Fool's Gold Coast

Exciting Career Opportunities

Trib theater critic Chris Jones should thank his lucky stars he ended up with the gig he ended up with, because all his other ideas for bringing home the bacon are insane. Last month he considered becoming a stripper "if only somebody was interested," and then today in his vital, no doubt Pulitzer-bound review of Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy, a Cars-related skating sequence prompts Jones to imagine the life he might have led as a computer-animated anthropomorphic racecar: "Their exciting antics and slip-sliding personalities," he writes, "were enough to spark one audience member, who is well into his 40s, into dreaming of a life that might have included a stint behind such tantalizing wheels. Ah well, that one's on ice."

As the cars in Cars are independent, sentient beings and therefore have no human drivers, the only way Jones could bring about his little "stint behind such tantalizing wheels" would have to involve savagely ripping off the heads of the poor creatures and tooling around in their decapitated corpses like some sort of monstrous hell-fiend intent on mocking the dead. This seems to me a dream best kept on ice. Unless, of course, he means he actually wants to be one of the cars--which is a novel twist on the old mid-life crisis; you'd think he'd be content merely to buy a sports car.

It's a peculiar dream in either case.

[By the way, the print version of this review--online it's slightly different--appears under the hilarious headline "Pushy fairy aside, 'Disney on Ice' is a family good time"--which sounds like the way my mother would describe the last family vacation I went on. "Well, pushy fairy aside, it was a family good time . . ."]

Form vs. Content

Overheard yesterday at work:

SECRETARY 1: Wait, so the Tribune is small like the Sun-Times now?
SECRETARY 2: Just the commuter edition. The subscriber edition is the same.
SECRETARY 1: Well, I just might read the Trib now. The only reason I didn't was because it's so big.
SECRETARY 2: And the Sun-Times is all puff! [I think she meant "fluff".]

I assume conversations of this type were just what the makers of the Sun-Times feared when the Trib rolled out its new tabloid size this week, but what can I say? The ladies want less puff.

Personally, I think it's strange that someone would read a paper she doesn't even like just because it's easy to hold. I mean, I can't stand the design of the New York Review of Books, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start reading Rolling Stone instead just because the latter is less eye-assaultingly hideous. The Huffington Post is the clunkiest, ugliest, most difficult thing to read on the Internet, but I still dutifully check in every day like the good little liberal I am. Why, even Fool's Gold Coast is, let's face it, a plain Jane of a blog with all the visual charm of a work-related document from some soul-deadening job in corporate hell. But if this blog were easier to read, would people actually do so? As my great-grandpappy used to say, no matter how pretty you make 'em look, inanities and dick jokes are still inanities and dick jokes.

ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of Chicago Dramatists' How I Became an Interesting Person and MPAACT's Stage Black are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

All That Glitters 74

A look at how I've been diverting myself lately.

Books
READ: History of the United States of America during the Administrations of James Madison by Henry Adams [I know it sounds boring, but Adams is friggin' hilarious, ya'll].

Plays
SAW: Desire under the Elms (Goodman).

Movies
SAW: Defiance [what with seeing this film, which stars Liev Schreiber, and seeing the Goodman's Desire under the Elms, which stars his brother Pablo, I had a week full of Schreibers (but not, unfortunately, a week full of the full Schreiber)], The Hustler.

Music
LISTENING TO: Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris: Trio, Trio II; Dolly Parton: The Grass Is Blue, Little Sparrow; Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville.
MOST RECENTLY PLAYED SONGS IN MY iTUNES LIBRARY: "Boogie Chillen," "The Back Side of Dallas," "Going Away," "Can't You See," and "Righteously"--all from the second of the Oxford American's two 10th anniversary Southern music CDs from the magazine's annual music issue.

Fool's Four
FOUR THEATRICAL EVENTS THAT WOULD BE BETTER WITH NUDITY:
1. The Sunshine Boys.
2. Any stuffy drawing room comedy.
3. Frost/Nixon.
4. Liza's at the Palace . . .!

Foolish Flashbacks
ONE YEAR AGO: "In this film, Kevin Costner is a successful box factory owner with a secret life as a serial killer who gets off on the murders he is goaded to commit by William Hurt, who is, I believe, a personification of Kevin Costner's id, maybe?" "Scary Movie." 1.27.2008.
THREE YEARS AGO: "When your raw material is a daily existence as devoid of dramatic incident as mine is, you haven't much to work with." "A Cheat." 1.27.2006.

Glitter
The highly lucrative Chicago production of Wicked closed on Sunday after running more than three shrill, shrieky years. I ask you: what are the Midwest's 13-year-old girls--to say nothing of Trib theater critic Chris Jones, the voice of their generation--supposed to do now?

The Gold Mine 83: At Rest

Stuff I've dug up.

I, who seemed to myself full of things to say, who had all of Shillington to say, Shillington and Pennsylvania and the whole immense mass of middling, hidden, troubled America to say. --John Updike, Self-Consciousness

The Anguish Language

Why is it that some misuses of the English language make me mad, while others make me sad and still others make me glad? For example, I can appreciate the charming idiosyncrasies of Southern dialect and Ebonics (is it still okay to use the word "Ebonics"? was it ever?), whereas I have a high school English teacher's disdain for the hideous shorthand teenagers use in text messages. I find my boyfriend's Ricky Ricardo-esque mangling of English, meanwhile, alternately endearing and enraging (his completely arbitrary system of pluralizing words drives me to distraction). But when this one lady at work fails to conjugate the verb "to see" properly, it breaks my heart every single time.

Unfortunately, this happens on a more or less daily basis since the woman's one and only topic of conversation is what she watched on television the night before (I don't know how it's possible, but she somehow watches every show on every channel). So I'll be in the break room--sweetening my coffee, say--and she'll walk in and say something like, "I seen a documentary on the Discovery Health last night about how aspartame gives you cancer"--and, I don't know, I just want to die.

The pathos of it all, you know?

Butt Boys

Last night, Kito and I saw Robert Falls's production of Desire under the Elms at the Goodman. It's still in previews so I'll keep my opinions to myself lest I incur the wrath of the Dramatists Guild. As Hedy Weiss of the Sun-Times learned in 2006, hell hath no fury like a drama queen prematurely reviewed.

So stringent are my journalistic ethics that I won't even share my thoughts on the part of the play where you get to see the naked behind of star Pablo Schreiber (lanky brother of Liev), who manages to keep his ding-dong shielded from view throughout the scene which is an outrage--and that's not an opinion but a statement of fact. Either go the full Schreiber or don't waste my time (credit where it's due: the phrase "the full Schreiber" belongs to Reader/Trib critic Kerry Reid).

So instead of talking about that let's talk about other memorable butts bared on Chicago stages in recent years:

--A Red Orchid Theatre's production of Bug (2001) revealed the pleasantly pert buttocks of Michael Shannon, to whom I am attracted in spite of his air of menacing skeeziness (and who received an Oscar nomination this morning for his, like, 10 minutes of screen time in Revolutionary Road)

--smoldering, broody Peter Oyloe took it all off in Equus at Actor's Theatre Workshop (2007; the theater is now called Redtwist), and though I don't quite remember his bum, I'm just going to go ahead and assume it's as hot as he is

--and then, of course, there was the geriatric ass of Stacy Keach, released from its lendings in Falls's King Lear (2006)--and let me tell you, it brought the tragedy in a way Shakespeare never could (with flab).

I suppose that's enough for now. I could go into all the rear ends (heh) I've seen at Bailiwick over the years, but I don't have all day.

ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of Pegasus Players' Young Playwrights Festival and A Red Orchid Theatre's The Unseen are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

Topic of My Choice

One of my English teachers in high school regularly had us write in-class essays on a topic of our choice (it certainly beats teaching something), and I always had to rack my poor, puny little brain for material. One time I was so desperate I composed a piece comparing and contrasting the two actresses who played Becky on Roseanne. I preferred Becky I on the grounds that Becky II was too pretty to be a Conner.

I offer this anecdote for those of you who fear that I have recently run out of things to write about. In fact, I have never had anything to write about.

ELSEWHERE:
My reviews of The Mill's The Private Lives of Eskimos and Profiles Theatre's Great Falls are in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.

All That Glitters 73

A look at how I've been diverting myself lately.

Books
READ: Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill.

Music
LISTENING TO: Frank Sinatra: Duets, Duets II; Emily Skinner, Emily Skinner; Small Fry: Capitol Sings Kids' Songs for Grown-ups.
MOST RECENTLY PLAYED SONGS IN MY iTUNES LIBRARY: "Sutukun," Orchestra Baobab; "Let's Get Away from It All," Frank Sinatra; "Mandaddy," Trout Fishing in America; "The Money Tree," Emily Skinner; "Copacabana (At the Copa)," Barry Manilow.

Fool's Four
MY FAVORITE SODAS:
1. Diet Coke.
2. Dr. Pepper.
3. Diet Dr. Pepper.
4. RC Cola.

Foolish Flashbacks
ONE YEAR AGO: "Did you just smell your fingers after popping that zit?" "Romance: A Play." 1.17.2008.
TWO YEARS AGO: "Last night I went to the University of Chicago to watch sex--which, let's face it, is a bit like going to the Sahara to watch snow accumulate." "Gay L.A." 1.17.2007.

Glitter
And finally, I'd like to mark next Tuesday's presidential inauguration the only way I know how: with a video of Judy Garland singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" [via La Daily Musto].

One Thing after Another 5: In Which Olive Receives Correspondence

PREVIOUSLY:
1. I have a terrible secret, thinks Olivia.
2. Olive . . . was called "Olivia" in the previous installments but will be called "Olive" from now on because it suits her better.

"Welcome home from the second day of your new job," says Olive's gay roommate Scott. "I am cooking an elaborate dinner because I am gay."
"That's nice," says Olive. "I guess."
"The mail is on the table," says Scott. "Looks like you got a letter."
Olive swallows a lump of dread (metaphorically; dread does not actually come in lump form).
"Another one?" she says.
"Dammit," says Scott. "We're out of coriander."

NEXT TIME:
"Oh, wait," says Scott. "Here is the coriander, right behind the paprika."

Let Us Prey

I never know what to say when someone tells me he's been praying for me. Maybe this has never happened to you because your past doesn't teem with evangelicals, but mine does, and periodically I'll hear from one who wants me to know that I have been in his or her prayers despite my relative good health and manageable level of sinfulness. They seem to intend it as a compliment, but, frankly, I don't particularly like finding out that someone has been talking about me behind my back--and to an authority figure no less (a Higher Authority figure, if you like)--and so when I am told of these uninvited intercessions on my behalf, I want to say, "Don't you think that's kind of presumptuous? And, anyway, what exactly did you say? Do I need to counter-pray now to offset whatever you asked God to do to me?"

Just to be on the safe side, this is what I'm praying every night from now on before I lay me down to sleep:

Dear God, please disregard any requests you might have received in the last couple of days from any eighth-grade classmates of mine hoping You might enlighten me on the evils of the homosexual lifestyle. Erase, erase, erase! Amen.
P.S. Tell Jesus I said hi.