voicemail one

i have a habit of saving voicemail messages. for years. companies like verizon make it so easy too. you only have to manually save messages every twenty-one days. (couldn't there just be a "press eight to save this message for all time" option?)

the message i wanted you to hear is at the end of this recording. it's from our building super, adrianna.  she's a lovely woman from argentina, and she remembered my birthday (with a little help.) unfortunately, i had to skip through all the other messages i've saved over the years before i got to hers.  sorry.

i hope you are enjoy!

how do you like your steak, harry?

here's something that made me laugh out loud for ten minutes. it's from an article in today's milwaukee journal/sentinal:

"(Kevin) Hansen showed up at the police station Sunday complaining of hair in his steak."

the cook at the milwaukee texas roadhouse was not happy that kevin hanson had sent his steak back. (hansen asked for a 16-ounce ribeye, medium rare. the damn thing showed up medium.) another roadhouse kitchen employee told the cops he then saw the cook cut a slit in the new steak, and stuff something in it. "these are my pubes!" he said.

here's the deal -- if you're going out for a nice steak dinner, and the best local place for steak is the texas roadhouse -- i'm sorry. but if you go, well...expect some hair in your steak. apparently it's not all that uncommon. this is from idahofallz.com:

“It’s the second time in a year we had a problem at Texas Roadhouse. Last year I had a hair in my food. I should’ve known better than to go back there.”

the first time this guy ate at the texas roadhouse he found a small black beetle crawling through his pulled pork sandwich. and he went back for more!

all this talk is makin' me hungry! i'm goin' to texas roadhouse for some angel hair pasta and beef stroganoff!

denouncing and rejecting

as low of a low point as it was in tim russert's moderation of last night's democratic debate, i do think it's interesting that many in the blog world are harping on russert's louis farrakhan questioning and not seeing what i saw in the moment: senator obama wanted to have it both ways.

first of all, the chicago tribune brought the subject up, not russert (granted, russert turned it into an operatic list of twists and turns.) during the entire first part of his answer (as belabored as it was) obama did not reject louis farrakhan's support. instead, he said things like "i did not solicit this support," "i obviously can't censor him" and "we're not doing anything, i assure you, formally, or informally, with minister farrakhan." what did we think, louis and barack were gonna have a tupperware party?

russert then asked if obama "rejected" farrakhan's endorsement. obama sputtered a bit. "well...tim. you know, i can't, uhhh, say to somebody that he can't say that he thinks i'm a good guy." (really? reagan had no problem telling the kkk to take a hike in 1980.) "i've been very clear in my denounciation of him and his past statements..." obama went on to say denouce or denounced another three, four times.

throughout this five minute back and forth, obama would not say he rejected farrakhan's support, even when russert himself asked pointedly, "do you reject it?" whatever you think about the difference between the two --- denouncing and rejecting -- obama wouldn't say it.

then senator clinton spoke up. one hoped she was going to take the high road, which she could have done by saying "something similar happened to me, here's what i did, so i understand what barack is dealing with here," letting us draw the line from she rejected objectionable support to he won't. instead, pushed by russert, she sounded petty trying to stress the difference between denouncing and rejecting.

russert then turned it over to obama, who coyly suggested that he didn't see the difference between denouncing and rejecting.

interesting that moments earlier, he clearly seemed to.

UPDATE 5:34 p.m. -- more blogger reaction to this moment, summed up nicely by andrew sullivan.

my life as a carny

being a bit of a baby blog, you do what you can to attract new readers. that includes being active on other blogs, annoying your friends and family, and so much more!

then sometimes, you get lucky. i was lucky enough to just be mentioned by taylor marsh on her widely read blog, which in turn brought tons of traffic to this site.

blog carnivals are a way to get your name and your writing out there. the carnival host lists blogs that have been submitted, and folks get to peruse and check out new stuff. hopefully, some of them hang out, come back, and visit often.

i mention this as A) a welcome to anyone checking out tuesdays for the first time, from today's new blog showcase at pet's garden blog. and 2) as a way to perhaps send some of you back to this page to check out some other newbies (i enjoyed carolyn's vanilla latte post at the beernut gallery, and there are some great sunset photo's of hawaii at local kine.)

click away!

kay-yogi dot what?

as you're telling your best friend from high school or your family dentist about this blog, i'm sure the conversation eventually swings around to "what are we gonna do about that molar?" or "did you hear old coach pickler had an affair with mrs. wyler in the guidance office?"

and then, as you're rinsing, they say "oh yeah, that blog you mentioned. how do i find it?"

and you spit and say, "um...it's kay starr dot something-or-other. obi won cannoli. kay-yoda dot yogi bear...oh dagnabbit, i forget."

well. first, try not saying things like "dagnabbit".
then, try this: tuesdaysblog.com

from now on, you'll be able to say "i wasn't on the tennis team" or "let's deal with that molar when i come back for a cleaning" or "what exactly were you doing when i was anesthetized?" or, more importantly "that blog? oh! it's at":

tuesdaysblog.com

(p.s. if you've bookmarked or subscribed to a feed from kayobi.blogspot.com, no worries. you needn't change a thing right now.)

add 'em up

josh schmidt's "adding machine" opened last night at the minetta lane theater, off-broadway. this morning, it's racking up rave reviews. the new york times' charles isherwood describes it as:

"...the impossibly bleak, improbably brilliant little musical..."

the new york post gives it three and a half stars, calling it:

"...an exciting and adventurous piece of musical theater."

and the associated press says:

"...Joshua Schmidt's music is astonishingly diverse."

the big question will now be: does the show move to broadway? and if it does, will tourists see it?

son of emmy out the window

this is either a photo of my friend barry's emmy award, OR an elaborately set up shot (which involved the hiring of lighting technicians, set designers, make-up specialists, and a pit orchestra) designed to look like a photo of the emmy award i talked about here. whatever you think this is, it is NOT the actual emmy award out my kitchen window, i did NOT turn off all the lights in our apartment late last night in order to get a good shot of it, and i did NOT lie sideways on the kitchen counter and knock over the coffee maker in order to take the photo. (i'm not going to the clink.)

four hundred and twenty-eight words

two weeks ago it took msnbc's david schuster 192 words to get to the two he was supposedly trying saying: i'm sorry. today, remarkably (or, maybe not) it took ralph nader 428 to get to these seven: I have decided to run for president.

i have one word for mr. nader: zzzzzzzzzz....

UPDATE 2/25/08 -- at the risk of using too many words myself, i felt the need to expound on this post a bit. first of all, i actually counted shuster's words myself. nader's...not so much. and different word count engines give different results. 428 was actually the lowest i found, using microsoft word.

secondly, nader's 435-word example of political hot air (the 428 i didn't bother to count and the seven i did) was in response to a fairly straightforward question, posed by tim russert on meet the press sunday morning: will you run for president as an independent in 2008? (a whopping ten.) i'm not sure about you, but i long for the politician who can hear a question, give the yes or no answer, and THEN give an explaination (if necessary.)

(and as with most posts, you can click on the graphic above to view a larger version.)

i know when i'm not wanted

back in high school, i never really belonged to any of "the groups" or "the cliques." (if you could see me right now, i'm doing that annoying "quotes" thing with my fingers, but only for effect. NOTE TO ACTORS: don't do this in plays. we don't like people who do this in real life, and we like people who do it in plays even less.)

like any normal high school in a small, midwestern town in the late seventies, we had them. "the cliques."

we had the jocks. the jocks. really, nothing more needs to be said about the jocks.

the computer nerds. and by that i mean a computer. singular. as in one computer in a back classroom upstairs in the "annex" building. you had to sign up a week in advance to use it...this...contraption into which you loaded skinny paper tape with tiny holes punched in it. and then you had to get the hamster to run really fast in his little wheelie-thing.

the freaks. the kids who smoked cigarettes behind the dumpster in the alley and wore jean jackets and tie-dyed led zeppelin t-shirts.

and the band nerds. suzanne dinwittle, during third period band rehearsal, reached over and circled -- on my music, in red pencil -- the b-flat i should have played in the sixth measure of "el capitan." didn't say a word, just silently circled the note. that is classic band nerd behavior.

of course, there were other groups too. and then off-shoots of the core groups: the freaks who probably smoked pot (nobody was really sure.) the jocks who were in band, but miraculously managed to escape band nerddom. there were the theater dweebs. we didn't say dweebs back then, i just added that. i was, like, secretary of the theater dweebs.

but i never actually fit into any of those groups, even though i was part of many of them. okay i was never a jock. my one attempt at being jock-like was in the ninth grade: junior varsity tennis. my final match, an away game, involved me and another jock-wannabe from the opposing school trying to finish up a set while the rest of my team leaned out the windows of the idling school bus and yelled "come on you pansy! hurry up!" and alright, i was never really a freak. in fact, in sixth grade two freak girls beat me up on the playground at lunch but we're not going to delve into their sick need to make men look weak and my strict adherence to a pledge made years earlier to my mother: never hit a girl.

and as long as we're at it, i wasn't actually in high school band either. i was in band during graded school (in wisconsin we call it graded school, like normal people. not grade school. please.) in graded school i played first chair trumpet/coronet (i was multi-talented, brass-wise.) sometimes i was relegated to second chair, but only when the band director, mr. verbraken, was trying to pacify becky hegemann and her whiny, annoying father ("it's harder for a girl with a harelip to play the trumpet so she deserves to be judged by different standards, for christ sake!")

so was i a computer nerd? only some of the time. my swedish friend ross was really the computer nerd, and i was his friend. so by association.

the jist of the matter is i didn't belong and i knew it. when my jock friends were going to shakey's for pizza, i stayed silent. i waited patiently for the usually off-handed invite. it didn't happen often, but if it came, i butched up and went along. those were...hmm...exciting times.

when my computer nerd friend was going home after school to listen to abba records, i waited for the word. "oh c'mon tony, you love 'voulez-voux'" ross would say. and we'd go over to his house and talk about which abban was prettier, agnetha or anni-frid. (my secret vote was for benny.)

when the freaks asked me to...okay no. the freaks never asked me anything. two of them kicked me in the back in sixth grade, that's it.

ultimately, the point is this: i knew when i wasn't wanted. i was never that third wheel. the person who overhears you're going to shakey's and laughs while he says -- a little too loudly and with a lateral shh -- "yeah, but no black oliveshh!! " only to get sideways looks of "who asked him to come along?" and then finally, resignation -- "alright, i guess he can come." (sometimes there'd be a different first look -- "who's that?" or "what was that noise?")

i'm proud to say i'm good friends with many of these same people today. (not the girls who kicked me in the back.) as a group, we've lived long enough to grow out of our jockishness, our freakishness, and our nerdishness (true, some are still stuck in the nerd world) and become adults. mature adults. thoughtful adults.

and we've remembered and embraced the lesson learned from those times: when you're not wanted, stay away. when you're not part of the cool group, don't try to be. when everyone else is going to shakey's, go home and open a can of beefaroni. stay in your box. stay in your corner. stay in your room.

what i'm trying to say is this: ralph nader needs to keep the hell out of the presidential race.

gee...is it too soon?

whaddya think...is it too soon for t-shirts? (the front has the tuesdays logo and kayobi.blogspot.com; the back says is it tuesday yet?)

gonzalez movement

there's good news on the rob gonzalez front.

(if you're asking "who is rob gonzalez?" check this out. and this. and this.)

word is there may be something big in the works to finally get his album "all is right with the world" out there to the masses. there may be some shifting of focus from rob's website melvincares.com -- a worthy effort designed to promote independent artists and fund a charity for poverty -- back to his own career.

stay tuned.

i don't want to talk about this

this is a disturbing topic i've only talked about with close friends. it seems to be something that not many folks want to talk about (even me.) but this article from the dallas star-telegram seems to make it all the more meaningful:

Police concerned about order to
stop weapons screening at Obama rally

and then there's this, from the southern poverty law center:

Racist attacks on Obama
growing more heated

there are huge discussion threads at dailykos and elsewhere about this. and pam at pam's house blend has dug into the whole thing much more than i can stomach (but it's worth reading.)

somehow, i stumbled on a quote somewhere this morning about hating this country. i did a quick search for "hate this country" and after rush limbaugh ("liberals hate this country") most of what came up was about michelle obama: "why does michelle obama hate this country?"

the conversation i had last night was about scary white men. i was going to call them scary OLD white men...but some of them are not old. some are not even so scary, at first glance. but they're all white. and they're all men.

are those scary white men going to allow any woman to become president?

the more disturbing question, of course, is this: are those scary white men going to allow a black man to become president?

UPDATE 9:46 p.m. -- speaking of scary white men, here's bill o'reilly, tuesday, on his nationally syndicated radio show:

"i don't want to go on a lynching party against michelle obama unless there's evidence, hard facts that say this is how the woman really feels. if that's how she really feels -- that america is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. we'll track it down."

last night, o'reilly's anemic apology:

"while talking to a radio caller, I said there should be no lynching in the case, that comment off clarence thomas saying he was the victim of a high tech lynching (he said that on 60 minutes, you may remember). i'm sorry if my statement offended anybody. that, of course, was not the intention, context is everything."

a lynching party.

let's get this straight: there are times i think this is a bad country; a flawed nation. is o'reilly going to track me down too?

no idol blogging

i will not be blogging about american idol this season but let's just come to one agreement here: 90% of the time simon is right and the other two should just shut up. if randy jackson says "dog" or "man" or "it was a'ight" or "dog" one more time. or "pitchy." or "dog." i'm gonna cross him off my fondue party list. and why isn't paula drunk this year? it's much more fun when she's drunk.

that's all.

(oh, and the young guy -- the seventeen year old who had paralyzed vocal cords...the one ryan seacrest obviously wants to "adopt" and i don't mean that in a legal way -- he's the only "authentic one" of the bunch. he's genuine, he's not cruise ship -- they're all so CRUISE SHIP! -- and he's good.)

(okay, the guy with the dreads -- the young, dopey, john travolta ala "welcome back kotter" lookin' guy -- he isn't so bad either.)

here is new york: the subway, pt. 1

"A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening it's meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive."

-- e.b. white, here is new york

an emmy out the window

the view from our kitchen window is of our neighbor's living room window.

this will come as no surprise to any new yorker. views from new york apartments often include things like the building next door (and i mean next door), a stranger's fire escape, or homeless people.

if we knew the folks who live in the building next door, they would actually live close enough that we could reach out, knock on their window, and borrow a cup of sugar. we don't know them, so instead we go upstairs and to the right for sugar (thank you tim.)

in the morning, when i get up and make a pot of coffee, i can't help but look out and see the neighbor's window. often their blinds are closed. but once in a while they're open, and the beautiful morning sun is showering in (which is actually quite bright, but not direct; it's reflected off the windows of another building about half a block west of us.)

today, as i emptied out the remains of yesterday's pot, that reflected sunlight lit up something gold and shiny sitting tall on the neighbor's window sill.

it was an emmy award.

now, i certainly know people who have emmys. please. please. plenty of people. i'm friendly with award winners, don't kid yourself.

okay i know one person with an emmy. and he lives in milwaukee. my friend barry link, costume shop manager at the skylight theater, won an emmy years ago for his work with jim henson's muppets. and i've never actually been in the same room as barry's emmy.

so seeing an emmy out the window is, well, interesting at least. and it's so...on display. we've lived here for two years and i've never seen that damn emmy before. rob says the neighbors are new. i'm not sure about that. but it's as though the emmy was placed there especially for us to see. as if to say, "hello there, we have an emmy in case you were wondering."

i tried to take a picture of it this morning, but imagine getting caught at that. leaning over the kitchen counter, taking a picture of my neighbor's emmy through the window. aren't there laws against that? couldn't i end up in the clink or something?

i'll keep investigating. maybe it's someone famous who's moved in. cynthia nixon lives in our neighborhood. she has an emmy, doesn't she? and that rather tall, handsome actress who's really good and was in salt lake city when i was there...she lives around the corner i think.

i'll keep investigating.

everyday is tuesday

a couple of folks, in passing, have mentioned that they enjoy reading tuesdays on tuesday. it's occurred to me that perhaps the title of this blog is a bit misleading.

tuesday is not the only day new posts are published. the blog is updated pretty much every day. sometimes two, three times a day. sometimes.

so why not make wednesday tuesday? why not do a little exploring, and see what was up last thursday. or saturday. did you maybe miss that great post about jim j. bullock last friday?

and keep your eye on that green column to the right for a proper definition of tuesdays. coming soon.

a matthews moment

an interesting moment on "the chris matthews show" this morning. matthews went around the room with this question: who does (john) mccain want to run against (for president)?

the answers from the guests were varied. chrystia freeland, managing editor of the financial times answered simply "hillary clinton".

"provacative" david gregory, nbc's chief white house correspondent, said he thinks mccain would rather "run a generational campaign where he can make an experience arguement sharper against obama and a left/right argument stronger against obama than (clinton)."

the new york times' elisabeth bumiller added "he wanted to run against hillary clinton but right now his camp is divided. they always thought that hillary clinton would be easier to beat than obama but there's some people there who think obama's gonna be a...they think they can make a really good case against him on national security...he's weak on these things...you know, "the messiah", that whole argument. that's what they're doing right now anyway, that's their best shot."

and then matthews and the panel turned to the new york times' david broder, who calmly stated "(mccain would) rather run against (clinton) because he respects her."

there was a beat of silence. a beat of silence where matthews made a decision. david broder had to be joking.

suddenly, "ha!" came matthews goatish trademark bleat. "you are so dry! you're like...ray milland sitting here!" he yelled.

bumiller turned to matthews and said "he's telling you the truth."

"i'm being sincere!" said broder.

matthews quickly tried to pull it together. "he'd rather run against her because he respects her and would rather have her beat him..." he said.

but it was too late. matthews showed his true colors in that split second. he couldn't, in the moment, believe for a second that john mccain might actually respect hillary clinton.

UPDATE 2/18/08 -- CORRECTION: it was another david -- of the brooks persuasion -- who was the guest on matthews' show this morning. david brooks; who is actually quite different from david broder. thanks to jimmy james for the clarification.

you must be joshin'

leave it to a fellow milwaukeean to come to new york and finally inspire me.

in the two years i've lived here, i haven't seen much in terms of theater i've been inspired by. granted, sometimes i went to the truly awful stuff on purpose ("lestat", "hot feet".) and there have been moments i've loved ("drowsy chaperone", "spring awakening".) i haven't seen nearly enough non-musical theater. so take all that into consideration.

but i've seen some dogs. and this is supposed to be the gold standard, right? this is what we theater folk all aspire to: broadway. "not so much, anymore" my friend richard just told me.

last night, however, i saw "adding machine." it's billed as a new musical. i'm not sure i'd call it a musical, although it is definitely full of music. it's based on the 1923 elmer rice play, with a score by josh schmidt, and libretto by josh and jason loewith.

my friend josh played the piano for a cabaret show i did in milwaukee many years ago. back then he was a quirky, funny kid. and a brilliant musician / composer.

after a hugely successful run in chicago (which got the attention of the new york times) "adding machine" is now in previews off-broadway at the minetta lane theatre near washington square park.

it's an incredibly challenging piece, and there aren't many moments for the audience to sit back and relax. it's full of difficult, often dark, hauntingly beautiful music, but there aren't a lot of "tunes" (a few though.) it's got some fantastic performances -- the standout, i think, being amy warren as daisy.

and it's truly one of the best pieces of theater i've seen since i moved to new york.

caustic comments

i read a lot of blogs.

not as many as some folks, but many more than a lot of folks. mostly political blogs. talking points memo. the huffington post. most of them are listed on the right for you to click on and peruse at your leisure.

i also read a lot of blog comments. comments are no longer just a way for readers to say "i enjoyed your post on how to remove an ailing lesbian gekko from the septic", but conversations. long conversations. tedious conversations. and often not very nice conversations.

anonymity gives people the chutzpa to say things they normally wouldn't say. normally meaning at a dinner party. or over tea. or at a carnival.

there's name calling, there's lots of vitriol, there's lots of back and forth of he-said she-said. there's lots of don't-make-me-terk-my-nerls-off.

there's nothing wrong with really believing in something, and having the guts to stand up and argue your point. or fight for your cause. great disagreements often lead to great solutions. (crochete that into a sampler.) but many of these comment sections become bitch-fests about "the other side." and i'm not talking about the democratic/republican sides. i'm talking about the hillary/obama sides. it's like being backstage at "wicked" when the "bad" understudy is on for elphaba.

the republicans are rallying around a candidate many of them don't like. they don't like his stand on immigration. they don't like that he voted against bush's tax-cuts for the wealthy. they don't like that he believes humans evolved from monkeys, or that he won't amend the constitution to say i can't marry my favorite farm animal (two words: alpaca.) they don't think he's the best candidate, but they think he's the one that can win (remember john kerry?)

when i look at the two remaining candidates in the democratic party, i know i could easily support either in the general election. this is not to say i don't have strong feelings, one way or another, about senators clinton and obama. but our party having these two choices, and openly disagreeing about them, is an incredibly healthy thing.

being a big, stupid, loudmouthed beeyatch isn't.

quote unquote

"Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America's standing in the world, not how you strengthen it."

- barack obama, in a 2007 statement
"at least mccain, obama are clear..."

“Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history. But at least we had fair procedures for him.”

- attorney general john ashcroft in 2003, new york times
"administration officials split over stalled military tribunals"

"Well, it's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."

- vice president dick cheney, october 2006, white house radio day
"interview of the vice president by scott hennen, WDAY"

"The Democratic-led Senate voted 51-45 on Wednesday in favor of a bill calling for the Central Intelligence Agency to adopt the US Army Field Manual, which forbids waterboarding..."

the associated press, today
"white house to veto senate ban on waterboarding"

"The president will veto that bill."

- dana perino, white house spokeswoman, today
"white house to veto senate ban on waterboarding"

"...we now know that there will be one difference between Obama and McCain in November. One will never tolerate torture; the other just did."

andrew sullivan, today, the daily dish
"mccain: against torture, but"

seventy-two vs. forty-six

i'm watching senator john mccain read his speech from a teleprompter, attempting to talk about hope, and all i can think is he hopes he makes it to the bathroom before he has a poopie!

mccain and obama swept the potomac primaries today. virginia, maryland, d.c. okay, obama swept. mccain doddered.

seriously, mccain is a true american hero. but he just said "hope...is a platitude" like he was talking to a third grade special-ed class. i hear him say "my friends-this" and "my friends-that" over and over again, and i get to thinking about my laundry. either that or i get annoyed. "he ain't my friend!" i say in my head, as though i'm a strong, black woman. laquicia something-or-other.

and then there's barack. he spoke before mccain did tonight, to a ginormous crowd in madison, wisconsin. i love madison. and madison, it seems, loves barack.

this is the grumpy old man vs. the rock star. and you know grumpy's gotta go.

ohhh...grumpy's done speaking, and they're blasting chuck berry's "johnny b. good" and i'm scared he's gonna start doing the twist. and then, god, he'll fall and break a hip.

here's the lesson mr. mccain: always speak before barack.

tin roof...rusted!

i’m no theater critic, to be sure.
or…wait. isn’t everyone a critic?

okay then i am.

anyhow, i’m embarrassed to say i’d never seen phylicia rashad as anything but claire huxtable on the cosby show. so sunday night, at the gypsy run of the new broadway revival of tennessee william’s “cat on a hot tin roof” i was fully expecting…claire huxtable as big mama. this is not to say that actors who become well known for successful t.v. careers cannot return to theater, or cannot escape their television persona. but it can be difficult.

of all the actors on stage sunday night, ms. rashad, for me, disappeared into her role the most believably. and this includes academy award nominee terrence howard (whom I could barely hear much of the time), the venerable james earl jones (whom i could hear but couldn’t understand much of the time) and the talented anika noni rose (whom i could hear and understand!)

it was not until the curtain call that i saw anything resembling claire huxtable from rashad. and i believed nearly every moment, save a bit of overdone crying toward the end of the night.

still, what was most surprising to me was that “cat on a hot tin roof” is a comedy! the audience roared with laughter at many moments i had assumed were frighteningly tragic (things like, oh...alcoholism, and verbal and physical abuse.) maybe we should have had guest appearances from mr. huxtable! and theo! and that adorable tiny girl who ended up gaining a lot of weight later in life! or am i thinking of gary coleman?

and of course, there was the predictable cell phone conversation that went on directly behind me for at least a two minutes, throughout the play's climax. i know the rest of us in the mezzanine were glad the woman didn’t miss that call, though. i think she was a doctor and the call was from a dying patient waitin' on a good kidney. or else it had something to do with national security.

shut up if you can't take a joke

WARNING: this sound file should not be played if you're under 18, or easily offended by any of the following:

• techno-ee dance music
• barbra streisand
  
• the "F" word

if you're okay with all of these, go for it. it made me laugh until i cried.

need an explaination as to what it is and where it came from? get that, and you'll be able to add it to your ipod playlist here.

UPDATE 3/20/09 – the music inferno, which hosted and explained the clip, is gone, gone, gone...but the clip lives on.

it's raining men

because some sunday mornings, you just need a drag queen to fall from the sky.

no magic for the boss

be sure not to miss the grammy awards tonight, where they won't be giving bruce springsteen an award for best album of the year (magic) since he wasn't nominated. but thank goodness kanye west was.

don't get me wrong. i'm down with kanye. we hang over at the pinkberry in murray hill and we talk about our mutual love of the classics (he's all over emily bronte, i'm a melville man myself.)

i just don't think westie would have put up a stink if he'd gotten left off grammy's list this year to make room for the boss.

UPDATE 02/11/08 -- two things. first, springsteen did win three of the four awards he was nominated for: best solo rock vocal performance and best rock song for "radio nowhere," and best rock instrumental performance for "once upon a time in the west." more importantly, to answer the many emails i got on the subject: me -- green tea frozen yogurt. kanye -- the pinkberry smoothie.

holy crap!

i just saw this picture online and it scared the crap out of me! and this was taken about twelve years ago!

wasn't there a t.v. series on nbc a few years back where icky alien people who looked just like this impregnated normal, blonde human beings, who then gave birth to icky half-blonde-human, half-icky-alien babies?

okay. he's a person, so is she. and there are kids. sorry kids. but your dad is goony-lookin'!

UPDATE 02/11/08 -- those of you who read this blog regularly (all four of you) may have noticed that the photo accompanying this post has gotten smaller and smaller since it was initially run. it's just that, well...every time i look at it, it ooogs me out even more. i'm guessing it will eventually dissappear.

one hundred and ninety-two words

there's been a lot of talk this week about chelsea clinton making phone calls in support of her mother's presidential campaign. chelsea is apparently calling superdelegates, party officials, old boyfriends late at night, and talk show hosts.

that's right: chelsea called the women of the view. (well, three of them. who wants to talk to elizabeth what's-her-name? not even the other women on the view!) and whoopi, joy, and that other woman who's not star jones but doesn't know if the earth is flat or not, they talked about it. and arianna huffington/the huffington post ran a demeaning headline about them talking about it. and the women of the view then talked about THAT.

then (and here's where you're gonna find this interesting) on the february 7th edition of msnbc's tucker program (which, thankfully, was tucker-less that night) reporter/anchor david shuster said this about the whole deal:

"...doesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

nice!

was it tacky? you bet. classy? nope. stupid? probably. and hey, if my mom were running for president you better believe i'd be making phone calls. wouldn't you?

the next morning, msnbc's morning joe program ran the clip of the women of the view, after which reporter/anchor david shuster apologized...well...eventually (feel free to skip to the last two words):

"Well, last night, on Tucker's show, we ran the same clip, and then out of that, I said a lot of wonderful things about Chelsea. I praised her; I said Americans should be proud of her; I talked about how Mike Huckabee has praised the Clintons for how they've raised her, and the fact of the matter is, as I said last night, everybody, all of us, love Chelsea Clinton. But we also talked about the fact that Chelsea Clinton, as the campaign has acknowledged, she's making calls to these superdelegates to try to help get Hillary, her mom, the nomination, which can be, as I pointed out, the unseemly side of politics. Well, last night, I used a phrase -- some slang about her efforts. I didn't think that people would take it literally, but some people have. And to the extent that people feel that I was being pejorative about the actions of Hillary -- of Chelsea Clinton making these phone calls -- to the extent that people feel I was being pejorative, I apologize for that. I should have seen that people might view it that way, and for that, then, I'm sorry."

it took mr. shuster a total of 192 words to actually get to the two that matter most: i'm sorry.

here's a bit of advice for anyone that feels the need to apologize for anything: get to the point.

you're welcome to blather on and on about why or when or what you meant or things you didn't actually say after you apologize. but putting your apology at the end of a lot of hot air...? well. by that time no one's listening, are they?

UPDATE 12:37 p.m. -- seems the reason it took shuster so many words to apologize is because he didn't want to.

foxhounds on the ferris wheel

hey, i'm part of a "canine carnival" today. rottweilers on roller coasters? terriers on the tilt-a-whirl? chihuahuas on the carousel? no. just some great dog stories online. check it out.

overheard...

...yesterday, while sitting for jury duty, court clerk larry and a random hefty woman:

HEFTY: you teach spinning every morning, is that so?
LARRY: yep.
HEFTY: before you come here you teach a spinning class?
LARRY: yep.
HEFTY: so early!
LARRY: if i can burn 600 calories before i walk in this door, i’m happy!"

...yesterday, after being released from jury duty, two women discussing birds and their birding friends:

W1: have you heard from gene lately?
W2: he’s having some drama.
W1: (not surprised) oh he’s always having drama with those finches!

...rob, last night in our living room, while watching the dvr’d project runway, just as tim gunn was walking into the workroom:

ROB: this is the gayest show on television.
TIM: good morning designers!!

(and now i've gotten a little carried away with the html code.)

on the record: girl on girl

two reasons to be really happy today. yesterday, actually. these two gals released long-awaited, much-anticipated, new records. cd's. albums. i haven't settled on what a 40-something calls them yet. anyway they're new. here, and here. and both got fairly good notices from the rolling stone magazine people.

my friend victor delorenzo, drummer for the violent femmes (okay, he was my friend at one time and i think he'd still recognize me if i ran into him at a yard sale or something)...anyway, victor has (had?) a recording studio in milwaukee. years back, k.d. came up to record something for her friends in a band called mrs. fun.

victor said k.d. walked in the studio, ripped the windscreen off the microphone, grabbed the mic and put it between her knees. then, she bent over forward to sing into the mic and said "let's do this." she recorded her part, in one take, and she was flawless.

i can't hear her sing without that image in my mind.

sometimes i like to think about sheryl crow singing like that too.
even though the story has nothing to do with her.

my morning with diane, larry, and 200 fellow new yorkers

9:45 a.m.

diane sawyer just told me that if i don’t get picked for a jury, it is in no way a comment on my intelligence or integrity.

i’m taking part in our judicial system today: jury duty. which in new york means getting to chinatown by 8:45 a.m. luckily, the criminal justice building provides wireless internet (and a documentary about the history of the jury system, starring sawyer, ed bradley, and lots of struggling new york actors happy to have a job saying lines like “when i got my summons my heart sank!” and “jury duty is a pain in the butt!”)

“your opinion is equal to anyone else’s in the jury room,” diane just said. “whatever jury you sit on, you’re most likely going to find it fascinating.”

yesterday, i got to vote in new york’s presidential primary, i.e. to be one of the many. today, i may get to be a juror, i.e. be part of a special few.

or i may just sit here all day and read.

10:35 a.m.

well i’ve just discovered that the criminal justice building is happy to let you surf the net or answer emails, but not so crazy about you posting to a blog while on awaiting jury duty. their internet access system has blogger.com blocked, meaning i can’t post to my blog. i guess i’ll assess at the end of the day if any of this is interesting enough to actually post, after the fact. (has anything i’ve posted in the last four months met that requirement?)

i will say that our…gee, i don’t know what to call him. he’s sort of the juror wrangler, i guess. his name is larry. and he’s a laugh riot.

actually larry is incredibly up, and perky. he is clear, and efficient, and quite friendly. he definitely has his routine down, but hey -- it’s workin’ for him.

larry just told us that three supreme court judges got verdicts yesterday, which means they are available to sit for new trials. “this may not be good news for you guys…”

11:00 a.m.

i just didn’t get picked for a jury pool for a lower criminal court. whew.

oh, and i hate to pile on, but here's a bit of unrelated news i just found online about a city i have a strangely contentious relationship with.

11:15 a.m.

larry just gave half the room three hours for lunch. he's a doll.

12:06 p.m.

i've found a starbucks so i'm posting what i've got so far. isn't this exciting for the two of you who will read this? live-blogging jury duty! well, almost live.

superman wears al gore underwear

that's a quote from lindsey dornberger, an 18 year old senior at greendale high school in wisconsin.

lindsey was speaking on behalf of her candidate, al gore, during a one-day mock presidential election that involved about 400 students from 17 different milwaukee schools. nevermind that gore isn't actually running. if he did, or had, that campaign slogan would have won him the presidency, no doubt. certainly better than that whole change thing...

lindsey also had two other bits of wisdom (and i'm not joking here). first:

"young people should vote - the outcome will matter."

personally, i'm amazed at the number of friends i have who are younger than me who...wait. let's just stop there for a second. i'm amazed at the number of friends i have who are younger than me. (when did that happen?) my point is this: i'm amazed at the number of those friends who are not voting in today's primary. "ohh, i forgot to register." "ohhh, i didn't register." "ohhh, i meant to register but i was too busy catching up on britney."

alright, i never heard that last one. but still, in this election cycle, when the number of young voters has been overwhelming thus far, and after watching what the bush administration has done that will permanently effect their lives for years to come, how can i have so many intelligent and well-informed friends who are not taking part in this process?

which leads me to lindsey's other great point: senior citizens are one of the largest voting blocks in elections and...

"...we have to live with the decisions they make the rest of our lives."

think about that, you young people.

and go lindsey!

superbowl wrap-up

last night, when the giants won the superbowl, i had to call someone. someone i thought might care. it took me a second, but the only person i could come up with was my dad. he didn't answer, so i left this message on his machine (yes, he still has a "machine"):

"hey dad. new york won the superbowl. pretty exciting, huh? not as exciting as if brett and the pack were...oh well. love ya."

i got this email from him today.

hi tone. got your call today (12 hrs after you sent it.) the pack wasn't in it, so i really didn't have a fav. the commercials sucked. the charlie brown and the coke was kinda cute. same with the bridgestone tires and the squirrels, and the bud one with dog teaching the horse. outside of those, yuk. tom petty was, well, tom petty. i've always liked his music, but to see the band perform isn't so great. oh well, what the hell do i know!! i used to watch mitch miller and lawrence welk and hee haw.

pretty much sums it up.
thanks dad.

50 inches, 13 yards, and 35 seconds

the apartment building across the street from us put their recyclable cardboard out on the sidewalk tonight. usually it's broken down boxes from fresh direct or amazon, tied up with twine in a tidy stack.

tonight, no tidy stack. one big box. one enormous box. one uber-gigantic box. in new york terms, we're talking livable. and not rent stabilized.

someone in that building just got a new 50" panasonic flat screen plasma hdtv.

two years ago, when we were looking for a new tv, we opted for a petite 26" set. we considered a 28", but in the cabinet we were going to put it in? it would have looked ridiculous. gauche, almost.

tonight however, someone in the building next door must have been overwhelmingly pleased with their decision to go with a 50" screen as they watched eli manning connect with plaxico burress for the winning touchdown in superbowl XLII, a 13-yard pass with 35 seconds remaining in the game.

okay, i copied most of that last sentence from the new york times.
but still, it was a pretty exciting game. and i bet it looked great on that tv.

and oh...sorry jeff.

you remind me of someone

i just looked at a composite picture of mccain/romney/clinton/obama (ladies and gentlemen, the next president of the united states) and i thought, "why is it that i like the last two so much more than the first two?" i mean, in my gut?

i wonder if it has something to do with who each reminds me of:

JOHN MCCAIN -- at 71 years old is my grandpa schultz. now, i loved my grandpa schultz a lot, but here are some of the things he did best: carving the turkey on thanksgiving day, hunting deer and making tasty venison sausage, taking care of grandma schultz, and falling dead asleep in his rocking chair immediately after dinner. with his mouth wide open. snoring. this is not who i envision running the country.


MITT ROMNEY -- is a used car salesman, hands down. a used car salesman in kenosha, wisconsin. his hair, his demeanor, his skill at shifting positions to suit the time of day...good god his name even! mitt?! c'mon people! look, i wouldn't trust this guy to give me a good deal on an '92 buick lesabre, much less trust him to be the president of the united states!


HILLARY CLINTON -- is a sixth grade social studies teacher. i can hear her yelling at the kid screwing around in the back of class. or see her throwing a chalkboard eraser at someone who's not listening, or writing out yellow detention slips to dave gaudes. but i'm on her good side, i learn a lot from her, and i go back to visit her once i'm in high school.

BARACK OBAMA -- is a high school guidance counselor. he's really smart, but mostly he's warm and fuzzy. he'd say things like "well mr. clements, what is it you want to accomplish in life?" and i'd want to give the right answer. i'd spend study hall in his office, talking about student council, or my mom and dad, or starsky and hutch. like clinton: a teacher.