Fool's Gold Coast

All That Glitters 78

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

Books
READ: Candide, or Optimism by Voltaire, trans. by Theo Cuffe [joins the ranks of the funniest books I've ever read, a group that includes Portnoy's Complaint, Huck Finn, and The Jew of Malta (I do not read many funny books)].

Plays
SAW: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (American Theatre Company) [Hedwig looked for all the world like a young Patti LuPone].

Movies
SAW: Outrage, Two Women.

Music
MOST RECENTLY PLAYED SONGS IN MY iTUNES LIBRARY: "Cry," Liza Minnelli; "I Dreamed a Dream," Patti LuPone; "Body Beautiful Beale," Grey Gardens (original cast album); "The Pussy Cat Song (Nyow! Nyot Nyow!)," Small Fry: Capitol Sings Kids' Songs for Grown-Ups; "Drives Me Crazy," Dolly Parton.

Current Interests
The Bible, conservatives, Lucy Knisley, Chicago, the closet, female vocalists, Sondheim, sex, musicals, marriage equality, Stevie Wonder, Arkansas, Sotomayor, Wilco, storefront theater, the BFF, Patti LuPone, literature, Facebook, Shakespeare, The Onion.

Fool's Four
MY FAVORITE LAW AND ORDER ACTORS:
1. Jerry Orbach.
2. That hot guy who used to be on Oz.
3. S. Epatha Merkerson.
4. BD Wong.

Glitter
Speaking of Hedwigs who resemble other actresses (see above), don't you think John Cameron Mitchell is the spitting image of Rachel Griffiths?

List of Links 28

Found around the Web.

PR PRIMER: Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, is of Puerto Rican heritage. This prompts Slate to put together a brief history of the island's status as a US commonwealth.

SPEAKING OF SOTOMAYOR: Conservatives won't stop calling her a racist, despite the risk they run of alienating Latino and female voters. Jeffrey Wells compares the commentators to Robert Downey, Jr., at his most self-destructive.

SPEAKING OF SELF-DESTRUCTIVE: Drew Peterson calls in to Mancow's show--from prison, no less--to crack some terrible jokes [via Gapers Block].

SPEAKING OF MANCOW: Gawker investigates whether he faked his on-air waterboarding [via the Reader's Twitter page].

SPEAKING OF LIQUIDS: The hilarious Lucy Knisley abstains from solid food for a week, draws a comic about it.

SPEAKING OF HILARIOUS: Two young conservatives aim for funny, but hit excruciating, when they try to rap.

SPEAKING OF GROTESQUERIES: Basil Wolverton's Bible illustrations capture the Old Testament's unsettling weirdness and gore.

SPEAKING OF GORE: Gen. Petraeus talks with FOX News about Gitmo and torture (he's against both).

AND SPEAKING OF TORTURE: In this week's Chicago Reader, I review Curious Theatre Branch's The Caretaker.

Pure Inanity

1.
This morning, my sock drawer was empty, so I thought I'd borrow a pair from Kito. And what did I find upon opening his sock drawer? Many pairs of my socks, you guys. Many pairs.

2.
You know who lacks talent? Whoever writes songs for the Black Eyed Peas. All of their stuff sounds like it was written in three minutes during the cab ride home. Seriously, why are they famous?

3.
In guidebooks to Germany or Italy, there's always a section on Cultural Sensitivity where the authors remind you not to bring up Hitler or Mussolini, which seems crazy to me because I can't imagine anyone being rude enough to do so. "Wow, you guys have really done wonders with the place! I never would have guessed it was a fascist dictatorship as recently as 60 years ago. If I were Jewish, I'd totally be comfortable living here!"

It would be simpler if the books would just say, "Dear tourist asshole: if you're going to be an asshole, why don't you just stay in Texas where you belong? Best regards, World."

4.
Idea for a trend piece: now that Hair has returned to Broadway, isn't it a good time to revisit the issue of manscaping?

5.
Remember when every single trend piece was about manscaping?

6.
That is all. Thank you.


ELSEWHERE:
My review of Shattered Globe Theatre's Buried Child is in this week's Time Out Chicago.

Never Trust Anyone under 30

Lately, whenever I see teenagers or college students, my first thought invariably is, "Good grief, must you dress like hoboes?"

This is how I know my youth is just about spent.

Crime and Punishment

[My boyfriend, Kito, admitted last night that he rarely reads Fool's Gold Coast. Evidently, dick jokes and a Hedy Weiss fixation aren't enough to hold some people's interest. So, in a desperate and rather sad attempt to write something he will find interesting, I here submit my impression of every single episode of his favorite television show, Law and Order: SVU.]

VOICEOVER: Sexually based offenses are the worst, yet most interesting, kind of offenses an offender can offend by. Cops investigate them. These are their stories.

Central Park
Tuesday, May 5
JOGGER: Oh no! There's the body of a naked slain teen!

OPENING CREDITS

Central Park
Tuesday, May 5
Partly cloudy with a chance of rain
HOT GUY WHO USED TO BE ON THAT SHOW OZ: So what do we got?
UNIFORMED COP: White female, approximately 16 years of age. Raped. Killed. Decapitated. Set on fire. Partially eaten. What remains of torso shows signs of a struggle with assailant, who I'm guessing is someone prominent: a politician, televangelist, something of that nature.
LADY DETECTIVE: I am sickened and morally outraged.

Thunk-thunk

Mrs. Del Toro's classroom
PS 169
Between third and fourth periods
LADY DETECTIVE: So, Trevor, tell us about your dead girlfriend, Emmalee. She involved in some kind of trouble?
SUSPICIOUSLY NERVOUS TEEN: Of course not! She got straight As and everybody loved her and she volunteered for the puppies-for-tots program at the orphanage! I'm innocent I tells ya!

Thunk-thunk

Police station where they all work
123 Street Ave.
Duskish
THAT SKINNY GUY WHO MAKES WISECRACKS: Looks like our Headless Hannah ain't so wholesome after all. Her MySpace page reads like the MySpace page of a call girl who has a MySpace page.
BLACK DETECTIVE: Your wisecracks have suffered a significant decline in quality over the last few years.
LADY DETECTIVE: Let me see that.
[Close-up of computer screen showing Emmalee's MySpace page. Above a salacious photo of the dead girl reads the headline, "im a prossy, ya'll."]
LADY: Oh my God. Our victim was a hooker.
OZ GUY: Yeah, and look who her pimp was.
[Close-up of text below headline: "call my boyfriend trevor for a quote"].
LADY: He lied. Once again, I am both sickened and outraged. Let's arrest him.
WISECRACK GUY: Hold on a minute. Are you sure you want to do that? Because this kind of thing happens to us on every single case. Somebody lies to us which makes him look suspicious so we arrest him but then there's some cockamamie twist and we find out that the REAL explanation for the murder is some convoluted nonsense that insults the intelligence and tries the patience of everyone involved. Why don't we just sit this one out?

Thunk-thunk

Private residence
Fancy neighborhood
Wednesday, May 6
[LADY DETECTIVE and OZ GUY burst into living room, where TREVOR is engaged in some spoiled-teen activity. A struggle ensues. OZ GUY wins, forcibly restrains TREVOR.]
OZ GUY: You gonna tell us what really happened with your girlfriend?
TREVOR: I didn't kill her!
LADY: Then why did you lie, Trevor?
OZ GUY: She want out of the game? Is that it? You saw your cash stream drying up so you thought you'd punish her? Huh? Or maybe she wanted to turn you in? Maybe the only way to keep her mouth shut was to shut it permanently by separating it and the rest of her head from her body, then setting the whole thing on fire before finally eating part of it? Huh? Is that it?
TREVOR [hysterically]: I LOVED HER! I never would have hurt her, which is exactly what I told him! He wanted me to hurt her, but I couldn't! And now she's dead! It's all my fault!
[LADY and OZ GUY exchange a look.]
LADY: What are you talking about, Trevor? Who's "him"?
TREVOR [warily]: Emmalee had . . . powerful clients. Y'know: big shots who wanted a piece of underage ass and were willing to pay whatever it took to get it.
OZ GUY: Yeah, well, Emmalee ended up paying with her life.
TREVOR [crying]: It wasn't supposed to be this way! I told her: "Just wait 'til we save enough to fix up my motorcycle and we can get out of here." But she wouldn't listen! She wanted out! Told him she was gonna call the cops if he didn't leave her alone. I told her not to do it! I begged her!!!!
LADY: You also pimped her out, getting her in this mess in the first place, which sickens and morally outrages me.
TREVOR [going for the Emmy]: I LOVED HER, DAMN YOU! I LOVED HER!!!!
OZ GUY: Tell us about these hotshots. Her clients. Who were they?
TREVOR: The one who talked to me was some balding guy. Something Spelunker.
LADY: Governor Spelunker?
TREVOR: Yeah, that's the guy. The prick.
[OZ and LADY exchange a look.]

Thunk-thunk

Police station or courthouse or something
You know the drill
[Everyone is walking briskly but their destination is unclear.]
LAWYER: You want me to haul in the governor of New York on charges of underage prostitution, rape, murder, and cannibalism, just because some punk kid--who was the girl's pimp, by the way--told you that's what the governor did?
OZ GUY: I would also like for you to get me out of a parking ticket.
LAWYER: I need more evidence. Something more reliable than the testimony of an aggrieved and possibly guilty witness.
[LAWYER walks briskly away.]
LADY DETECTIVE: Looks like we're paying a visit to the governor's mansion.

Thunk-thunk

Governor's Mansion
Albany, New York
Visibility: good. Mood: peckish.
[OZ and LADY are barging in.]
MRS. SPELUNKER: This is an outrage!
LADY: We're here to talk to your husband, Mrs. Spelunker.
SPECIAL GUEST STAR BILLY ZANE AS THE GOVERNOR: What is this all about?
OZ: It's about your semen, Governor. Which we found in the decapitated, burned, and partially eaten corpse of an underage hooker.
MRS. SPELUNKER: Shouldn't our children leave the room?
GOVERNOR: What are you talking about?
LADY: We already ran the DNA test, Governor. We probably should have run it before we started to arrest that kid, but the point is, you're a match. We also know you had a sexual relationship with Emmalee, that she wanted out, and that you threatened her boyfriend/pimp.
MRS. SPELUNKER: Allen . . .?
GOVERNOR: All right. I DID have a sexual relationship with her, I DID threaten her boyfriend, and that WAS my semen. But only because I wanted to have sex with her one last time before I ended it forever. I think that should clear everything up. Now if you'll excuse me--
OZ: I don't think so, tough guy. You're under arrest.
GOVERNOR: But she was alive when I left her, I swear!
OZ: You have the right to remain silent.
GOVERNOR: But, no! I didn't do it! Well, not the really bad part, anyway!
[Cops start putting handcuffs on the GOVERNOR.]
MRS. SPELUNKER: Wait! Allen couldn't have done this!
LADY: Stay out of this, Mrs. Spelunker.
MRS. SPELUNKER: No, I mean, he couldn't have done it because . . . I did.
GOVERNOR: Anne Marie!
MRS. SPELUNKER: We worked too long and too hard to have everything destroyed by some filthy little whore, Allen. I put my own dreams on hold. You were going to be president some day.
GOVERNOR: Well, not NOW.
MRS. SPELUNKER: When I found out about your little . . . side project, I knew there was only one thing to do: kill the trollop and make it look like the work of Satan worshippers. We came so close to having it all, Allen.
LADY: But you threw it away, Mrs. Spelunker. You threw it all away.

END CREDITS


ELSEWHERE:
My review of Court Theatre's The Piano Lesson is in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

All That Glitters 77

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

Books
READ: Personal Memoirs of US Grant [SPOILER ALERT: the North wins].

Movies
SAW: Tokyo!, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Hunger, Rudo y Cursi, Every Little Step.

Music
PURCHASED: La Cage aux Folles (original cast recording); Liza Minnelli, Liza's at the Palace . . .
MOST RECENTLY PLAYED SONGS IN MY iTUNES LIBRARY: "Gentle Shifts South," Jason Moran; "Let's Get Away from It All," Frank Sinatra; "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," Jennifer Hudson; "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)," Loretta Lynn; "You Don't Know This Man," Parade (original Broadway cast recording).

Current Interests
Tracy Letts, Barbra Streisand, the Bush/Cheney torture program, musicals, the English language, Obama, movies, American Idol, sex, pop music, the Muppets, Bravo's Real Housewives franchise, kitsch, black people, theater criticism, Kito, Web comics, alt-country, Sinatra, Sarah Palin, Dan Savage, the BFF, marriage equality, US history.

Fool's Four
THE FIRST PEOPLE I CAME OUT TO:
1. The BFF.
2. My college roommate.
3. My high school girlfriend.
4. A series of male sexual partners (who figured it out anyway).

A Foolish Flashback
ONE YEAR AGO: "I'm sure that when someone is praising you on stage as a paragon of beauty, you know full well that the rest of us are thinking, 'Really? Beautiful? With those ears?'" "Playing against Type." 5.19.2008.

Glitter
The musical adaptation of Mel Brooks's film The Producers opened in Berlin this week to mostly favorable reviews despite the way the show uses Hitler for laughs. Positive response notwithstanding, I imagine there were some uncomfortable moments for the German audience, none more so than the deliriously tasteless "Springtime for Hitler" number. Here's the original version from the 1968 film.

List of Links 27

Found around the Web.

TRAILER HOLMES: The preview for Guy Ritchie's new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law hits the Internet.

THEY'RE JUST SAYIN': Gawker advocates banning a terrible phrase.

YES WE CANNES: Roger Ebert plays devil's advocate for Lars von Trier's Antichrist, the film that has the Cannes festival in a tizz.

SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER: The Producers opens in Berlin.

JUST BLANCHE: Rue McClanahan wants to premiere her new one-woman show in Chicago.

THE BODY VS. THE HASSELBECK: In an appearance on The View, Jesse Ventura mops the floor with Elisabeth Hasselbeck when the conversation turns to the subject of waterboarding [via The Daily Dish].

AND FINALLY: In this week's Time Out Chicago, I review Porchlight Music Theatre's Once on This Island.

The Most Important Theatrical Event of Our Time

From Chris Jones's review of Legally Blonde The Musical:

And no, it does not contain the artistry, seriousness of purpose or attention to detail you can see at, say, "Mary Poppins" down the street.

Mary Poppins is still the one with the flying nanny, right? 'Cause he just made it sound like the freakin' Oresteia.


ELSEWHERE:
My short reviews of Will Act for Food's American Notes and Pub Theater's Party Lobster are in this week's issue of the Chicago Reader.

Gay Day 2009: I Got Nothin'

Last Saturday, May 9, marked the 10th anniversary of when I started coming out of the closet. The BFF (who was the first person I told, by the way) tells me that a decade of out-loud-and-proud-ism calls for a little retrospection and taking stock, but to tell you the truth, I haven't a thing to say. I mean, I'm a little grossed out to realize that it's been ten years since I was 19, but other than that, nada.

If you feel slighted by this, please accept this clip of Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand--quite possibly the gayest thing ever broadcast on television--with my apologies.

Impropoetry

I was going to write a poem to recite at Kito's birthday party Saturday night, but I stopped after the first two lines, which went:

Born of Gladys, Puerto Rican,
Little man I put my dick in . . .

His mom's name is Gladys, you see. Also, you have to pronounce "Rican" so that it rhymes with "chicken"--and, you know, "dick in." Anyway, I think it's fairly obvious why I stopped there.

This is the last time I'll mention Kito's birthday until next year. I promise.

ELSEWHERE:
My review of Red Tape Theatre's Enemy of the People is in this week's issue of Time Out Chicago.