Out of the ashes of one British Mark...

...rises a phoenix of another.

This is a rather dramatic way of saying that the disenchantment with Mark Ravenhill has been replaced with the discovery of Mark Steel, a Socialist comedian, whose book Vive La Revolution I've been reading.

Listen to him speak from the book at Marxism 2003 here. (Part 2 here.)

The Year That It Was (On Here): 2007

It wasn't as busy a year as last at this corner of the internet, but there were some moments.

January

• I drink myself sober on New Year's and turn all Pollyanna-like.
• Don't drink with the ex.
• There is a programme better than The Closet, and it is subsequently picked up by here!
• The Polish final which is surprisingly low on actual Poles.
• A forecast for life in the next century.
• 700 posts!
• I dissect Eurolaul and irk prissy Vanilla Ninja fans for merely mentioning the strange resemblance between the band members and Lindsay Lohan.

February

• Jump in the time machine, because it's Eurovision 1992.
• Atlanta is not fun...especially when it is colder than New York (in more ways than one).
• A poll to see which Melodifestivalen act was aiming for the gay vote.
• A moment of reflection.
• Praising Ms. Nanne.
• Fun with the Spanish Eurovision selection (part 1).
• Fight for your right...to pick up hustlers.
• Cocaine is a helluva a drug...to watch Spanish National Finals with.

March

• Matt Sanchez and his idiocy.
• Escape from the land of muscle worshippers.
• GLAAD slides toward irrelevance.
• Me vs. Tacky theatre.

April

• We are saved from the possibility of President Tommy Thompson.
• Yet another Russian Eurovision entry with catchy music and lyrics by Babelfish.
• Praising MISIA.
• Eurovision Preview Reviews galore!
• He speaks.

May

• We Love Bitchy Nordics
• I am bewildered by the Eurovision Qualifier, and indifferent to the Final.
• Inane questions run amok on New York local news.
• Like many others, I fall for the daft Endemol joke.

June

• Shut up, Bono & Bob.
• The Tonys slide towards irrelevance just a touch slower than GLAAD.
• Bloomie gets a partial clue
• Take That revival.
• I Love Elliot (Spitzer).

July

• Oh, to be on the wrong side of the housing boom.
• I try to get religion...and realise I am my own church.
• Nobody likes Dick
• Milwaukee: test market for terrorism.

August

• My name is Hikaru Krispy Kreme, how may I serve you?
• I'm getting old, people...old & crotchety.
• Siberian independence NOW.

September

• Just a sampling of the GOP idiots running for President.
• Sensenbrenner needs to get eliminated....again.
• The Loonie reaches parity and then surpasses it. (Perhaps we're the real Loonies.)
• Janet Jackson makes a true lapse in judgement.
• Guess what? The Closet is coming back!

October

• Bye bye Jimmy.
• Obama self-destructs.

November

• Writers' Strike!
• WTMJ thinks moral indignation is the key to ratings success.
• ...And Al Roker is on Court TV.
• NBC slides towards irrelevance, faster than the Tonys & GLAAD.
• How not to do an interview.
• The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade review...not for those incapable of comprehending context.
• Crap shows reopen.
• I hate Judd Apatow, but not as much as I despise La Perry.

December

• Perhaps we all really can't get along?
• Mourning a role model.
• Silver lining in Wisconsin's bigoted anti-SSM amendment.
• Edwards = JFK-meets-FDR and I'm all for it.
• Yes, MISIA has lost her mind, but it's catchy.
• Drunk Kiwis...awww.

Perhaps you've noticed something different this year, particularly a big drop in posts. I haven't mentioned it all this year, but there's been an underlying theme in my posts particularly in the second half of 2007: Cancer.

First, my aforementioned ex was diagnosed and treated for Prostate Cancer in July & August. The next month, my mother was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and is currently undergoing treatment. (Fortunately, it was caught very early.) Two weeks later, my great aunt died from Lung Cancer. (My extended family--like my immediate family--is very small, so this was quite a huge deal.)

As for myself, I've so far been declared healthy by several doctors, which is good, especially since this year, I seem to hear and see cancer everywhere. Yet, as a result of these medical issues, I've taken on some extra non-writing work in order to lighten the load of those recovering.

Although it's likely I'll post again before January: Good health to all who read this (even Jonathan Capehart) in 2008.

The Running of the Drunk Kiwi Santas

Several times a year, a story comes along that allows us to basically laugh at a certain nation ad its foibles.

This Christmas, I would nominate the running of a bunch of drunk Kiwi students in Santa Claus (or as the accent seems to suggest: "Center Klaus") outfits through a Christchurch movie theatre.

The coverage on TVNZ seems to be pleading for the world not to judge all of New Zealand as bored drunkards bent on terrorising young children.

Modern Life Is Absurd (Part 100)...and touchng

The Daily News's David Hinckley goes all existential on disembodied voices.

And while several media outlets picked up the story of Lee Thomas, the black anchor whose skin is losing its pigmentation, I think the best and most poignant coverage (albeit solely on presentation...since it is an AP article) is on The Sydney Morning Herald.

Tuesday Jukebox Thinks MISIA has lost her mind

Damn catchy, and she's still in great voice, but what on god's green earth inspired that title?

MISIA - Royal Chocolate Flush
Uploaded by HANNYA

I'm Coming Out (Politically) Part 2

The other contender for my primary vote is John Edwards.

There, I said it...and god, am I shocked that I did...I mean, I was STAUNCHLY Clark in 2004.

Lest you think it's actually brought on by the recent uptick in Edwards's political fortune, it actually came after looking at The Washington Post's Candidate Selector.

Quite frankly, the man never really was on my radar, because he really never seemed to get the media's attention. So it was interesting actually reading what he does actually have to say.

First, quite honestly the man screams JFK revival, but since I was born 16 years after JFK was shot, that means social policies to me as opposed to pretty spouses and children all in a row.

I do like that he's basing his campaign on economic disparity, which is quite frankly running rampant and no one is really doing much more than paying lip service.

Secondly, he's improving his stance in respect to GLBT rights, and with him it seems to boil down to equal treatment under the law, which is a stance I can get behind. Now here's where I have to hold my nose a bit and hope that he gets some sense: he's against same-sex marriage personally, but is for civil unions and against a constitutional ban. On the plus side: it allows for wiggle room. On a down side: Does it mean that he would impede legislation against same-sex marriage? I honestly don't know.

Ultimately, the Edwards & Richardson decision came down to a process of elimination.

(NB: all these statements have an implied "at the moment" following them.)

Kucinich: Just no. Idealism without practicality

Biden: Milquetoast and in it "just because"

Obama: Pre-McClurkin: Too Green. Post-McClurkin: No. Way. In. Hell.

Gravel: Great policies, but he's not the right messenger because it comes through a bunch of babble that makes you wonder as to what he would actually do if elected. He came VERY close for my support.

Dodd: See Biden.

Clinton: I really wanted to like her, but she's too moderate and if Edwards (who seems just a little bit more left of HRC) is also in favour of health care, I don't see any reason to go with Hillary.

And I have yet to hear who the DSA is in favour of, they are probably as flummoxed as I am.

For what it's worth, SP-USA is putting up Brian Moore for president, like Gravel, I like the policies, but not the babble.

Skeptical Optimism in Wisconsin

According to The Advocate (has the Journal Sentinel dropped the ball on this one?), a straight political science professor is challenging Wisconsin's year-old ban on Same-sex marriage and civil unions.

And for all the right reasons.


Says the aforementioned professor, Bill McConkey: "If you don’t like gay people, who’s next? Short people? As a student of history and an educated person, I know the history and the implications of that mind-set."

All Hail Tim Cuprisin

For those of us who are cynical about the constant hyperbole coming out of television stations whenever there is a snowstorm on the way, take a gander at this video by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Tim Cuprisin, who lightly pokes fun at the phenomenon.

And for a more sharper attack, read his blog posts from yesterday.

I'm Coming Out (Politically) Part 1

So I figure it's time to get off the proverbial pot and fess up which candidate I'm voting for in the primary.

Well, it's now narrowed down to 2 main contenders.

MAJOR faux pas aside, I cannot completely discredit Bill Richardson, because I think he is the kind of statesman that this country would benefit from. I think that his verbal missteps, as Rod McCullom mentions in this article at Rod 2.0 are mere nerves.

Yet is that enough? More to come in Part 2.

Puppies grow into dogs that get old and DIE!

The above is one of my favourite movie quotes, and I find it particularly insightful when applied to this article in The Guardian by my own playwright role model, Mark Ravenhill, whose play Shopping and Fucking convinced me of the power of writing for the stage and how subversive it could be.

Essentially, it's the standard "I'm too old for this shit" treatise that anyone in any profession is apt to echo, but it's interesting to see how Ravenhill claims that he is holding onto his rebel status by choosing to write heterosexual themes at the moment:

Now, I'm surprised to say, I'm happy never to write another gay character
again. It feels as though every aspect of the gay experience has been narrated,
performed and picked over in the past 30 years. It has left us with some
brilliant work. Alongside all the bad generic gay work, artists such as Derek
Jarman, Alan Hollinghurst, Tony Kushner and others have left a body of work that is both gay and great. But that work seems over now.

Right now, I'm eager to explore the strange, twilight world of the
heterosexual - to expose its anguishes and mysteries and unconscious
comedies. Maybe one day there will be something to pull me back to the gay
experience, the sense of something new to be said about the gay world. But, for
the moment at least, my lavender quill is at rest.

Something seem odd there to you? It does to me.

One of the major tenets of performance writing--especially for stage--is that character comes first. Personality, history, all the things about life experience are present whenever a character speaks. Now perhaps my naivete is showing, but one thing I remember very clearly being affected by is in how the playwright creates and reveals these aspects. If these characters were gay, then it was a part that informed them and also my own understanding. If they weren't, I didn't view it as a stumbling block.

I wonder whether Ravenhill--and his success--has lead him to distrust in his own abilities to create characters that are incidentally gay. As a fan, I've always read his characters that way, so I wonder why he feels they were always GAY with capital letters lit up like a rainbow.

Ravenhill's work for the most part has always been intimate in terms of setting--at least in my view. I always had the sense that he was using the insularity and self-obsessiveness of the characters to make a comment about society at large.

So why refocus on heterosexuals?

He claims they offer him more vision of a modern Britain, but do they?

I would say chances are likely not.

What I see hiding underneath the words of the article is well...a Don Quixote...or perhaps Stockholm Syndrome.

While I agree with his themes of the homogenised gay characters, I suspect that his statement is triggered more by fear of unemployment/relevance, rather than fatigue.

Another dead old puppy.

Are The Oughties All About Rolling The Clock Back?

That was my thought when I read this article (admittedly from this past September) in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the rise of resegregation.

Just Because...

...December on here should start with some tattooed pretty boy cavorting around with a bunch of Santa Clauses half in the bag.

Don't you think?




L'Arc~en~Ciel - Hurry Xmas (HD)
Uploaded by aureliendu76

Does Falling Upwards Equal Intelligence?

Others can debate the merits of Judd Apatow--since I find films and television shows geared towards stroking the ego of emotionally arrested critics boring.

Yet this same list puts Tyler Perry at #8.

Tyler "Closet Case" Perry.

Tyler "Lowest Common Denominator" Perry.

Tyler "My name is on every thing I do" Perry.

The Free Dictionary defines smart as so:

1. a. Characterized by sharp quick thought; bright. See Synonyms at intelligent.

(Nope. "Savvy" maybe, but La Perry doesn't fit this definition of smart.)

b. Amusingly clever; witty: a smart quip; a lively, smart conversation.

(Would doing an updated Mammy impression qualify under this? I don't think so.)

c. Impertinent; insolent

(I wouldn't be surprised if he's like that behind closed doors. The closet can give you rage like steroid abuse, but no. Doesn't apply.)

2. Energetic or quick in movement

(He paint himself as whatever Adonis he imagines himself to be, but that man is not fast even if Tiger Tyson was running buck naked slathered in butter in front of him.)

3. Canny and shrewd in dealings with others

(Possible, if you apply that famous quote from The Usual Suspects about "the greatest trick the devil ever played." And even then, there are those way "smarter" than Perry in that department who are below him in the list.)

4. Fashionable; elegant:

(Nope. If that was the case, where's his clothing line?)

5. a. Of, relating to, or being a highly automated device, especially one that imitates human intelligence: smart missiles.

(Well, only something artificial could live all of La Perry's contradictions without having a meltdown, but, no, not applicable.)

b. Manufactured to regulate the amount of light transmitted in response to varying light conditions or to an electronic sensor or control unit: smart windows.

(see above.)

6. New England & Southern U.S. Accomplished; talented: He's a right smart ball player.

(He is accomplished, but then so was Chester Arthur, and is he that accomplished to come ahead in front of Jerry Bruckheimer? George Clooney? Peter Jackson? No. Way. In. Hell.)