What a humongous disappointment! This is like the bad Vegas show you’re afrad you’ll get stuck in because the tickets are cheap. I haven’t watched the whole, excruciating two hours, but what I’ve gleaned thus far (and all I will be gleaning, because life is too short to waste it on this):
The very worst camera work EVER on television.
The very worst host on television (he puts the “flat” in Flatley).
A completely incomprehensible premise (solo competition? group compeitition? indigenous dances? ballroom dances?).
Thoroughly unwatchable.
Sorry, kids…I guess we’ll just have to wait for So You Think You Can Dance.
I had a conversation with my brother today about the 1950s. He had just seen Revolutionary Road, and he thought it was trite, and he’s tired of the ’50s getting a bad rap. I suggested to him that families of the ’50s were comprised of people who hadn’t gotten over the trauma of a World War, and all that impacted trauma colored their children’s lives and the world after that…with significantly fucked-up people who didn’t know where to take it. That’s certainly how I’ve perceived my tail-end of the Baby Boom generation.
I’ve been listening to that song, “What You Earn,” from Rent a lot recently (mostly because I have this vicariously fixated attention on that little Australian singer whose version of it [with his boyfriend] I posted a few days ago). I was never a fan — at all — of Rent. But one particular line from that particular song has really made an impact on me: “We’re dying in America…to come into our own.” And I understand, I think, why this show has been as important to a new generation as Tommy was to mine. My generation came of age as AIDS first hit; this generation has had to grow up with it.
Not just the body-ravaging of the disease; the world-ravaging of the post-Reagan world. I had the stunned paralysis of the Kennedy assassination and the loss of hope that symbolized; these kids had something different…the loss of humanity, as the Reagan world commoditized them. Greed is good. Surrender to the Corporations. AIDS only happens to Them. And I think everyone growing up in that time was terrified they were one of Them. Rent gave Them a voice, gave the marginalized nobility.
I’m still the deaf, dumb, and blind kid from the musical of my puberty (and, in fact, I did play a mean pinball). I made it through that entire last forty years without dying, in America. I don’t have AIDS. But I’ve always been one of Them. And the funny thing is…the thing that gives me true hope for this second act that America might now be entering…is that all of us Thems could be getting our voices back. And it’s just possible that the collective mass of we Thems are will now be…Us.
Conventional Wisdom would dictate that I channel all my witty fabulousness into my own site, but I can’t seem to keep from commenting over at Guanabee.com (under my Latino Commenter Alias, “Escobar”). And, while this past year I received a Writer’s Digest commendation and also the kudos of thousands — well, three to five — Multiple Personality readers, what could be sweeter than an end-of-year shout-out from those wacky broads and occasional dudes over at the ‘Bee? (And please ignore how they wrapped their compliment in a diarrhea metaphor…they like me! They really like me!)
I’m doing a bit of work right now transcribing scientific articles…in French. I sheepishly admit that I had a mini-rant about it yesterday. I’m a Spanish speaker, and Spanish is a very practical language, spelling- and accent-wise. No extra frills, it sounds like it’s spelled, accents are only there when needed.
Now let’s talk about French. Look, I love me my French people, and I think that Freedom Toast foofaraw was our lowest Congressional hour. But what the hell is it with the spelling?! Five different kinds of accents, and most of them utterly unnecessary. What…would they not know how to pronounce “general” if it weren’t “général”? And what about that adding an extra “lle” to the end of words they’re not adding an “res” or a “ques” to end of? Le Sheesh!
But I feel better now. Because I just got my first taste of Flight of the Conchords. I don’t know if I will like their entire oeuvrerere, but this number does it for me. It’s so…European.
I’m bringing into the new year the apparent fixation I have with diminutive Australian Anthony Callea. Here he is singing the only song I like very much from Rent. In a duet with this other Aussie, Tim Campbell. Who happens to be the host of their Wheel of Fortune. And who is Anthony Callea’s luvuh. Yes, luvuh. They were both in Rent together…and then I guess they decided to Own. (ba da bing!)
Why don’t we have a host on Wheel of Fortune who can do interesting things? Like sing. And have an openly acknowledged gay relationship with an adorable Idol runner-up. Not that I’d ever want to see Pat Sajak canoodling with Clay Aiken. Eesh.
I wasn’t going to write about the Performance Art that was Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin cohosting the New Year’s Eve coverage on CNN. But I’ve just discovered that my favorite jaw-dropping ten seconds or live audio are on a YouTube clip, so I have to share the love.
I’m not going to go into speculation about Mr. Cooper’s sexual orientation (other than to say that he’s GAY), but his chemistry with Ms. Griffin is such a riot. He’s trying to be all CNN-anchor-y, but clearly his subtext is he wants to partay with Kathy Griffin, Cheyenne Jackson, and Sushi, the Drag Queen in Key West.
When I first heard this AMAZING line come out of Kathy Griffin’s mouth (at the very end of this clip), I had thought the reference was directed at Mr. Cooper..but then I rewound it and realized it was scandalous, but not THAT scandalous. But still pretty damn scandalous…live TV, y’all!
I know that it’s really just the transition from the 31 of one month to the 1 of another, but we do tend to add an extra somethin’-somethin’ to New Year’s. And so I wish you what I wish myself: More joy. More serenity. More fulfillment. And more mental interventions when we start to take the “stuff” too seriously and forget that the bottom line is the joy, the serenity, and the fulfillment. And I wish you an incessantly spewing gusher of them in the new year.
I was so NOT into this video when I first started watching it…”yeah, yeah…change…heartwarming…blah blah blah.” But I started getting chills by about 90 seconds into it. The idea of everybody around the world playing to the same rhythm tape, and it becoming one giant, sychronous piece. Maybe it’s possible that we could all actually become one band. Yeah, I know…I’m being all blah blah blah. So shoot me.
Most of the posts that I label with the category “The Human Condition” are also cross-categorized elsewhere, like Television or Politics; this entry is definitely the exclusive domain of Human Condition-ness.
I think this article from Sunday’s New York Times really boils down the Obama-Rick Warren issue to its bottom line. I read it and went through getting angry all over again, then remembering perspective all over again. Rich doesn’t minimize the level of diss that the choice makes, but he does also say that it’s “a relatively tiny infraction. . . . But it does add an asterisk to the joyous inaugural of our first black president.” And, “It’s bizarre that Obama, of all people, would allow himself to be on the wrong side of this history.”
And then he quotes a Harvard historian, who suggests that Obama should start acting on the promises he made to the LGBT community during his campaign . . . and also that LGBT folks should “choose their battles wisely, to judge Obama on the content of his policy-making, not on the character of his ministers.”