the emmy photos: jeff ircink

jeff ircink giving bruce johnson's emmy awards a smooch.

both of bruce johnson's emmy awards are for the children's animated television series "tutenstein." jeff is an actor, playwright, blogger, and closet republican who resides in california for the time being. he is an avid fisherman, a bit of a curmudgeon, and has a massive man-crush on brett favre. in high school jeff was awarded the patty villa award, and could not hold his liquor at newspaper layout parties.

don't i know you?

interesting when two friends meet...

i went to waterford union high school with blogger jeff ircink (passion=truth) who now lives in l.a. and works as an actor, playwright, and...what else is it you do jeff? jeff's a published playwright (and a good one) who in his spare time fishes, smokes, and has a major man-crush on brett favre. (yes, straight men can have crushes on other straight men without thinking about penis.)

i've worked in milwaukee theater with blogger jonathan west (artsy schmartsy) many, many times, and i actually just saw him in a wonderful production of tally's folly at milwaukee chamber theater. over the years, jon's been an actor, a director, a writer, run a theater company of his own...and i'm sure there's more. these days, he's also a devoted father and spouse.

two days ago, jeff and i had a delightful phone conversation about the recent brett favre "i'm retired -- no i'm not!" debacle, easily summed up in two lines:

tony: it makes that weepy news conference seem like bullshit.
jeff: he changed his mind, it happens all the time.

this morning, i realized these two old friends were already having this conversation...

joe watkins can blow me

joe watkins (pastor of the christ evangelical lutheran church in philadelphia; a key non-lawyer member of the government relations practice at buchanan ingersoll, a major national law firm; former associate director in the office of public liaison at the white house under president george h. w. bush; former assistant state director for u.s. senator dan quayle) is on msnbc blathering on and on about rev. jeremiah wright, and how wright shouldn't be giving news conferences -- this is hurting barack obama -- wright is at the least divisive and at the worst offensive -- if i'm a white working class voter and i see this guy on t.v. i will never...

woah, hold on.

first of all, joe, you're NOT a white, working class voter. you don't really know what it's like to be one, just like i will never know what it's like to be at the same time pastor of an african american church AND a republican strategist. i'm not sure how you have time to be a pastor, joe, since you're constantly on television in your republican strategist role. you criticize jeremiah wright for his politics, saying a pastor's job is to preach the gospel of jesus christ, but that's not what are you doing on television. what do your parishioners think about that? maybe we should ask them. all 85 of them. (about as many people read this blog on a regular basis.)

joe, whatever you think of rev. wright and his past sermons (or the endless youtube clips of them) he's on television speaking to bill moyers, addressing the detroit NAACP, and giving a "news conference" this morning because people like you can't stop talking about him. if you were talking about me that much I'D BE GIVING A NEWS CONFERENCE. why don't you tell msnbc that we should be talking about the poor, or talking about health care, or talking about war...oh wait. you're perfectly happy to talk about this because you're a republican.

here's my two cents: if the voters actually listen to wright's speech at the NAACP and at the national press club conference this morning they might find they actually AGREE with much of what he has to say. and in the end (i'm gonna go out on a limb here) i bet that his speaking out is actually gonna HELP obama. why? all the pundits on cable news (including blowhard watkins) are sniping about how wright's re-appearance is absolutely going to hurt him. and we all know how right those pundits always are.

(btw - thanks to my friend jeff for the post title)

dear jeff, pt. 3

a letter to my friend jeff ircink, of passion=truth, on this auspicious day.

dear jeff.

march forth.
move forward.
just what our friend brett did today.

i was driving to wisconsin this afternoon, listening to a program on wisconsin public radio and the topic was, of course, brett favre's retirement from professional football. and it got me thinking.

'member how, a while back, i said i thought he was hot? and super? and that he had pretty lips? well...i meant all those things. but there's more. there's an underlying reason he's so hot.

first of all, he had braces as an adult and that's hot. okay, that's out in the open.

it's because even to someone like me, who doesn't pay that much attention to professional football...who, if you look up "fair-weather fan" in the dictionary you see my high school graduation picture...who still doesn't get the whole "down" thing...even to me, brett favre is exactly what you want a sports hero to be. he is old school sports hero.

you could tell just by watching him play. he was playing football because it was so damn much fun. that's the kind of guy i want my nephew to look up to (he does.) heck, it's the kind of guy i want my nephew to be (he will.)

not that favre hasn't had his problems. i mean, i don't remember him being involved in a dog-fighting ring. but drugs? vicodin schmicodin. licked it. booze? licked that too. marriage problems? last i checked, mr. and mrs. favre are still together. (that says as much about her as it does about him, of course.)

i just wanted to tell you that even though i've teased you about your little crush on brett, i totally understand. brett favre's hotness isn't (just) about his looks, or having a killer bod, or the scruff, or...okay sorry.

it's about the kind of man he is, underneath the costume.

uniform.

and, well, the braces didn't hurt.


talk soon.

tony

p.s. that's a pretty hot picture
of him you've got on your blog.

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!

it ain't easy bein' green (bay)

you think it sucks to be a packer fan tonight? try being a packer fan in new york city. and y'all know how much of a football fan i am, but i thought the packers sucked tonight. am i wrong? sorry jeff.

dear jeff, pt. 2

jeff ircink's boyfriend brett favre looked pretty damn good yesterday against the seattle seahawks. (not that i actually watched, mind you.) this from today's milwaukee journal-sentinal:

"fans in the nfl's smallest city aren't easily fooled. they know a super bowl contender when they see one. they saw one on a snowy saturday at lambeau field."

and looky here -- my new hometown newspaper is finally paying green bay some respect. seems the fans at lambeau aren't the only ones to recognize super bowl condenters.

now as much as i'd like to see green bay whup the giants, i'm hoping they get to smack down dallas and tony romo, who hails from burlington, wisconsin -- like, two minutes from my hometown of waterford. romo -- and don't get me wrong, i'm as proud of him as my dad, who watched him play high school football -- but romo deserves to be beat simply because he's goofy enough to date jessica simpson (please.)

then...the pack (yes, i called them the pack. i just said smack down too) can meet the undefeated patriots in the super bowl and hand them their first loss of the season. wouldn't that be fun? (again...not that i'd actually watch.)

dear jeff

my friend jeff has his own blog too. it's really great.

there's about fifty times more stuff on his blog than there is on mine. widgets and gadgets and...stuff. some irish music that drives me batty. and lots of pictures of brett favre (jeff is a little obsessed with brett favre - something i totally understand.)

i sent him an email tonight, 'cause i miss him. jeff. and after writing it, i thought, "hey, why don't i post this email to my own blog?" and since i have nothing else to say right now, i'm going to. here it is:.

hey dude.

i've been thinking about you a lot lately. hope you're well.

your blog is so jam packed with stuff...i can't read it all. i love your obsession with favre though. gotta say, you know i'm not the biggest sports nut in the world, but he's a pretty hot guy. i mean hot in a gay way, too.

AND he's a pretty great guy. and pretty. man, he got some pretty lips. he got a pretty mouth, too.

I MEAN he's really inspiring. and i'm really proud. truthfully now. how seldom is it that a super-athlete like him comes along, who is not only, well...a super-athlete...but also a super human being. not super human like he can melt steel just by looking at it. but super, like...great.

he's a super, great, pretty guy, that brett favre.

and fuck those bears.

now, if i had some balls, i'd copy this email and post it to my blog.

come visit soon.
and happy new year friend.

tony

my bruce and annie phase

there are two new albums (records, lps, whatever the kids call them today) i've been listening to a lot lately.

jeff ircink and brian grabowski will appreciate my somewhat limited return to writing about music, by the way. they were around for the glory days of "off the record" (or was it "on the record"?) back at the high school newspaper. they were also around for the layout parties in my parents basement.

i'll eventually get back to the whole "favorite albums of all time" thing that i started back on tony-clements.com. but for now, i just wanna say that i think the new springsteen (magic) and the new annie lennox (songs of mass destruction) are pretty darn great.

i'm big on phases. i've been thru repeated elton phases. mccartney phases. i'm deeply entrenched in a springsteen phase now, thanks to this new music. it means i pull out all the old stuff, and gain a new appreciation for it. i heard the lyric "i wanna die with you wendy on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss" this last week, and -- i think it's an age thing -- i had to stop my ipod and just sit and think about how amazing that line is.