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19
Mar
07

Not Above Average

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay and People We Like
Tags: ,

Garrison Keillor has issued an apology for an ill-timed and poorly executed attempt at satire he wrote last week, which I was hoping for and expecting. I agree with towleroad.com: It comes off as a bit disingenuous, because I know he knows better; I don’t know how he could be surprised by the response. Keillor is no bigot. But even good Democrats can be a bit ham-handed. That column should not have happened, but I think the apology is sincere.

Not everyone gets Lake Wobegon. Not everyone thinks it’s funny. I think Dan Savage overreacted last week — and I know even some of his shrieking might be taken as self parody — but he has some thoughtful things to say today.

UPDATE:
This is satire.

(Special thanks to Good As You.)

08
Mar
07

Glass of Water for Mr Grainger!

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Anglophilia, Funny, Gay, My Favorite Things, People We Like, Sad, TV and Video
Tags: , , ,

Rest in peace, John Inman. Now you’re free.

04
Mar
07

Can’t Come Quickly Enough

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Gay, Music, New York and People We Like
Tags:
Scissor Sisters with bubbles
Pop!
[scissorsisters.com]

It’s hard for me to say who opened for Scissor Sisters last night at the Madison Square Garden Theater. I managed to glean that they are from Youngstown, Ohio, but not much more. When the duo introduced themselves to the audience shortly before exiting the stage, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Neither could I understand their name when Jake Shears thanked them later toward the conclusion of the Sisters’ own set. I guess I’d thank them, too. They’re the kind of act anyone would want to follow. (A scattered few politely applauded between songs, but the loud, raucous, honest hooting and hollering came when they walked off.) Case in point: The three wigs on people-length sticks (one brunette, one red and one blond) set up on stage after Youngstown left, standing in a light show while ’50s-style girl group tracks played in the background, was more interesting in every way than the mysterious human opener.

They were called Wigs on Sticks. It was cute.

Following this was a DJ, about whom I knew nothing. It was good, but misplaced, I think. It would have been lovelier if we were at a smaller venue, say a music club, where we could actually dance. This kind of show doesn’t work well in a theater. Maybe I’m lacking in imagination, but a DJ set seems a little empty to an audience with seats.

By the time we had sat through an hour and 45 minutes of the Ohioans, the wigs, and the DJ — and by the time the audience was well and truly crocked, having been steadily streaming out into the lobby for cocktails and beers — we were positively starved for the Scissor Sisters. The long delay made their nearly hour-and-a-half show so much more the thrill. But so would it have done for nearly anyone with a microphone and a modicum of talent.

26
Jan
07

Kidney Tones (with apologies to Jeff)

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Friends, Minneapolis, Music, People We Like and Women of Genius and Talent
Tags: , , ,

   
From the cover art of Wain’s 2001 release That Was Then, This is Now
[myspace.com/wainmcfarlane]

These days, my good friend Wain sticks mainly to cranberry juice. He jokes now about his bar tab. Not long ago, he’d drop a twenty at the most on a night out, because so many people would buy him drinks and the bartenders would do him favors. But no one gets anyone a cranberry juice, even good friends. He has to buy his own. And at a bar they charge you like it’s a cocktail. So now he spends much more not drinking than he ever did drinking.

He’s no alcoholic, and this is no 12-step program. Trust me, if he had his druthers, Wain would be back to the booze — free or not. But he’s got a problem with his kidneys that makes alcohol highly … um … disagreeable to his system. He’s on doctor’s orders. (And when that doctor is from the Mayo Clinic, one doesn’t argue.)

Wain’s kidneys are functioning at roughly 6 percent capacity. He needs a new one pretty badly. And as a musician, he doesn’t have heaps of disposable income and he doesn’t have great health insurance. He does have three things, however, in abundance: luck, friends and connections.

The luck came in at a bar in Walker, Minnesota, out in the north woods. He plays up there sometimes. At this bar, by chance, he met a doctor. That doctor knew a kidney specialist at Mayo. And suddenly there was Wain’s golden opportunity. Introductions made … 87 miles each way between Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota … tests taken … and voilà! We have a surgeon and we have a donor (one of Wain’s brothers).

The friends came in shortly thereafter. A bunch of musicians decided to get together to produce a benefit concert on March 10. Wain fronted a funk/reggae band in the ’80s and ’90s called Ipso Facto, and he’s been around the block a few times, having played with Prince’s band, Dave Pirner, Jonny Lang, UB40, Tracy Chapman and scores of others. This is where connections come in.

A few years back, Wain’s brother was Cyndi Lauper’s tour manager, and she became friendly with the family. Wain tells me he once saw her at a party in a gorilla costume. A musician he mentored toured with her. When she performed at the Minnesota State Fair in 2004, she let Wain sing “Time After Time” with her, letting him ad lib a verse dedicated to his late sister. She brought him back out on stage for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” which Wain and her bass player spun into an impromptu reggae jam.

A connection.

   
[cyndilauper.com]

So, we are told, Ms. Lauper has graciously agreed to lend some of her time and abundant talent to the cause. And many other people he’s worked with are helping out, too: Lifehouse, Mint Condition, Soul Asylum. You can read about it on her Web site.

Wain was our neighbor for more than three years. His wife Catherine, another good friend, was our landlady. He sang at our wedding. We planted vegetable gardens and herb gardens together. They babysat our cat. We’ve had Easters and Thanksgivings. We’ve dined on curried goat. We’ve toasted aquavit. He once gave us 15 lbs. of crab legs (there wasn’t enough room in his freezer for 30 lbs.) because the parents of a kid he tutored are fishmongers and they paid Wain in fish.

We just saw Wain right before Christmas. And I guess we’ll be back in March. Apparently he thinks we don’t visit enough, so he’s hauling out the heavy ammunition. I’ll take any excuse to go back to my adopted home for a visit. Even in a month as c-c-cold as March. But it’s not Cyndi Lauper who’s luring us back. It’s the prospect of being part of a concert full of people who are there to give their love to my friend.

(Truth be told, having Cyndi Lauper there, too, doesn’t hurt.)

To all my Minnesotans: Please buy tickets!

17
Jan
07

From Sí to Shining Sí

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York, People We Like and TV
Tags:

 
Ugly? Not really. Fun? You bet your ass.
[abc.go.com]

I can’t put it any more simply: I love Ugly Betty. Congratulations to América Ferrera for winning the best actress Golden Globe for a TV show comedy!

Forget all the feel-good nonsense about ugly vs. pretty and our culture’s insistent, insidious focus on glamour over substance. I mean, sure, give Jason Mraz a gold star for his earnest, cutsie ditty about “beauty in ugly.” He really gets it, right? Right. Of course, all that stuff is true. And obvious. Get her some lighter eyewear, lose the braces and cut that hair back, and she’s not really ugly. It’s marketing. It collapses on itself. And the conceit is so manufactured, I take it for granted. So leave it for the American Studies majors to digest in their pop culture theses.

What’s the really important impact of this show? It’s fun. And it’s about bloody time someone besides Marc Cherry is doing something to save TV from itself.

There’s a mystery woman in a veil obscured in darkness, marital infidelity, flashbacks to a fiery death, shadiness at the top of a publishing corporation, interoffice romance and intrigue, a plot to undermine a reluctant hero … and all kinds of standouts making the cliché not only bearable — but brilliant.

Vanessa Williams is at the best I’ve seen her. I loathed her “Save the Best for Last” days. But now, her high-camp evil set to medium-low burn is almost enough to make Glenn Close curse her own career as cheap and worthless. (Almost. No one can touch Glenn Close.) Eric Mabius: just plain yummy as a player with a heart of gold. A little rough around the edges, I think — but I hope I look half as good with crow’s feet (which, the way things are going, can’t be more than a couple more years off). We love cutie Michael Urie, whose Marc St. James is so gay it hurts. And welcome to America, Ashley Jensen! (She plays the so-Scottish-I-can-barely-understand-her-despite-years-of-watching-Eastenders seamstress and Betty confidante, and you should see her as the hapless Maggie in the HBO/BBC series Extras.)

And THANK GOD for the return of Judith Light! What a triumph! Good-bye, “Who’s the Boss” — hello, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”! Her resurrection of the lanky, wise-cracking, self-absorbed, argumentative, alcoholic blonde archetype warms my superficial gay heart. She is Patsy Stone with Long Island Lockjaw.

Plus, Betty lives in a sound-stage replica of my neighborhood. Always a good sign.

11
Dec
06

Under the Influence of Giants

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Music and People We Like
Tags:
 
You too can be cool enough to buy this album.

I have it on good authority (in other words, a well-spoken bar friend on his 6th vodka and tonic) that both the new Dixie Chicks album and the new John Mayer album will change your life. This may be true. But I’d like to point you toward something else entirely, a band called Under the Influence of Giants.

Being a public radio nerd, I eschew mainstream radio, especially Top 40 schlock. One of my more reliable sources of good music is Pandora.com. Just by having that site running in the background at work I’ve learned about a lot of stuff I wouldn’t normally hear otherwise. Check it out; it’s great.

One day I heard something that sounded like an incongruous mish-mash of The Killers, Michael Jackson and Led Zeppelin, filtered through an ’80s-tinted lens. The song, “In the Clouds,” was relentlessly driving, arresting, beautiful. I had no idea what it was about, but it sounded damn good to me.

That night I downloaded their entire album from iTunes and listened to it over and over for a week.

James Christopher Monger of All Music Guide once described a Jill Sobule song, “Cinnamon Park,” as “ludicrously catchy.” Take a listen and I think you might agree. It’s either catchy, or ludicrously annoying. And there is a fine line between the two, I think.

Anyway, “In the Clouds” is definitely in the “ludicrously catchy” category, and the rest of the album is just as gorgeous.

I don’t know enough about music or musical influences to write anything coherent or useful about these guys. For starters, they are nothing like Jill Sobule. So, let’s leave descriptions of their sound to the music journalists. Mainly, I want people to know about them and support them and buy this album. I am never ever on the edge of anything. Other people are always telling me about good new music, because I am so not plugged in. But I’m beginning to see these guys in magazines and they have 58,839 MySpace friends. Probably, I’m still behand the curve and you already know about these guys. Regardless, there’s a very selfish music-snob influence inside me that wants to have some satisfaction that I can actually make a good music recommendation for once.

Now that’s ludicrous.

09
Nov
06

Shiny, Happy

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Funny and People We Like
Tags:
20
Oct
06

Why Project Runway Works

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: People We Like and TV
Tags: ,

1. Tim Gunn has unimpeachable integrity.
I love Tim Gunn.

I want him to be my older brother. His earnestness, his meticulous dress, his deep throaty voice and his intense pride in the designers bring me such comfort each week. There are rules, and by golly, Tim Gunn will follow them. And he had a lot to contend with this season: Keith gets kicked off the show; Jeffrey makes Angela’s mom cry; Jeffrey nearly gets kicked off, himself. He even had to deal gracefully with Keith coming back for the reunion episode and presenting his assinine conspiracy theories. Plus, there were the usual, weird twists and turns the producers dreamt up. But he treats all situations as true opportunities for his designers to learn, to shine and to win. It is clear that he is an educator and a mentor to each of the competitors. He seems to hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but he is always totally honest, and his advice always benefits the designers. The losers may resent the judges, but I think they all walk away respecting Tim Gunn.

2. It’s educational.
I don’t know anything about fashion. Who does? The judges. They know what they’re talking about. I love to hear their critiques. Desn’t mean anythign to me most of the time, but they force me to believe it.

3. The drama is real, not contrived.
A bunch of artists are brought together to show their stuff and compete against each other. They have egos. They have ideas. They have their eyes on the prize. And they’re on camera. What choice do they have but to have slashes and conflicts? Doesn’t take a casting genius to work that one out. Real personalities come out under real circumstances.

4. The competition is real.
These poor people are put through the ringer. They are given some curve balls from week to week. And I am amazed that they don’t just crack sometimes.

Each episode, with it’s miniature runway show, is a microcosm of the whole thing, the culmination, the finale at Fashion Week. It’s like reliving the drama every week. And it all builds naturally to a logical and highly entertaining conclusion.

5. These designers are true colleagues and competitors.
It’s like summer camp. They work together. They learn from each other. They advise each other. They inspire each other. And they know that any week could brig the fluke that gets the knocked off the show. None of them is safe, so they pull for each other. They want to win, but sometimes I think they don’t want anyone to lose. Even after Laura’s accusations of fraud nearly got Jeffrey kicked off the show, I believe they understood each other better. I believe that Jeffrey doesn’t hate her. And I believe that the playing field was absolutely level. This goes back to the notion of integrity.
After someone gets kicked off, people are so sad. And when someone wins, they are genuinely happy. The hugs look and feel so good.

If they hated each other, this show would be boring and stupid.

6. The judges have real compassion.
They sound like bitches at times, but they want to see beauty, and they usually do. And I just love to hear the judges say nice things about people. Even if they miss the mark, the designers clearly have passion and their work has artistic merit; and I love that the judges get that, and say so.

7. The competitors are actually talented.
These people are pulling out all the stops to do their best work. It matters to them. And even if I’m surprised or disappointed to see certain designers cut during the season, I have no doubt by the last episode that these final competitors are the ones who belong there. We viewers have something to believe in and someone to cheer for.

8. The result is something beautiful, not something ugly and sad.
We’re not voting people off the island. We’re not forming alliances to take anyone down. We’re not watching hook-ups in the hot tub. We’re not watching families melt down. We’re not watching husbands trading their psychopathic wives. We’re not watching spoiled socialites soving their hands into the wombs of livestock, pretending to care about how “simple” people live. These are artists. These are craftspeople. What is captured on this series is the product of years of real work for each of them. And week after week, nearly without fail, they produce something beautiful.

9. Even the losers can succeed.
These people have a future after this show. They are talented. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be on the show. Just by virtue of being on the show, they have enough publicity to make some hay. And each of the four finalists, whether they won the fashion Week competition or not, has gained enough notoriety and has shown enough consistent good work that they could easily ride this thing through to a successful career. Not everyone will be in Elle, maybe, but not everyone can be, and not everyone needs to be.

14
Sep
06

Why Kathy Bates Will Save the World

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: Celebrity, People We Like and Women of Genius and Talent
Tags:

My better half is watching Misery on Lifetime-Television-For-Women right now, and I just overheard:

He didn’t get out of the COCKADOODIE CAR!

God, I love Kathy Bates. As if blithely bearing her tits in all their overweight, middle-aged glory in About Schmidt wasn’t enough to earn my respect, she also plays one of the best secondary characters on TV in Six Feet Under (as well as directing a few of the episodes).

And, of course, who could forget good old psychopathic Annie Wilkes from Misery?

You! You dirty bird! How could you?

…

Misery is alive. Misery is alive! Oh, this whole house is going to be full of romance. Oooh, I am going to put on my Liberace records!

…

At the feedstore do I say, “Oh, now Wally, give me a bag of that F-in’ pig feed, and a pound of that bitchly cow corn”? At the bank do I say, “Oh, Mrs. Malenger, here is one big bastard of a check, now give me some of your Christ-ing money!”

08
Aug
06

Go On Ahead, Baby

By Eric Leave a Comment
Categories: New York, People We Like and Strangers Observed
Tags:

On a caffeine run one day last week, I was once again charmed by a stranger. It was during the heat wave, and coffee was not an option, so I headed to a bodega near my office, in search of a Coke Zero, my carbonated beverage of choice. Standing like a zombie in front of the refrigerator case, I overheard a woman buying lottery tickets say something about a younger woman who had just left the store. The two had been chatting like people do in line at a bodega.

“‘Cuz it’s hot outside,” the girl had said.

“I know. That’s why you ain’t hardly wearing anything on your body,” the woman said.

The girl left, and the older woman continued a previous conversation with the clerk. I didn’t hear what she said, but I knew it was a reaction to how little the girl had been wearing.

“Some people just like to show their bodies,” he suggested.

“Uh-huh. Well, I like to show my body too,” said the woman, laughing saucily. “But you got to have some sense about it. You can’t go around wearing nothing.”

The clerk agreed.

“I show my body too,” she continued, “but at the right time, you know what I’m saying?” She paused for effect. “Leave something to the imagination. That’s what I say.”

The clerk laughed a little. I imagined he didn’t know what to say in response.

I was a little annoyed by her. She seemed to be trying too hard to impress her audience. She is not someone about whose body I would typically spend much time thinking. It’s not a body one would expect or want to see uncovered, and I was surprised to hear her say something suggestive about it. The sentiment was old-fashioned, but the images it provoked were more than I wanted to consider at the moment.

She was sort of sausage-shaped and she wore a modest dress generously cut from an immodest print of big orange and green flowers that swayed on a white background with every move she made. She was not an invalid, but I could see she didn’t have an easy time getting around. She stood as if her legs were always stiff and sore. Her swollen ankles bulged around the edges of her shoes. She was not a beauty, but she was clearly full of life. She’s what I would call robust.

There was something holding up the lottery ticket machine, and it was occupying the clerk’s attention. She noticed me standing there, patiently holding a bottle of soda and two dollar bills.

“Go on ahead, baby,” she said warmly, and motioned to the clerk to take care of me.

I was struck by the aunt-like quality of the gesture. Baby seemed a strange word to use. It could mean everything or nothing. You could say it to a lover or you could say it to a stranger at a bodega. It underscored a generational difference. A cultural difference.

Her sauciness made more sense to me. Or rather, it was easier to imagine her in other situations. Jolly, yet formidable. A talker at a family barbecue. Good with a story. But if I were one of her grandbabies, I would not want to cross her. I left the store admiring her vitality.

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the untallied hours