Fool's Gold Coast

List of Links 24

Tomorrow I leave for an extended weekend in Puerto Rico. I'll resume posting new entries when I return to Chicago. Here's some stuff to keep you occupied in the meantime.

BUNDLE OF OY: An ugly baby breaks the Internet.

CRAZY TALK: Barack Obama: Antichrist or Hitler? The debate rages on.

COLA WAR: The American Family Association boycotts Pepsi on account of the company's "support for the homosexual agenda."

GUYS NAMED ADAM WRITING ABOUT WRITERS: Adam Kirsch reviews a book of interviews with Seamus Heaney.
Adam Gopnik delights in Damon Runyon's language.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?: The Daily Beast lists the 10 most horrendous Oscar gowns ever.

FOOLISH FLASHBACKS: One year ago today at Fool's Gold Coast: "So from now on, whenever I find myself in heavily Asian environments--dry-cleaning places, string sections of orchestras, Korea--I'm just going to say my name is Zazz and be done with it."
Two years ago: "I mean, have you READ Brat Boy?"
Three years ago: "Honestly, it's as though I somehow came into possession of a pair of pants sewn from distressed, boot cut, relaxed fit scrotum."

FRIEND ME: Slate's incredibly depressing Happiness Project blog recommends seven ways--each one sadder and more pathetic than the last--to make new friends.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES: The Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind gang learn that when you utter the title of the Scottish play in a theater, not even cupcakes are safe.

GAG REFLUX: A snake vomits a hippo.

GAG: Northwestern (my alma mater) raises tuition 3.6% to $49,791 [via Gapers Block].

AND FINALLY: Hilton Als offers his take on Milk.

Have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you next week.

Peregrinations

Two pieces of news, folks:

1.
It looks like Kito and I are moving to Uptown. We decided not to renew the lease on our current apartment in Lakeview because I have come to find high-rise living cheesy (honestly, there's just something a little too Larry-from-Three's-Company about the whole thing, don't you think?). We found a lovely place up on Kenmore that we have been deemed credit-worthy enough to inhabit, but our tenancy won't be finalized until we sign the lease, which we won't be able to do until next Tuesday because . . .

2.
. . . tomorrow morning we leave for a long weekend in Puerto Rico hurray! Kito has been to the island several times, especially during childhood, on account of his being Boricua and all, but this will be my first trip there. I'm hoping there's lots of rooftop dancing, miscegenation, and Chita Rivera, à la West Side Story.

Automatic Writing

I haven't posted an entry in a while but I can't think of anything to write about so I'm just going to keep typing no matter what. I am a very fast typist. I won the typing award in high school. My teacher was Ms. C. Stacy C. (no relation) sat next to me in class. She used those weird chicken cutlet-like things to stuff her bra. I wonder why I know that. I think she showed them to me in calculus senior year. The cutlets, not her boobs. I was not interested in seeing her boobs. I wonder why we weren't doing calculus. My teacher was Mr. B. He had a very full beard. Later I heard that he tried to get a job somewhere, but they wanted him to shave off his beard and he was like, "Forget it." Which leads me to believe that his beard was the key to his strength. Like Samson. Sampson? Are both spellings acceptable? For some reason I found the story of Sampson/Samson hot when I was in junior high. I guess because the protagonist is muscular and dumb and gives into temptation because he is horny. I also thought the Song of Solomon was hot, even though he tells the beloved at one point something like, "Your breasts are like gazelles." I'm hoping that's a translation error because, when you think about it, breasts and gazelles share very little in common. I wonder why I keep writing about breasts. When I was a little boy, I once said, very loudly, in a restaurant, "WE DON'T SAY 'TITTIES', WE SAY 'BREASTS'"--except I couldn't pronounce the letter "R" so I guess I said "BWESTS." My mom still tells that story because she finds it funny. I would like to know the back-story. Like, was my four-year-old self going around saying "titties" and somebody had to tell me to knock it off, and then I went around telling everybody what I had been told? I do not know. The past is a foreign country. I once thought I invented that phrase, by the way. I wrote it in a diary entry or something, and thought, "Holy shit, I'm brilliant!" but then I started thinking it sounded like a quote, so I looked it up on the Internet, and it turns out I am not brilliant. I also once saw myself in a full-length mirror on a dance floor somewhere and thought it was somebody checking me out. "Why does that skinny guy keep looking at me?" were my exact thoughts. I was drunk and probably not wearing my glasses. I am glad that I did not dance up on my reflection. That would have been embarrassing. I wonder why I never go dancing anymore. Maybe because I hate it. I never know what to do with my hands. I am uncomfortable throwing them in the air and subsequently waving them as though I just don't care. The truth is that I care a great deal.

ELSEWHERE:
My review of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's Art is in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.

One Thing after Another 6: Dead Letters

PREVIOUSLY:
1. 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.
2. "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.

A SAMPLING OF LETTERS OLIVE HAS RECEIVED IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS:
1.
To whom it may concern:
I am sad on account of some setback or other and have therefore decided to end my life. The method I have chosen is auto-erotic asphyxiation because I figure why not go out as I lived--masturbating and struggling to breathe (I am an asthmatic who masturbates a lot). Despite what my driver's license says, I do not want to donate any of my organs; I only checked that box because I didn't want people to think I was a jerk. (Also, please do not think I am a jerk.)

Suicidally yours,
Brian Braithwaite

2.
Uppers are purple, downers are red;
After I take them, I will be dead.

3.
'Sup. I am an impressionable teen. If you do not believe me, I will prove it by saying something teenish: Jonas Brothers. Anyway, after having seen suicide glamorized by liberal Hollywood's culture of death in such films as The Virgin Suicides, Romeo and Juliet, and High School Musical 4: Teen Suicide Pact, I have decided to try it for myself. ttyl, lol.

THE LATEST:
Dear world,
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.

The Gold Mine 85: February 19, 2002

Stuff I've dug up.

Here's an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote on today's date seven years ago. I was 22.

2-19-02. My room. 12:50 AM.
Advice: "Stiff upper lip, kid--and do something about your hair."
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He left one week ago today. "Just in time for Valentine's Day," I wrote--hearing irony where there wasn't any. I have imperfect pitch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do I miss him? I don't feel like answering. Make him answer first. Does he miss me? That's the question.

And the answer is--"not the way you do, kid--and speaking of 'dos, you should do something about yours."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did he love me? What about that question?

The answer's the same. The answer to all the questions is the same: we had different loves--separate and unequal. Just in time for Presidents Day.

The truth is--I loved him more. He was more effusive, but I was the one having the tender emotions; I was the one with the heart expanding to fill the universe and all that.

All he felt was entitlement--the right to behave like a snot-rocket and have someone obliged to abide it.
Love is selfish selflessness. His was just selfish selfishness.

And I don't care if that's redundant and poorly put--it's late and I'm ill and heartsore and not a bloody epigram factory. Just a waifish, naifish, solitary fellow with bad hair and unfortunate taste in men. Nothing sad-but-humorous about it this time. This time it's just sad.

Dreamgirl

While we're on the subject, here's another remark recently made by Kito that threw my conception of myself into turmoil:

On Sunday, I was listening to the original Broadway cast recording of Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When "Muddy Water" came on, I proceeded to break it down, as is my wont. In the midst of my Mahalia Jackson-like interpretation of Jim's freedom anthem, Kito, who had entered the room without my noticing, said, "Okay, calm down. You're not a big black woman."

I think it might be the most hurtful thing he's ever said to me.


ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of RhinoFest's Verbatim Verboten and Co-Governors of Space's The Last Annual Satanic Achievement Awards (Satan Thanks You So Very Much) are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

My One-Track Mind

A conversation Kito and I had the other day:

Z: Ya got any material for a blog post?
KITO: Why don't you write about our [upcoming] trip to Puerto Rico?
Z: Eh . . .
KITO: And how you can't wait to look at all the Latino guys. Since you write about sex all the time.
Z: Wait, you think I write about sex all the time?
Pause.
KITO: There's usually a sexual undertone.

Appalled by this suggestion and determined to disprove it, I looked back through the 27 entries (not counting this one) I've posted so far this year. Keeping an eye out for a sexual undertone, I found:

references to masturbation, my balls, nun-fucking, strippers, dick size, dick jokes, jockstraps, full-frontal nudity on stage, full-dorsal nudity on stage, anal sex, adultery, rape, sexual arousal as a result of committing murder, porn, and the sexual deficiencies of Danes.

You guys! I think I might be a perv!

Medicine Balls

Yesterday a co-worker introduced me to a friend of hers who was visiting the office. "And he's a doctor," she said, "so if you need to go to the doctor, come to him."

And that's so the wrong thing to say to a worrywart like me. Rarely does a day go by when I'm not obsessing over some medical issue or other. I had to summon every ounce of restraint within me to keep from saying, "Actually, doctor, I do have a question about prostate health. Do you recommend masturbating a lot, a moderate amount, or very little? Because recent studies conflict and I want to make sure I'm not jacking off too frequently or too seldom--although, to be frank, I very much doubt it could be the latter. Also: would you mind giving me a quick testicular exam? I worry that my self-exams are insufficient."

So if there are any doctors reading this, now you know the wages of my friendship: uncomfortable familiarity with my balls.

Seek and Ye Shall Find 41

Addressing your recent search engine queries.

punchline "how do you get a nun pregnant"
YOU FUCK HER! (I love that joke.)

lucky horseshoe chicago dancers
During the 2006 Great Gay-Bar Bar-Crawl, I wrote:

The dancers I saw were rather on the skinny side and didn't seem terribly interested in their dancing--a quality they shared with their audience. Now and then an older man would approach the stage with a wad of bills, but for the most part the dancing took its course unheeded. The crowd, composed predominantly of what I will politely call "mature" men (a fellow sitting near me looked for all the world like Al Hirschfeld), seemed much more interested in the few twentysomethings milling [around the bar than in anything happening onstage].

And after revisiting the place two years later:

Scrawny dancers stripped to their skivvies perform. I moved to an inner room after a short stop in the front bar, where a shaggy-haired youth with an enormous package danced rather convulsively in a jockstrap and wingtips.

After a while an off-duty dancer in red boxer briefs struck up a conversation. He perched atop a barstool on his knees, his elbows on the bar, his ass in the air. He was half-black or Latino and said his name was Jeff. When he asked me my name, I decided to be someone else for once and replied, "Adam." He asked if I live in Chicago; I said no. I worried that he would be familiar with whichever city I decided to be from ("Oh my God, I'm from Cincinnati, too! Where did you go to high school?"), so I said I was from Arkansas because, well, I am.

"Where in Arkansas?" he asked.

I toyed with saying "Fayetteville," but, let's face it, I'm not cool enough to have come from Fayetteville. "Springdale," I replied.

Then he asked if I had ever been to "the big city" before, which struck me as patronizing, and I wanted to say, "No I haven't--have YOU ever had a job where you get to wear pants?" But I didn't want to sound like I had a chip on my shoulder.

We talked a bit longer: he recommended visiting Navy Pier and Millennium Park; I asked questions about dancing (apparently he has to stay up on that stage for 20 minutes at a stretch). He was actually quite nice and pretty cute, but I was relieved when his break ended and he had to take to the stage because the strain of my double life was killing me.

"true west" american theater company review
Mine was rather negative--but if it's any consolation to anyone involved with the show, I did think the guy playing Lee was adorable.

in the name of boys butts
Ha. I'm totally using that from now on: "What in the name of boys' butts is going on here?!"

"addressed his way, not with indented wave"
That's line 496 from the ninth part of Paradise Lost; it appears in a passage describing the way the serpent approaches Eve in the garden. A Fool's Gold Coast entry from October 2007 has more.

And speaking of Milton, Frank Kermode marks the 400th anniversary of the poet's birth in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books.

"oh my" michael miner
I'm totally using that one from now on, too. "Oh my Michael Miner, what is going on here?!"

Thanks for stopping by!


ELSEWHERE:
My reviews of The Shadowmen's An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein and Guy Roberts's one-man Hamlet are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

The Gold Mine 84: February 10, 2001

Stuff I've dug up.

Here's an excerpt from a diary entry I wrote on today's date eight years ago. I was 21.

2-10-01
I'm at DanceWorks rehearsal right now, but there's nothing remarkable about that since I'm at DanceWorks rehearsal most of the time. This, despite the dearth of duties for me to perform. My daily presence is entirely superfluous but absolutely demanded by my stage management teacher, so here I sit.

The other thing taking up a lot of space in my life is the writing of my play. Honestly, this playwriting class is killing me--it's killing my confidence, my determination, the creative process. Let's face it: constant criticism cripples creativity. It's good to let people read your work and offer suggestions, of course, for it lets you know what's working and what isn't and challenges you to make your work better. But, when I receive criticism for my first ten pages, I feel obliged to fix them. So I work on them some more and bring them in again. But there are still problems, naturally, so I work on them some more. And some more. And some more. I'm hopelessly stalled, frustrated, annoyed. It would be better if my instructor would just let me throw up on the page--get all the way through a rough draft and then subject it to her critique and my classmates' opinions and then let me begin revising. As it stands, it seems we're revising as we're writing, and I can't work that way and keep my (admittedly weak) grasp on sanity. More than a little piece of me wants to scream, "I don't really care what you think! Art is personal! And I don't like presenting it prematurely for your narrow little brains and their narrow little ideas of what theater has to be. Leave me alone! Let me finish this stupid play in peace, and then you can offer your opinions and make your suggestions and break my heart. Until then, leave me the hell alone!"

This was written during my senior year at Northwestern, a little more than midway through my year-long playwriting course. Maybe some day I'll share with you a passage from the play that provoked this somewhat Treplevian outburst, but it'll have to wait until I can read the thing without blushing to the roots of my hair.

As alluded to in the first part of the entry, I was also assistant stage managing NU's annual dance showcase to fulfill a tech requirement for theater majors. As I recall, the head stage manager hated my guts, but you know how stage managers are. If you're not deadly serious about, like, doing stuff because you're too busy chattering over the headset or mooning over the boy dancers, they just lose all patience.

ELSEWHERE:
My review of Beat the Jester Productions' Slaphappy is in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.