Fool's Gold Coast

One Thing after Another 3: In Which Various Changes Take Place

[Tomorrow I leave for Arkansas, where I will spend Thanksgiving with my family. I'll resume posting new entries when I return to Chicago, but before I go, here's another installment of this.]

PREVIOUSLY:
1. "Welcome to our office, where you now work," says Andrew [to Olivia]. "It is beige."
2. "I have had a disappointing life," [says Andrew].

THE HOMECOMING:
"I'm home," says Olive, who was called "Olivia" in the previous installments but will be called "Olive" from now on because it suits her better.
"Hi, Olivi--I mean, Olive," says Scott. "As you know, I am your gay roommate, Scott."
"Hi, Scott," says Olive. "How was your day at the hair salon where you work because you are gay?"
"Traumatizing," says Scott. "My gay lover Pepe asked me to gay-marry him, but then we remembered that you can't get gay-married in this state."
"I'm sorry to hear that," says Olivi--I mean, Olive.
"Plus," continues Scott, "I spilled my container of that blue liquid we hairstylists soak our combs in, and we didn't have any more at the hair salon so I had to use blue Gatorade instead. But enough about me: did you make any friends at your new job?"
"Not really, no," says Olive. "I mean, I share an office with a guy, but he seems . . . troubled."

MEANWHILE, IN ANOTHER PART OF THE CITY:
Dear world, writes Andrew, suicidally, I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to inform you of a major, life-changing decision I have made that will involve my taking drastic action as soon as I finish this letter, which you will want to read in order to divine my motives. I will reveal my intended drastic action in the sentence that follows this one.

NEXT TIME:
Andrew kills himself, duh.

People, Places, and Things I'm Thankful for in 2008

I'm thankful for the BFF and Kito. My favorites.
I'm thankful for my parents and my sisters.
And various other relatives, friends, and hangers-on.
I'm thankful for my pocket calendar.
I'm thankful for the theater.
I'm thankful for the Internet--especially Pandora, XTube, The Comics Curmudgeon, and pictures for sad children.
Also Gmail.
I'm thankful for Chipotle.
I'm thankful for Chicago.
I'm thankful for Stanley Kauffmann's longevity.
I'm thankful for the Oxford English Dictionary.
I'm thankful for Patti LuPone.
I'm thankful for laughter.
And sex.
And sleep.
I'm thankful for almond milk.
I'm thankful for my iPod.
I'm thankful for The New York Review of Books.
And The New Yorker.
I'm thankful for health insurance.
And paychecks.
And my boss at my day job, who ignores me when I quit (about once a month).
I'm thankful for my cleaning lady.
I'm thankful for coffee.
And peanut M&Ms.
And D'Agostino's thin crust pizza.
I'm thankful for the Harold Washington Library.
And the Gene Siskel Film Center.
And musical night at Sidetrack.
And lots more: my yellow hoodie, my Sonicare toothbrush, Tony, Piatt, good poetry, bad TV, the United States Postal Service, and, of course, all of you.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

ELSEWHERE:
My preview of holiday stage shows and my review of Signal Ensemble Theatre's Six Degrees of Separation are in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.

Seek and Ye Shall Find 39

Addressing your recent search engine queries.

"thankful for cheese" thanksgiving
I have definitely been thankful for cheese in the past, but nowadays it's difficult to appreciate something that puts me in pain. Lactose is a younger man's game, my friends.

baby making music playlist
I've never made any babies, but if you think it'll help, I'm happy to supply a link to my entry about making a gettin'-it-on CD for Valentine's Day 2007. Other than that, all I can recommend is lots and lots of Marvin Gaye.

gay friendly bars chicago gold coast
Well, there's always 2nd Story Bar (157 E. Ohio), but beware of Tim. Other options relatively nearby include the Baton Show Lounge (436 N. Clark--hi, Chili!) and Gentry on State (440 N. State), both of which I visited during the sixth night of last summer's Third Biennial Great Gay-Bar Bar-Crawl.

Christmas Poem involving Geese
The only one I know is that song that goes,

Christmas is coming; the goose is getting fat.
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do;
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.

fool's gold sound tract
That's the saddest search term I've seen in a while.

zac thompson chicago
No, wait, I spoke too soon.

cut to the quick side project chicago
I liked it.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Gold Mine 81: November 24, 2003

Stuff I've dug up.

Here's an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote on today's date five years ago. I was 24.

Last weekend I went out with a few people from work--which was fun, I suppose, even if it required me to play my outsider's role in the mating rituals of the breeding homo sapiens. If you stay long enough in the company of any group whose members are drinking, things are bound, sooner or later, to get a bit hornified (the more drinks, the more desperate the hornification), but when you're the only homosexual in the group, your role is reduced to quiet observer or pretend cheerleader. The latter role is thrust upon you when one of the breeders, usually of the female variety, accosts you and screams in your ear how much she likes some boy across the room and should she pursue him even though she has a boyfriend and why not, we only live once, and besides, that girl he's talking to right now isn't even all that cute. And we, the reluctant cheerleaders, have to pretend 1.) that we care, 2.) that we think our screechy friends should throw caution and boyfriend to the wind in pursuit of Mr. X, and 3.) that we believe, with every fiber of our being, that Mr. X is in our friends' league no matter how absurdly attractive he may be.

So, to be brief, the evening was enjoyable until it reached the point when it wasn't.

Afterwards, however, I ran into [redacted], an actor for whom I've always had a thing on account of his hawk-eyed intensity. Anyway, one thing led to another (which doesn't, in this case, leave much out since he turns out to be a bit on the dull side), and we ended up spending the night together. This is the second time this fall I have ended up in bed with someone on whom I've had a long-lasting but slow-burning crush. It occurs to me now that I should perhaps be more ambitious. If, after all, mediocre lightning can strike twice, it doesn't seem too much to ask for a glorious bolt to hit just once.

Print Is Dead, Long Live Print

I know this is going to sound far-fetched, but some magazines still put out print editions. Seriously! On paper and everything! I know this because I myself read some of them. I even have subscriptions (they still do those!). Here, in fact, are the seven periodicals I still read on dead trees:

--Chicago Tribune [although I'm thinking of canceling my subscription because I find the new design unreadable]
--The New York Review of Books [but you know what bugs me about the New York Review? There seem to be times when issues only come out once every two months, followed by periods where you get a new issue every other day. I'm always either starved for Ian Buruma or sick to wretched death of him]
--Chicago Reader [for Hot Type, Savage Love, movie times, theater reviews, and Ben Tausig's crossword]
--Time Out Chicago [for that heard-on-the-street feature, theater reviews, and Novid Parsi's mean interview on the back page]
--The New Yorker
--Oxford American [but I'm pretty much only in it for the free CD that comes along with the annual music issue]
&
--The New Republic [to which I will continue to subscribe as long as Stanley Kauffmann reviews films, which will apparently be forever]

I have subscriptions to all of the above, except for the Reader, which is free. I also occasionally pick up MOJO at the bookstore.

Dark Days

This is Fool's Gold Coast's 666th entry. To mark this satanic milestone, I give you the famous exorcism scene from Days of Our Lives, a clip I stole from a Defamer post commenting on the news that Deidre Hall has been fired from the soap after more than 30 years of playing weepy cocktease Dr. Marlena Evans. The power of Christ compels you to enjoy!

ELSEWHERE:
My Critic's Choice review of The Side Project's Cut to the Quick festival and my short review of 20% Theatre Company's Tester are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

Discuss.

Theater bloggers in this town (an earnest lot) are big on posing Important Questions on their sites that their readers then discuss ad nauseam in the comments section and at other blogs until everyone has concluded that the source of the problem is Broadway in Chicago, at which point everybody moves on to another question destined to come to the same end.

I generally have an allergic reaction to the deadly seriousness of such debates, but since Fool's Gold Coast is sometimes considered a theater blog (no, seriously!), I have decided to make my own contribution to the field of Important Question-Asking. Here's what's currently troubling my humorless mind:

1. Are we producing enough musical theater to appeal to the non-gay, non-elderly, non-Jewish segments of the population? If so, why are we wasting our time?
2. Where do I rate on the scale of Chicago theater critics? Looks-wise, I mean.
3. Enough with the fucking Glass Menagerie revivals, am I right?
4. Do you think the guy who played Dorian Gray in Lifeline's recent adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel would go out with me? If I were single, I mean.
5. How come in real life theater girls always go for the layered look? Like, they'll wear tuxedo pants under a sundress over which they'll wear a turtleneck and a cardigan, the whole ensemble accessorized with legwarmers, opera gloves, and a muffler (worn as a belt, naturally). Why? Does wearing everything in your closet at the same time make it easier to play a wide range of characters or something?
6. What if somebody wrote a play about photosynthesis?
7. Is there such a thing as a comfortable seat at The Viaduct?
8. This one from my mother, in response to every single play she's ever seen: "Do they have to overact so much?"
9. Don't you think plays are a little too long nowadays? It seems to me that anything worth saying can be said in 50 minutes.
And finally:
10. Who do you think will win Rock of Love Charm School? I know it doesn't have anything to do with the theater, but no one I know will admit to watching that show and I need to discuss it with somebody.


ELSEWHERE:
My review of Redtwist Theatre's Shadowlands is in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.

Seek and Ye Shall Find 38

Addressing your recent search engine queries.

hornyoldladies
Yes, I would love to discuss The Golden Girls with you, but I'm trying to cut back.

Dramatis Personae's Monster Mash
I'm glad you brought it up. In a previous entry, when I mentioned my review of this show, I couldn't supply a link because, for whatever reason, I couldn't find one at the Reader's Web site. But look-it, I found it.

flashbacks of a fool masturbation scene
According to its IMDb listing, Flashbacks of a Fool is a film starring current 007 Daniel Craig and "Tambourine"-shaker Eve. Other Internet sources report that it features a mutual masturbation scene involving two teenage boys and at least one naked shot of the broodingly sexy Craig. All of which begs the question, why am I only hearing about this movie now?

Thanks for stopping by!

The Gold Mine 80: November 17, 1994

Stuff I've dug up.

Here's an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote on today's date 14 years ago. I was 15.

In hindsight, I realize that what I wrote about Republicans in the entry before last was wrong. Not all of them are fascists. I was just upset. I hope they do a swell job as leaders. And who knows? Maybe this time they won't screw up.

[And as we all know, the ensuing 14 years--especially the last eight--were a glittering success for the Republicans. Why, if you consider each year a line of poetry, you've got yourself a sonnet--but for all that mushy love stuff, substitute warrantless wiretapping and tax cuts for millionaires. Move over, Petrarch!]

Little Me

Shouted at me yesterday evening as I was crossing an intersection: "Could those biceps be any bigger?! Stop going to the gym! Just stop!"

The speaker was an obviously drunk, red-nosed queen, and I believe he was employing sarcasm. Evidently my scrawniness is visible through my coat.

In completely unrelated news, I think it might be time I returned to the weight room.