.  Truly.  I need to read it again just to remember the wisdom that I carry with me.  Too often I can get caught up in personalities and pettiness.  I must remember the four agreements and I must remember the things that I know.

EVERYONE should go see Spring...  I feel very moved on a spiritual level... as an atheist.  My spirit is moved by what this film says.

Namastë, everybody.

Songs for a New World

I met a man with not a dollar to his name, who had no traits of any value but his smile. I met a man who had no yearn or claim to fame, who was content to let life pass him for a while. And I was sure that all I ever wanted was a life like the movie stars led. And he kissed me right here and he said:

I'll give you stars and the moon and a soul to guide you and a promise I'll never go. I'll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you and a strength that will help you grow. I'll give you truth and a future that's twenty times better than any Hollywood plot.

And I thought, you know... I'd rather have a yacht.

I met a man who lived his life out on the road, who left a wife and kids in Portland on a whim. I met a man whose fire and passion always showed who asked if I could spare a week to ride with him. But I was sure that all I ever wanted was a life that was scripted and planned. And he said, But you don't understand.

I'll give you stars and the moon and the open highway and the river beneath your feet. I'll give you days full of dreams if you travel my way and a summer you can't repeat. I'll give you nights full of passion and days of adventure, no strings, just one summer rain.

And I thought, you know... I'd rather have champagne.

I met a man who had a fortune in the bank who had retired at age thirty: set for life. I met a man and didn't know which stars to thank and then he asked one day if I would be his wife. And I looked up and all I could think of was the life I had dreamt I would live. And I said to him: what will you give?

I'll give you cars and a townhouse in Turtle bay and a fur and a diamond ring and we'll get married in Spain on my yacht today and honeymoon in Beijing and you'll meet stars at the parties I throw at my villas in Nice and Paris in June.

And I thought, OK.
And I took a breath.
And I got my yacht.
And the years went by.
And it never changed.
And it never grew.
And I never dreamed.
And I woke one day.
And I looked around.
And I thought, my god...

I'll never have the moon.

Funniest thing from yesterday...

Aaron: Doctor I cheated on my wife with a man.
Brittney: And I cheated on my husband with a woman.
Aaron: I got anal warts.
Brittney: And I got oral herpes.
Kim: But the kids turned out okay.

My Horoscope for the day.

Your naturally outgoing nature is intensified today, Aaron, making you a most desirable guest at parties. If you don't already own a tux, buy one. You will be needing it! It's no wonder you are so popular, because you are generous to a fault. Never mind your charm and good manners, the hostess gifts you bring are legendary. There is no doubt that you are quite the catch. Unless, that is, you have already been caught?

I think the guy who writes these is in love with me :)

I Need to Go to Bed

create your personalized map of europe
or write about it on the open travel guide

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

I think it is a really easy thing to say that the United Nations isn't doing enough about the situation in the Sudan.  It seems silly to quibble over whether what we are discussing is "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide."  And it is an easy question to ask when we ask "Would it take this long to act if 800,000 Europeans had lost their lives?"  Of course not.  They're Africans and the U.N. is slower to act because the problem is in Africa... and this is what it is: ridiculous, unconscionable, horrific.  But what, even, can the U.N. do?  So Annan is on the phone with the president in Khartoum.  So what!  What is he gonna say? "You really ought to stop funding the Arabs that are killing all of your Black Africans"  Yeah.  That'll work.  I'm not trying to be defeatist about the situation, but this isn't the U.N.'s fault so much as it is the fault of the murdering genocidal people who run the government in the Sudan.  Blaming the U.N. is so easy.

If you haven't seen the 1967 film of Truman Capote's classic crime novel In Cold Blood, you really ought to think about renting it or adding it to your Netflix queue.  It is an excellent crime thriller with a couple of very cool cinematic devices.  It lost me near the end of Act III, but made up for it with the ending.  Acts I and II are awesome though, and it is filled with sharp dialogue and some cracker jack editing.  Really fun stuff.  Plus it's got this great Noir-ish quality... smoke and men in hats and old cars.  I recommend it.

Tonight, Elizabeth and Jer and I went to see Home on the Range in LaVerne.  I HATE that town.  And I realized tonight why.  It's not the huge amount of white people that really drive me up the wall... it's their kids.  The white people are a bit much.  I hate not seeing any black or Asian people.  I think it's weird, but it's the enormous amount of kids that are everywhere that just makes me crazy!  My building does not have ONE teenager in it, and let me tell you, I think that's a wonderful thing.  The movie theatres I go to don't have little kids running around and no one talks during a movie at a Laemmle Theatre.  I've never seen it happen.  But at Edward's LaVerne 12, you can barely hear the movie for all the crosstalk that's going on.  The couple behind me were actually getting to know one another during the movie.  Buddy!  Don't spend the $8 each it cost to get in here and sit on a bench and get to know her.  The movie was only okay.  Roseanne is fun and Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly are good too.  Plus... wouldn't you know it... Cuba Gooding Jr. is good in the movie.  Seriously, Home on the Range is Cuba Gooding Jr.'s best performance since As Good As It Gets. 

Tomorrow... Love's Labour's Lost at 11am.  Perhaps I will do laundry in the morning.  No way.  I already know I won't.  I'll make myself eggs and watch a movie in the morning and then drive to CSUP to get there just before 11.  Then I can breathe and stretch and think for a moment or to before we begin the madness.

Side Show

Why are you trying to kill my dream?

It's not a dream. It's a nightmare. Wake up. Look around you. We are freaks. Stuck together. And we'll always be alone.

But I want to wake up to what I'm dreaming of.
Dreaming that someday, some night, I will find a love... Will I find a love...?

Sexual Chocolate!

I just got an email from Andrew Cohen saying he's going to the Voice intensive and asking me questions about it.  Yay for him!  I emailed him a whole bunch of answers.  I really need to visit the VI website and see what they're up to up there in Van.  Hmmmm.  Good times up at the VI.  I have such a warm loving place in my heart for UBC.  *sigh*

I went to Cloud 9 rehearsal tonight.  They weren't really ready for me to come, but I had some good conversations with folks, including my friends Wahima, Ashley, and Jeremy. 

refused to talk to me, as if we aren't friends, but whatever to that since my good friend Samantha was there.  I miss her sometimes, though she wasn't really on her game in terms of energy tonight.

Cloud 9 is in decent shape, but needs producing to a certain extent in my opinion.

Wahima and I had a lot of dialogue today about gayness and such and there are a lot of interesting things that are in Cloud 9 that I don't think I even think about very often.  I called myself a little homophobic and I think I am to a certain extent and I think it's important to point that out or realize it when I am being homophobic.  Perhaps, too, what I am calling my homophobia is linked with sex as much as whatever else I feel in the world is.  (For you too, Wa.)  I mean, for me the really really feminine in a man is not sexy and so I don't like to see it in a man.  But then I think that is something that isn't just "not sexy" to me, but that it is not sexy to me because of my own prejudices and ideas about what and who a man should be.  I cannot allow that such a person is a man, it is not just that I don't want to have sex with him.  I am kind of rambling but it all makes sense in my head.  If this makes sense to others go ahead and comment, you can't really offend me, so comment away.

I'm craving spaghetti

Hee Hee.  The boss's plans were thwarted today.  One of our bigwig clients told Steve he was coming in before 5p today... so Steve assumes that Jack meant just before 5.  Not so.  Jack and his wife showed up here at 11am!  Ha ha ha.  So of course Steve's not ready and because he is a slacker, he looks like an asshole to the clients (who we've had for years) but have fired Steve on a couple of jobs for just this kind of idiocy.  Soon, they will fire us completely.  I think, after this tax season is over.  Oh well.

I called the Old Spaghetti Factory (me and Wahima's normal hangout) and ordered food to go.  Brilliant.  No waiting to be seated, no crappy service.  Just cheap food to go.  Hopefully this all works out.

I Vitelloni was excellent and it isn't on DVD, so I was glad I caught it down at the NuArt in Westwood.  I took 134-101-405 to get there and it took about 30 min.  Yahoo says that 134-2-5-110-101-10-405 is quicker, but I thought I would rather not drive through the city if I didn't have to... even at 9pm, the city is unpredictable.

I am in a nice mood today and the weather is cool and lovely after days of heat.  Yesterday was nicer, but today is nice too.  Plus I am excited for some reason about seeing Jeremy.  Weird.  I kind of miss him.

When is the next monkey show?  I guess I will go on the website and see.

Jill and I had the greatest phone conversation last night.  I miss her so much and we are both positively giddy about seeing one another on the 12th.  We were laughing about the dumbest shit, I swear.

My NPR station is having a pledge drive.  Ahhhh!  I am tired of it.  I already gave them my money; can't they stop now?

Have I mentioned how much I love the Supreme Court?  I have taken to calling them "The Nine."  I love when they are unanimous about shit.  That is my favorite thing.  I have decided that Clarence Thomas is Antonin Scalia's sidekick, as well... like Robin to Batman.  Just a diluted version of the real thing.

I wonder what is in theatres this Friday.  The only one I can think of is Kim Ki-duk's Spring Summer Fall Winter ...and Spring, which I am definitely seeing.  It looks lovely.