My first steps toward becoming a crazy cat lady.

My roommate was gone for two weeks, and she took her cat with her. Everyone in the house has a significant other, so not having people around at night is fairly normal here. But when Audrey took Batshit Catshit with her on vacation, I was all alone in this house.

And houses, no matter how new and how nice, are fucking creepy without signs of life in them. I realized during these few nights I spent alone that I really need living things around me. As fucking weird as Zoey is, I need her in the house. Even when I was younger and my parents weren't home, I always had my dog.

So I got another cat.

That's putting it dramatically. We'd talked about getting another cat, hoping that a second cat would give Zoey some kind of stability. I wanted an older cat, one that would like to cuddle and be held. Basically, a cat that wasn't as wacky and unsociable as the creature I so lovingly call Batshit Catshit.

As fate had it, I did not fall in love with the big fat orange cat I had been eyeing at the Ojai shelter. And I drove to ASAP on Labor Day, knowing full well they would be closed, but secretly hoping that the county would be smart enough to know that when people who can afford pets don't have to work, being open would be a good idea. Later that afternoon my co-worker calls me and offers me a kitten that she and her husband had brought home. This little girl was 5 weeks old, and very small. But so adorable. So I brought her home.

Calliope's arrival in my home.

She is the sweetest cat in the world. She likes to spend hours snuggled against my chest.

Who doesn't want to snuggle on my chest?

Every morning before I go to work, we watch the news and she snuggles on my chest. When I get home from work, I watch Jeopardy and she snuggles on my chest. In between all her comfy snuggling, she can voraciously attack feather toys for hours at a time.

The face of pure evil.

Her sweetness and whimsy have given her the name Calliope, and I love her so much.
I always dreamed of a big orange cat named Geoffrey Chaucer, but I think that the Fates had Calliope in store for me. As my mom says, we were meant to be together.

Calliope checks produce for ripeness by batting at it.


We knew that introducing her to our Ninja Cat would be a challenge, as Zoey didn't really seem to enjoy many things in this world. But Zoey came back from her vacation a changed cat. She suddenly purrs. She meows. She actually lets people hold her and wants to be touched. She curls up by feet.

She and Calliope spent their first couple of days growling at each other. Calliope took to Zoey instantly. Zoey was really not having that at all. They hissed. They fought. But now, at the end of a week together, they love each other so much. They still play fight, and sometimes Zoey forgets that Calliope is very small, but they are the best of friends. I left them sleeping together on the couch this morning, and when I returned at 5, they were in the exact same place. Later, Calliope was biting Zoey's ear and scruffing her neck to get her big sister to wake up and play.

The babies: derranged but so, so playful.


So that is the story of our cats. They're both really wonderful creatures, even if I know they spend their days secretly plotting to kill us.

Maxim's makeover.

The white cover of the October 2006 issue of Maxim didn't throw me. They've done a white cover before. I was thrown by the fact that MTV V-Jay Vanessa Minnillo was on the cover. And she was very much on the cover in 2005. She, like the magazine, has also made a transformation. Her 2005 cover featured her as a naughty school girl. On this cover, she looks like an extra in a Bob Fosse musical. Oh, she had it comin'.

Vanessa's transformation seems to reflect the design change of the overall magazine.
When I open the magazine, I am struck by the white pages. Men's magazines don't traditionally use white as a background. Maxim, in the 5 years I've been reading it, has always had black pages. The table of contents pages have been streamlined, boxed and color-coded. The layout of the articles is much more striking and clean, less cluttered. The art is better.

Maxim's new Editor-in-Chief Jimmy Jellinek, who sports a pink checked shirt a la Marc Ecko in his headshot, seems to be taking the magazine in a bold new direction. Maxim is growing up, departing from the world of Stuff and its teenage/college boy allies and becoming more like GQ.

I can't argue that Maxim is growing up as its readership does. Men's magazines don't work like that. Maxim boys will always be Maxim boys, even in suits and ties and $100 glasses of Scotch. Part of me thinks that Maxim is trying to appeal to its female readership, come off as less chauvenistic, less filled with balls-out bro-dom (which, my feminist friends, is total irony in the first place.)But more than that, I think Maxim is trying to grow its readers up. It wants to be a magazine for young male professionals like GQ. It is aiming for a new readership, a readership of men who appreciate all kinds of beauty--good layout, nice graphic art, organization and the inherent beauty of Maxim's content: women.

Maxim, thank you for growing up. You've become more refined. Even your portraits of women in the magazine have become more refined. Next time I see you, I'll buy you a $50 glass of Scotch and we'll talk about how to give my publication that kind of redesign.

Cheers, boys.

Crikey.

Farewell, Steve Irwin.

You and I were not alike in any way. I have been known to say I hate nature, but being an animal loving vegetarian contradicts that statement. For me, the surest sign that I respect nature is that I stay the hell away from it.

You sir, you loved nature by getting in its face, and wrestling many freaky and deadly animals.

We're all sorry about that stingray barb, because you've given us so many years of entertainment on Animal Planet, and we had hoped you would continue to give us many more years of Crocodile Hunting fun.

But at least we all know you died doing something you loved. For the Crocodile Hunter to die any other way, such as passively in his sleep or an ironic traffic accident, would be unacceptable.

Cheers, mate. It's been a helluva good run.

A brief taxonomy of English language and literature related Facebook groups.

Let me begin by saying that the English major in me is overjoyed, and the linguist in me is completely appalled.

I am pleased as punch that there are groups uniting English majors, uniting specific classes (like Arden of Tombstone), professor/TA fan clubs (Prof. Rita Railey has one), and some others.

But the groups that proclaim that English needs to be spoken in this country at all times, the groups that proclaim a hatred for non-native speakers being TAs and professors, and the groups that are dedicated to the so-called preservation of the English language . . . I am worried about all of these groups.

Mostly because there are a fuckton of them.

I'm sure that group of hearty defenders of the English language would really not appreciate my use of "fuckton" just now.

But you know what? Fuck them.

English is a wonderful language because its most heralded writers have contributed so many completely made-up words to a language that had otherwise cannibalized basically every language with which it came into contact. No language is pure. Languages change and evolve as people do. And anyone who thinks that languages are better off in their dictionary form really has no basis making an opinion about language use.

Dictionaries do not include the richest parts of languages: slang and dialect. English dialects are so rich, and if these naysayers had read any Harlem Renaissance writings they might understand that Zora Neale Hurston is a better speaker than they are because she can successfully navigate both dialect and cannonical, grammatical English. When you push out slang and dialect, the language loses the character of its people. Which is a complete tragedy.

These people also seem to have a disdain for "netspeak." Which makes me wonder about their opinion on medical and legal speak, both of which are comprised more classically than the rest of English speech as they are heavily reliant on Greek and Latin. As for netspeak, I can only assume they're talking about IM shorthands and misspellings, which, for my side of the story, are really only improving the completely whack spelling of this language by reducing it to what language essentially is: symbols that stand for phonemes. Netspeak reflects an essential part of English-speaking culture: the internet. It's our essential mode of communication. It has its own grammar, own rules for usage.

To the people who hate this, get with the times. I'm sure you can't stand that you're reading this diatrbe in a blog, which is a far better word than weblog, for my money.

For those who are represented in the groups that discuss the frustration with non-native speakers, I understand. I know its hard. I can't fault you for expressing your frustration. But you all have won. English is now the official language of the good ol' USA. And I can not even begin to tell you how much that kind of Nativism hurts me. My family lost its language coming here because back in 1901, being American was the thing to do to fit in in America. That, and Italian-Americans were only allowed certain kinds of jobs, so being a fucking WOP got you absolutely nowhere. So we stopped speaking Italian. And now, 3 generations later, I am the only person left in my family who speaks our once-native tongue. And that's because I chose to learn it on my own. It's all I've got that's Italian about me. That and my last name.

Like me, many 3rd generation sons and daughters are struggling with their cultural identity, their loss of culture. So why are we all so eager to make our new citizens conform? Have we really forgotten that they're here for the same reason our families came here? I guess we have. The reason I love Europe is because I can walk down the streets in Milan and here 8 different tongues. The same thing happens in LA. NYC. San Francisco. In any big city, there's multiculturalism. There are many languages. Deal with it. America is a country of immigrants.

You have your official language, but that doesn't mean you have to take away everyone elses.

And as to professors and TAs who speak English as a second or third language, they're not stupid. They have MAs, Ph.Ds. Just because they don't speak English exactly as you do doesn't make them any less qualified than those who do. In fact, even if they are teaching an English lit class, they may have a better perspective on the work studied as relative newcomer to the language. Just ask Professor Huang. The man gets Ezra Pound. And Gertrude Stein. And I do not have to tell you just how difficult of a work Tender Buttons is if you've ever read it.

Every language has equal value. And all languages evolve and change as the culture of its speakers evolve and change. I say we embrace it, and erase and notion of linguistic purity from our vocabularies.

Holy cock.

Right now, someone on Santa Barbara Craigslist is giving away one of these fine fowls.

He is a White Crested Polish Rooster (blue variety).

I've never seen a crazier looking bird in my life. I need him.

An inventory of stuff in and around the vicinity of my desk.

*Two luna bars. One, iced oatmeal raisin. One, chocolate peppermint stick. I am stocking up for winter and long Wednesdays putting the paper to bed.
*A shit-ton of file folders. Don't ask me how many. I have no idea. But you better bet they are impeccably organized. Especially the green one full of Who's Who in Financial Management data.
*Lavendar Chamomile Aveeno Baby lotion. Because I like to smell like babies.
*24 1.5x2 inch colored post-it note pads, organized in my drawer according to color.
*Burt's Bees lip balm. Take it and you shall experience a slow and painful death.
*A photograph of a water buffalo with the caption "Say Cheese: Water buffalo milk makes a mouthwatering mozzarella." The covershot from this month's AgAlert.
*4 movie ticket credit card reciepts stapled together by Bill and given to me prior to our viewing of the finest peice of cinema known to man, Snakes on a Plane.
*A list of the emails and extensions of everyone in the office.
*A post-it note on my monitor that reads: "Manitees are very ethical writers; either everything is okay to write about, or nothing is."
*A bag of Lay's Classic potato chips that I bought last week and will consume eventually. It's just good to know that they're there.
*A copy of about 6 different economic forecast guides, from a variety of universities, including UOP, of which I have fond speech tournament memories.
*2 notebooks, one black, one a white reporter's notebook.
*A picture of a wild west crayfish with a lasso. Caption: "The Bayou Goes Southwest." My subcaption: "Snippy Mosebar: The fastest claw in the west." I am collecting bizarre pets.
*A small stack of calendar entries I haven't felt like filing.
*Several of my ink pens from home because I despise ballpoint pens, even when free.
*A blue highlighter.
*Scissors--I lord them over everyone because they know I have them and they do not.
*A grip of business cards.
*The 2006 Book of Lists, both the love of my life and the bane of my existance.

What Not to Wear: Project Runway edition.

I read PostSecret every Sunday. While an overwhelming number of secrets pretain to sexual violence, there are occasionally some that bring an ounce of levity. Some of them, very well could be mine.

While that one is not mine, I, too, value Stacy and Clinton's opinions over all others. In fact, if last week's Project Runway decision was any indication, I think Stacy and Clinton need to be guest judges on the show. Vincent's dress should not have won, based on proportion alone.

I don't know what the hell that bizarre middy collar is doing on that dress, but it is not in any way suited to that model. The challenge was to design a look for the everyday woman, using the other designers mothers and sisters as models. Most of these women were in the 12-14 range. And there is a lot that can be done to make an average-sized woman look smaller. Most of which are simple things involving piping, adding a central seams down the center, rich colors, appropriate-sized patterns and, most importantly, making things that actually fit the model well! Basically, everyone failed this challenege. Though I think the best of the bunch was probably Uli, once again making a great use of her understanding of pattern.

Anything was better than Robert's atrocity for Vincent's very large and probably diabetic sister (woman literally gimped down the runway), which wsa a black jersey tube dress and some bright red kimono-like thing that made her look about 3 times bigger than she actually was.
Stacy and Clinton, Project Runway desperately needs your help. Please save Michael Kors from himself. And punch Elle magazine fashion director Nina Garcia in the face for me. She has broken the no miniskirts over 35 rule numerous times. And once with leggings.

"Who puts their resume in Comic Sans MS?"

I really don't know if its awesome or sad when I can identify a font. I clearly spend too much time in front of a computer screen.

But that's a serious question. I should never see a resume in Comic Sans MS. Never.

That's, like, 10 kinds of wrong.

You've gotta get a gimmick.

Everyone who loves kittens needs to know that our Zoey is now featured on catsinbags.com.

She is kitten #72. Her picture is doubly good because she's sitting inside a shoebox that's inside a bag. It's twice the bag goodness.

Just wait. We'll get her into places like stuffonmycat.com, kittenwar.com, catsinsinks.com, mycathatesyou.com. Baby's gonna be a star!

Hollywood missed connections. w4m.

Walking back from Java Jones with Rose, I was stopped in the middle of the State and De La Guerra by a tall man holding his coffee in line with his necktie. He looks at me for a long while before stopping me as we pass each other. He reaches out to lightly touch my arm.

"We really miss you at Hollywood," he says.

I am always so caught off guard when things like this happen. The witty part of me is dead.

"Do you, really?" I say, turning back.

"Yeah, we do. Seriously."

"Thanks." Because smiling is all I can do.

As we walk away, I know everything about this guy except his name. He always came in late, 10ish, and I always gave him shit. He would purposely ask for bad movies because he knew that I would give him some snide look that said, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Seeing regulars outside of the Hollywood Video environment is definitely odd. I feel like Donna Beth, my Chaucer instructor, must have felt when she spun around after getting her hair done last weekend to see me sitting in the chair opposite her. She looked at me like she was watching a dog walk on its hind legs. (Or a dog with no front legs at all, for that matter. Evidence here.)

It's nice to know that I'm that memorable, and that I managed to create a lasting impression with regulars. Somehow, that makes it better that I spent nearly 4 years of my life working for Hollywood Video, because I built a relationship with customers that made them feel less like they were entering a part of a giant corporation and more like they were visiting a neighborhood store. So many of them were so happy that I was taking a better job, a career-type job. But its nice to know they miss me.

Still, the exchange in the middle of the intersection was odd. What business does he have in a tie? And what business do I have in dress pants and heels? This is not how we know each other. Two-legged dog odd.

I must share this sentence with the world.

"And then Tim Gunn said, 'Don't worry, there's a Dairy Queen near my house.'"
--Marcus, explaining his dream about Tim Gunn after last nights wicked awesome Project Runway.

This sentence was followed by: "I just don't know why Tim Gunn wanted to take me to a Dairy Queen."

If there are people out there who don't know why I love this man and why I'm going to marry him, this is why. It's moments like these where we are absolutely ridiculous that make my goddamn day.

Baby, I love you. And next time Tim Gunn wants to take you to the DQ, invite me so I can get some advice on following grain lines. I'll buy.

Paisan'

The Italian Grocery on De La Guerra is my savior.

I no longer have to make pizzocheri with delicious, though rather flimsy and inadequate, garlic noodles from Trader Joe's. Now I have an outlet at which to purchase real pizzocheri, which is what thick, hearty Italian buckwheat pasta is called. For those who have not been blessed with this gift from the Vatellina, traditional pizzocheri are cooked with boiled potatoes and cabbage, then smothered in a garlic-butter-sage sauce and choked to death with a variety of cheeses. As I am unable to find Toma and Bitto in America, I've been using a blend of melty mozzarella, fontina, asiago and parmesan.


Pizzocheri, specialty of the Vatellina aka a meal to last a week if you get snowed-in in your small Alpine village

Learning how to make this dish was one of my Italian cooking goals I set when I came back from my summer in Italy. Mission accomplished. I also set out to learn my favorite dessert, Tiramisu, which I think I do a decent job of, especially with extra Kaluha.

Along the way, I've completely abandoned store bought pasta sauces. I can't stand them anymore, and I really don't know how I could ever stand them in the first place. They're never hearty; even when there are tomato chunks in them, its not the same. My father always made a rich, red Sicilian sauce from scratch for me when I was a kid. He put hours into it, which is why my sauces are still not my father's caliber. I make lighter, more Roman-style sauces. And I make a mean vodka sauce, which is creamier than one might expect.

I always marveled at how my father rarely used a recipe for sauces, but the more I make them, I see why he didn't need them. I've figured out how to do an alfredo sauce sans recipe, which I really thought would be the hardest sauce I could ever make. For sauces, a recipe is too limiting. They're really meant to be more like guidelines--especially in an Italian kitchen.

So, pizzocheri and tiramisu are two of my completed Italian cooking goals. Now I just have to set aside the time to make gnocchi from scratch.

It is, however, unfortunate that no where in the country can I get cheap grappa. It's like 5-10 euro a bottle in Italy! It's $40 a bottle here! Even at the Italian Grocery! I guess my next goal is to learn how to put my winemaking skills to good use and figure out how to distill me some Italian rocket fuel.

Guess I shouldn't have made that left turn at Albequrque.

I discovered last weekend on a fabric run to Ventura with Jenn that the space between Santa Barbara/Monetecito and Ventura is suspiciously like West Virgina.

I also discovered I had a flat tire, which is how I discovered the strange cultural topography of Carpinteria and Summerland in the first place.

For those of you who have seen my car, you will know that it has two neat dents on the passenger side: a large one on the back passenger door courtesy of Sam and Kian's old apartment building and a small one on the front wheel well, thanks to my own shitty driving on moving day.

This is why I thought people were just being complete dicks as they pointed to my front wheel and motioned in confusing ways. "Yes, fuckass, I am aware that there is a dent. Thanks for being so observant."

Only after the third Samaritan pointed did Jenn roll down the window to hear people explain we had a flat. So we got off the road just past Montecito, in to Summerland, which bears absolutely NO resemblance to the faux-C show of the same name that allegedly took place there. It is also not particularly summery.

In Summerland, we pull up to the first gas station off the road and inspect the damage. Yes. It's flat. Awesome. We assume there's a nail in it. So we amble inside the convenience store to ask if there's a station with a service shop around. Inside, a leathery woman reeking of booze is conversing with a leathery man, wearing sunglasses, and smoking inside the store. They tell us that if we "drive about three miles down the road there, there'll be a 76 station with a service shop."

So we thank them and head on our merry.

But they really have no idea exactly how many miles down the road this place is, because we drove far more than 3 miles, upwards of 5 by my estimate, to this elusive 76 station. In Carpinteria.

Wouldn't it have been easier to say, "If you go down this road until you hit Carpinteria, you'll find a 76 station?" Then I wouldn't have feared breaking down by the fucking polo grounds and being devoured by rabid and angry horses.

Carp, as locals call it, is also somewhat desolate-looking. We pull into the gas station and drive all the way around to the back, thinking this will put us closer to the service shop. But we find no one available for service. Rad. This is so rad. Luckily, from out of the convenience store emerges a short, old man with a dingy baseball cap and spectacles so thick his eyes are magnified to three times their size. Oh yeah, this guy also has a grill like a dirty picket fence.

We inform him of our problem and all I can do is stare at his teeth. We pull the car over to the air box and he takes one look at my green-capped Nitrogen filled tires and announces that we have a problem, other than the flat. "These tires is filled with helium," he says.

Helium? Dude, you work at a gas station. Shouldn't you have a basic primer on gases? Like, at least to know that helium can not possibly be in tires. Or my car might float. I say might, because I really don't know how well helium holds up under 2 tons of pressure.

In any case, I hedgingly ask him if it is safe to put air in tires filled with things other than air, whatever they may be. He tells me to check my owner's manual, as though an owner's manual comes with the most-replaced parts of the car. All the while, Jenn has noticed that there is a man on a payphone who may and or may not have a glass eye leering at us as we sit in the car and read the informationless owner's manual.

Gas Station Attendant with a Mean Grill returns and knocks horror-movie style on our window. I think: imminent death. He tells us that he "called somebody" and they "said it was okay" to mix air with "helium." So I say, what the hell, fill 'em. At least we'll get to Ventura . . . if we don't DIE FIRST.

So he airs up our tires and slaps the hood to send us on our way. We say "thanks" and drive off wondering how the fuck we ended up in a scene out of The Hills Have Eyes.

The good part of this is that Ventura is a land of wonderous automotive innovation. Right across the street from Joann's is a place called Just Tires, where they happen to do work on just . . . tires. They took the nail out of my tire and patched it for $10 flat.

And brocade silk was on sale! Badass!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

There are a few regulars I pass on the way to work in the morning, the Latin woman with the wheely suitcase who never fails to compliment me on my choice of skirts, the aging Hepcat who dresses like Johnny Cash and wears a black Fedora over his Elvis Costello glasses and impeccably trimed silver goatee--no matter what the weather might be.

I see these people nearly every day and feel like I ought to introduce myself to them, all friendly small neighborhood style, since we travel on the same trajectory every day, by which I mean we all have specific places we like to part our cars and probably get very irrationally angry when we can't park in our usual favorite spots.

I like to believe these individuals are like me, anyway.

I've always liked the idea of saying hi and being friendly with the neighbors, after all, you never know who's going to have a file to chisel melted plastic off your stove when your teapot . . . or, conversely, who you're going to have to report to the police when you start seeing little red dots all over the complex. (Yep, that's the Colonial for you and the dual personalities of the boys in 41: two were really awesome and helpful and rode motorbikes, the other two were drunken domestic abusers and drug dealers who I hear are now in jail somewhere.)

Why not strike up some sort of kinship bond with people who also walk equally far from their vehicles to the office?

Soon to follow: Why Carpinteria and Summerland are kind of like West Virigina.

Some very hostile haiku.

There's always one completely irrelevant asshole in every class who doesn't understand that you have to work within the text in literature classes, and constantly provides these external references that are usually completely unrelatable. No one wants to listen to this. No one. Normally, I want to shoot someone, myself of the longwinded bastard, to end the misery. Today, perhaps inspired by the haiku poetry on my bottle of oolong iced tea, I chose to take a more creative approach. I present you with my brief and brilliant collection of haiku about assholes.

1
Dear Douchebag McGee,
Please shut the fuck up in class.
You are my slow death.

2
When you talk at length,
I want to shoot you or
myself in the face.

Post script on kittens.

She is also called: Zozos, Zoso, Noodle, Doodle, Midget Cat, Demon, Fuckin' Cute

The Naming of Cats

"The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name."
--T.S. Eliot, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

While T.S. is a wise man, I feel he may have missed the mark on the number of names a cat has. My cat, Zoey, has her singluar, commonplace everyday name. I will never discern her secret cat name, that I know. But as to the fancier names, she has many already. Ours are not so brilliantly fanciful as T.S.'s, but so far she morphs from Zoey into Tiny, Tweaky McGee, Batshit Catshit, Gollum, Gremlin Cat and Snoodles.

I am sure there will be more, as I have seen Marcus' cats morph from Jazz and Ruby to Jizz and Splooge. With Jazzy's death, her sister has become Ruby, sometimes Ruby Tuesday, sometimes Ruby Spoogeday, sometimes Spoo, sometimes Sploogy and, during episodes of Carnivale, Rubes.

Holly Golightly may have been on to something by simply naming her cat Cat.

I get drunk and sing showtunes.

This is Broadway fodder I'm stealing from my Manly Man. Non-theatre kids can ignore at their leisure.

Name 10 of your favorite Broadway shows

1. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2. Cabaret
3. Sunset Boulevard
4. Urinetown
5. Last Five Years
6. Avenue Q
7. RENT
8. Man of La Mancha
9. Nine
10. Damn Yankees

Have you ever seen these shows live? On Broadway: 2, 4, 6, 7, 9. In San Francisco: 4, 7, 8, 10. In L.A.: 7, 4. Community theatre in Bay Area: 1, 2. Never seen: 3, 5.

What's your favorite song from show 2?
"Maybe This Time"

Who's your favorite character from show 4?
My favorite characters are usually the ones I want to play the most, so I'd have to say Miss Pennywise. She's a great character when played well. But at the USC production, it was definitely Hot Blades Harry. That kid was RIDICULOUS!

What's your favorite scene from show 5?
I haven't actually seen show number 5, but my favorite song is "Shiksa Goddess" because it always makes me happy to hear it knowing Marcus could be singing it about me. (Even though he never actually will.)

What's your favorite lyric from show 8?
"To dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar,
to try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,
to follow that star --
no matter how hopeless,
no matter how far.

To fight for the right
without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell for a
heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true to this
glorious quest
that my heart will be peaceful and calm
when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,
that one man scorned and covered with scars
still strove with his last ounce of courage.
To reach the unreachable stars."

So that was an entire song, but its just that good.

From show 10, which character are you most like?
I would say Lola, but really, I'm a lot more like the news reporter, Grace, you know, given the job and all.

Can you quote every line from show 1?
YES!!!! I am the worst person to sit next to at Sweeney!

How many times have you seen show 3?
That's one of the ones I've never seen but love the soundtrack . . . and the original movie!

If you could be anyone from show 6, who would it be? Why?
Princeton. Because he and I share a completely useless major. After all, what do you do with a BA in English?

What's your favorite song from show 7?
It used to be "One Song Glory," which is brilliant and moving in its own right, but I really love "What You Own" because its so incredibly true.

What's your favorite quote from show 9?
"My husband makes movies. To make them, he lives a kind of dream, in which actions aren't always what they seem."

Out of all these shows, which one is your absolute favorite?
Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard and The Last Five Years. Sweeney Todd is a brilliant peice of work about the darkness in ourselves and the extremes to which we are willing to go for love. It is both dark, beautiful, and comic all at once. And I still want to see a certain curly-haired singer I enjoy singing the role of Anthony Hope, and telling a Joanna that until he's with her then, he's with her there, buried sweetly in her yellow hair. Sunset Boulevard is by far ALW's best work, and its because Billy Wilder gave him a good framework. Plus, I have a soft-spot for starry-eyed young writer Betty Schaeffer and can sing her alto lines. As to The Last Five Years, this show has kept my relationship strong. Our goal is to not end up like Jamie and Cathy, to not lose because they can't win. We can do better than that.

Who's the best Broadway actor?
I adore Alan Cumming and Norbert Leo Butz. I also

Who's the best Broadway actress?
Gotta go with the Bern. Idina Menzel is a true talent, though.

What's the best musical they turned into a movie?
Chicago is a better movie than it is a stage show, but I think the best musical movie is Hedwig and the Angry Inch because film was able to bring that incredible story to more people than the stage production could access. And Hedwig needs to be seen. (Also, Reefer Madness makes a damn good movie, stoned or not.)

Is there a musical you DON'T like?
Yes. I've been in a couple bad ones.

If so, which one? Why?
I fucking hate Les Mis because its just plain bad. You cannot connect to anyone, the music is just a conglomeration of notes, and that stage can revolve forever and not make the show move any fucking faster.

Do you think the movie versions are better, or the original Broadway shows?
I think the movie versions allow access to shows that a good section of the country doesn't get to see, but there really is nothing like seeing a show live. Unless it sucks live. Like Chicago with Melanie Fucking Griffith.


This or That:

The Producers or RENT - RENT. The Producers is lovely and fun, but RENT gave me, and a lot of my generation, a new lease on life.

Wicked or Chicago: I hate Chicago onstage because it has no meaning, which I also think is Wicked's problem. That book is complex and actually very interesting. The show loses everything that makes the book good.

Fiddler on the Roof or Oklahoma: Fiddler, in the name of Tradition.

Thoroughly Modern Millie or 42nd Street: Haven't seen 42nd and I abhor Millie.

Hairspray or Grease: "Hairspray." It was good as a John Waters movie, and great as a show. Hairspray has a wonderful message that tells girls they can be any size, shape or color and still be loved. Plus, Penny Pingleton is a great role. And it's totally mine. And I will kill Amanda Bynes for it.

P.S. I am known to sing showtunes when drunk.

The best thing I have ever overheard.

"Do you have a throat infection or are you pregnant?"
--said in a slightly British, slightly bitchy manner by a man eating a sandwhich with his friends

Dear Man Creatures of the Santa Barbara Area and World in General,

Please stop feeding us lines.

If we have a ring on our left ring finger, you should abort your mission. Telling us how beautiful we are or that we are "works of art" is not going to make us leave our significant others. In fact, it's just going to make you seem like a douchebag.

Don't ask to be my fucking friend after a failed attempt at picking me up with a line. If you really wanted to be my friend, you wouldn't have wasted your time and mine trying to bed me.

Don't assume that because I am getting married I don't have any freedom. It really pisses me off and makes you one step closer to no longer having testicles. My stilettos don't know the difference between flesh and concrete.

To all of you who follow the advice in Neil Strauss's The Game, I hope that he gets a lot of money for each of his lines that you use. And I hope that Mr. Strauss laughs all the way to the bank each time you fail.

You would all be much better off just being yourselves instead of being sleazy bastards.

P.S. If a girl says she's gay, don't ask to be with her and her girlfriend, you fucking peice of idiot trash. She's gay. She doesn't need your cock, nor does she want it, nor does she "not know what she's missing," nor can you turn her. If you actually fucking think that, you really ought to rethink your entire construction of social relations.

P.P.S. This message is aimed at only a few Man Creatures, as most of the Man Creatures I know and spend time with are wonderful human beings. Which I think goes to prove my point that no woman wants to hang out with a fucking sleazy douchebag.