(Editor's Note: The initial writing of this entry was rudely interrupted yesterday by something called "My Life". Since it would take me too long to retype and/or retense, if you will, certain sections said entry, I'll leave it to you to be smart enough to figure out which things are not actually happening today or tonight.)
Hi,
Before we talk about Casey Shea's big announcement that he'll finally be available on the Verizonwireless network tonight at Glasslands I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about me and how I feel about all about the blatant stereotyping and small mindedness running rampant in the modern dance world. That's right kids, as any self respecting reader of Manhattan magazine knows, this week is APAP. For those of you who don't have self respecting people in your life to tell you about things that are worth doing besides over-eating at the new Checker's on Broadway and Marcy, APAP is "The Nexus For Arts Presenting Worldwide". Now, if you're anything like me, "The Nexus For Arts Presenting Worldwide" means that you took the A train uptown to Columbus Circle for the first time in about 6 years and then walked around in a circle for about four minutes trying to remember which direction 8th Ave. goes. Also, if you're anything like me, once you got your bearings straight you might then have found yourself at the corner of 55th St. and 9th Ave. talking to yourself in phrases like: "Oh, yeah. Alvin Ailey. Where is number 405? He's dead. Damn, this place looks pretty nice. AIDs. I think that woman might not be wearing clothes. Same with Rock Hudson."
(Editor's Note: The girl who used to be sitting next to me was reading a book called: Generosity.)
(Editor's Note: This is about the point in my day that I used to have my first cigarette.)
(Editor's Note: As if there was any doubt that the rest of the band needs to play louder, I just got recognized as the bass player from Mother Feather.)
(Editor's Note: Being thus warmed up, or not being able to think of anything to say, this is about the point in my day that I used to have my second cigarette.)
Anyway, APAP. It's kind of like South By South West for Modern Dance. Except that I've never been to SXSW and I think that music festivals are a scam. To be fair, I guess I kinda think that most things are a scam, which by dint of percentages might make what was a scam no longer a scam but just the way things are. Another example might be say, congressional representatives. Scam? Or just the way things are? Depends. Anyway, I got into this APAP thing for free for the same reason everyone else that wasn't on the stage did: It was a free event unless you were on stage. The people on the stage got to pay to be there and perform for people who may or may not have the power to decide to book them at a venue where you might make enough money to break even on production costs. Sounds like a pretty great deal. Or a scam. Or, a labor of love.
(Editor's Note: Hawai'i is the correct spelling of the word "Hawaii".)
Anyway, you may or may not be surprised to learn that my knowledge of "Modern Dance" pretty much begins and ends with me perfecting something called "The Moon Walk" in front of the floor to ceiling mirror covered wall in the Basile family living room back in the winter of 1984. So you can imagine my shock to bear witness to the myriad displays blatant stereotyping and small mindedness of the modern dance world. Take for instance The GIMP Project. Yes, you read that right and yes I typed it right. And yes, I know. Don't get me started with the name. I mean, are people even allowed to say gimp anymore? And what's more, the Ms. Latsky who conceived this project wherein she would make a spectacle of people being disabled, didn't even have the vision to use non-disabled people to do the disabled dancing. That's right. Actual people with disabilities dancing on a stage next to people who are not, at least physically, disabled. As if nothing could be more normal. Anyway, if you thought that was bad, just wait for about three and a half seconds when I tell you about the black dancers in the Baker and Tarpaga company. I mean, come on. You mean to tell me that just because your dance company is based in Africa and your piece requires that the dancers hit predetermined rhythmic cues that you can only use black dancers? Stereotype alert!
(Editor's Note: This is about the point in my day that I used to think about how the thing I have been writing doesn't seem to be as funny as I thought it would be and then go have a cigarette. No, I just get to sit here and either stare at this screen and feel sorry for myself, or open another browser window and read some more fluff on TalkingPointsMemo.)
And speaking of the as yet attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and all the other fluff featured on TalkingPointsMemo, here's a little something I call "Cut And Paste":
An aide to Sarah Palin claims the crosshairs depicted in her now-infamous target list of Democrats were not actually gun-sights, and that it's "obscene" and "appalling" to blame Palin for the shooting.
"We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply cross-hairs like you'd see on maps," said Rebecca Mansour on the Tammy Bruce radio show. Moreover, there was "nothing irresponsible" about the image, and to draw a line connecting Palin and Saturday's shooting is "obscene" and "appalling."
You can see the original image below. Mansour called the crosshairs "surveyor marks." Palin has removed the list from her PAC website, but not from her Facebook page.
"I don't understand how anybody could be held responsible for somebody who is completely mentally unstable like this. Where I come from the person that is actually shooting is the one that's culpable," Mansour said, before intimating that the suspect, Jared Loughner, is actually a liberal. "It seems that he people that knew him said that he was left-wing and very liberal -- but that is not to say that I am blaming the left."
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following "P.S." completes my Christmas shopping list ...
P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. The following digital representation of a receipt entitles me to an 8x10 autographed photo of Tony Hawk.
The truth is that on Friday I got so caught up in the holiday spirit that I bought myself another Christmas present. Tickets to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular! That's right kids ... the Rockettes! All 36 of them. Including one African American! 72 legs, in all their misogyny perpetuating glory! Wait, I think I saw another black dancer! Oh, it's so hard to tell from the 2nd mezzanine. Anyway, it was a great show except for that one part where the lead dancer fell during Swan Lake. Oh, crap. Sorry, I got my dancing mixed up. That was Black Swan. Pretty good movie by the way. I mean, if you like seeing movies wherein Natalie Portman is totally doing it with another girl. If you don't then you may or may not be as excited about the repeal of DADT as Billie Jean King. It depends. On a few things. Anyway, the Rockettes Show was great. In fact, it was so great, I think they should just go ahead and change the name to The Rockettes Show And Advertising Spectacular and drop the whole Christmas charade. Not that I'm saying Christmas is actually a charade or anything, but let's face it, baby Jesus is gonna unleash the waterworks if he doesn't start getting a little more stage time. I mean, really? One scene? It was a pretty bitchin' scene, but still. A christmas show where there are more product placements for Capitol One bank than there are mentions of Jesus H. Fukldjafkldjioaing Christ? How is this possible? In America? I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't had it all pointed out to me by the half-jewish girl I was sitting with. Very astute. Large black eyes. Like pools really. You just want to dive into them. Or something.
Anyway, I just got an email from a monopoly called "Ticketmaster" imploring me to "Let... " my "... voice be heard" and review The Rockettes Show And Advertising Spectacular. The email looks like this:
And here is my official review of the show:
Oh, and speaking of shows, if you're looking for some company to go antique shopping next month ... don't bother calling me during the week of Jan 15th - 22nd because I'll be knee deep in what can only be described as a Two Show World Tour with Casey Shea! That's right kids, we'll be bringing the mid-tempo-sixties-esque-shuffle-rock back to the home of the greatest airport in the history of airports in countries where the police are so badass they don't even have to carry guns.
P.P.P.S. Today's unattributed quote of the day is ...
P.P.P.P.S. "Where are the s'mores ingredients? This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."
P.P.P.P.P.S. Oh wait! Sorry, I found an even more fu@%ed up unattributed quote ....
P.P.P.P.P.P.S. "In the 1970's pedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children."
P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Write to me with correct origins of one of the above quotes and I'll tell you about how you can earn me money by clicking on the convenient advertising links in the right hand margin of this page!
Right now Joe Frank is on WNYC. He just made the comparison between sleepwalking and how, to paraphrase, the moment one realizes that he or she has wasted his or her life comes all too quickly, while the process of wasting said life is usually pretty long and drawn out. Although if a young person, say 19 years old, suddenly died after 17 months of drinking 37 orange sodas a day and eating a multivitamin every 2 minutes just to see how florescent he could make his pee, you could say that the process of wasting his life was relatively short in comparison to say, the life of United States Senator Lindsey Graham.
And speaking of dlfahsdlkjfhsdufglsdkgjhsdlgkslhdfs;a ... I also read about Alaska in the Huffington Post today and I was about to make a pretty mediocre joke about how coincidental it was that a certain former Governor, who Barbara Bush also thinks is kind of hot, has been traveling in an out of the Share The Wonder state over the last year or so and in a certain time period, of about a year or so, cases of something called Gonorrhea have filled the state with a state of hot air, or ballooned if you're nasty, that can only be described as a major outbreak. But now I'm not gonna bother with that joke because I'm all distracted because something called My Facebook Page is literally exploding with messages about someone who is actually funny that I just found out died. Find out why people in Germany care by viewing the convenient unauthorized distribution of a motion picture video clip below:
And speaking of convenient links ... Today I got an email that began:
"Dear Amazon Associate,
We have just sent payments to eligible Associates for the advertising fees earned in the program during the month of September 2010..."
If you know anything about business, you can probably guess where this email is going... It seems that my advertising earnings as an Amazon Associate were off by 0.3% from the previous cycle. Apparently, I've been remiss in not reminding you everyday that if you don't click on the convenient link to amazon.com, I don't get any free money. So, do us all a favor this holiday season ... while you're wasting all that money you don't really have to buy gifts that family members you don't really like don't really want, click on the amazon.com link in the right hand margin of this page. You'll not only be helping make the world go around. You'll also be feeding my ego.
In related news, The Old Fashioned Ladies Club returns on Wednesday, December 1st with a revisionist history of The 336th Day Of The Year!
This week's show will include...
The Insubordination of Rosa Parks with Captain Constitution!
A celebration of World AIDs Day with Steve Jackson!
Comedian Alex Edelman!
Daredevil Greg Feehan!
The music of Lee Dorsey, Jaco Pastorious, Magic Sam, Riahanna, Better Middler, The Doors and much more!
(ED Note: If you don't have a lot of time on your hands today or you like Mexicans from Brazil, just skip to the P.S. section. You're welcome.
Additional ED Note: Man there were a lot of typos in this first draft. Sorry.)
Hi,
It took so long for me to get online here at the other cafe I sometimes go to which is the same one where I may or may not have gotten food poisoning back on Father's Day that I had almost forgotten everything I was planning to write about today. Lucky for you I have a near photographic memory for anything I want to imagine through the lens of my own desires, needs and/or experiences, just like you do, except I'm clearly grown up enough to admit it and you still need people to say things like "De-Nial ain't just a river in Egypt!" about 17 times a week.
Anyway, this four eyes with the lame t-shirt from the 2006 Urban Outfitters "I am trying to fit in" line of men's clothing is apparently my competition in something called the blogosphere:
I wonder how many people click on his amazon.com link conveniently located in the right hand margin of his page? Maybe it's more than me? Maybe we could team up and help one another make more money, have more success and together find a little piece of something called happiness? Or I could tie a bunch of these flimsy straws together and use them to strangle him from behind while no ones looking at him or his dumb blog.
In related news, if you can name the sayer of the forthcoming quote on a topic that unless you're totally freaking stoned, you'll probably figure out for yourself, which actually makes a kind of, you know, sense, I'll buy you a gum ball.
“Well, if we’re talking about pot, I’m not for the legalization of pot because I think that that would just encourage, especially, our young people to think that it was OK to go ahead and use it. And I’m not an advocate for that. However, I think that we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts. And if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at to engage in and try to clean up some of the other problems that we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do and not concentrate on such a, relatively speaking, minimal problem that we have in the country.”
In related news, unless it's possible to have a person that is only .97 of an actual person, I'm pretty sure that Pat Buchanan is in the market for a new math tutor:
Which reminds me of a completely different article I am only about half way finished reading and may or may not have provided the preceding link which may or may not represent the views of the writer or editorial slant of imbasile.com.
By the way, if you've never visited imbasile.com, you should totally check it out. Not only is it a great resource for news analysis, a greater resource for gloating over the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers championship and an infinitely greater resource on where to see great electric bass playing in NYC, occasionally the dude who writes it posts photos of himself and, while it may seem surprising to hear from me, he just keeps getting better looking with age. One grey hair at a time. And I'm sure he never wakes up and spends 20 minutes in front of the mirror counting them.
Anyway, we (and by we I mean I) were talking about where I got the link to the article about all these women who've decided that they don't want to look pretty anymore. I got that from this article which was incidentally sent to me by a very pretty girl. Since this is a family orientated enterprise, I can't actually tell you the name of the website where I am reading the article but if you click anywhere on this the lower third of this sentence you will be taken to the article. The only thing I find problematic about the article is that it took so long (something on the order of six paragraphs) to use the word problematic. Fortunately for all of you "English As A First Language That You Needed To Get A Degree In So That You Could Teach It To Other People Who Were Basically Born Able To Speak English", the author does get in subsequent short order to the journalistic equivalent of a TKO: "... at once ..."
Whenever you see "... at once ..." you know there's a real point that's about to be made. Actually two points in one. It's kind of like when you play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on your iPhone for 3 hours a day and you start combining your kick-flips with your hand plants because you know that you're going to get double the points. So of course, I figured this writer (if you can call someone who isn't actually published on paper by an actual publishing company with an office with windows and a mail room a writer... and an EDITOR!!!!) was really gonna knock my socks off with a brand new point when I saw the "... at once ..." coming from like, 3 sentences away. On the topic of something called "recessionista spending" ...
"Hiding familiar motives behind ambient lighting and organic scented candles, the genre at once masks and promotes the destructive expectations of traditional femininity and consumer culture, making them that much harder to fight."
Which of course wasn't really a new point at all but rather more like the entire point of the article.
"As one purveyor of high-end life-coaching services (who, for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous) comments, “In our line of business, we have a saying: ‘Don’t fix the client.’” Once mentors teach clients to attain freedom and enlightenment, they can say goodbye to the high premiums they earn by telling clients they need more help."
In unrelated news, when asked to comment on the above referenced article and how the strong female role models of his youth helped shape the life and work of the greatest singer in rock-n-roll, Mick Jagger responded by quoting his own literary gem from the album "Beggars Banquet":
Stray Cat Blues
I hear the click-clack of your feet on the stairs
I know you're no scare-eyed honey.
There'll be a feast if you just come upstairs
But it's no hanging matter
It's no capital crime
I can see that you're fifteen years old
No I don't want your I.D.
And I can see that you're so far from home
But it's no hanging matter
It's no capital crime
Oh yeah, you're a strange stray cat
Oh yeah, don'tcha scratch like that
Oh yeah, you're a strange stray cat
bet your mama don't know you scream like that
I bet your mother don't know that you spit like that.
You look so weird and you're so far from home
but you really miss your mother
Don't look so scared I'm no mad-brained bear
But it's no hanging matter
It's no capital crime
Bet your mama don't know you scream like that
I bet your mother don't know that you bite like that.
You say you got a friend, she's wilder than you
Well, why don't you bring her upstairs
If she's so wild she can join in too
But it's no hanging matter
It's no capital crime
I bet your mother don't know that you bite like that
I'll bet she never saw you scratch my back
##
In related news, you should definitely mark your calendar now for the debut of The Old Fashioned Ladies Club on August 18, 2010 (at Rockwood Music Hall's fairly bland looking but good enough Stage 2) where I'll be reading War And Peace in it's entirety.
And speaking of misogyny, you should also mark your calendars for Tuesday July 6th at 8pm and come on down to Rockwood Music Hall's glorious new stage where I'll be playing bass for the totally self absorbed songwriter who doesn't even have a new song for the show, Misty Boyce, who will be opening for some forgettable guy who's name is easier to remember if you think of the writers of the four main books in the New Testament. Following that guy will of course be the Casey Shea band. But don't let the order of billing fool you. We/he will still technically be the opening act.
If you don't mind I'm just gonna ignore all the mean spirited things that while technically left unsaid are totally lurking right there on the tip of your tongue because I feel it and because I am very in touch with not only how I feel but also how the people who are supposed to be around me are feeling. But like I said, I'm not gonna respond to any of that because I'm too busy digesting the 3 piece chicken meal from Crown Fried Chicken that used to be on this plate:
And if I start talking about it I might get excited and if I get excited I might just end up wearing my 3 piece chicken meal from Crown Fried Chicken.
Anyway, if you don't mind I've got a few other things on my mind before I go to La Rockwood Hall de Musica to play with Nick Africano at 9pm tonight ...
First off, I didn't watch the Oscars because I had inside information that Avatar wasn't going to win Best Picture and so I decided that it would be better for everyone involved if I just boycotted. And anyway who really needs to sit through all that crap when everyone really knows that the 2nd most interesting thing about last night was the airing of the most ingenious advertisement in the history of advertisements that sell you pharmaceuticals without having to list side affects including dry mouth, nausea or lack of patience for your spousal requirements. Anyway, maybe you missed it because you were with me watching the 2nd best Andy Fitzpatrick show ever over at the Scratcher bar? Anyway, in the event that you missed it because you were at the 2nd best gig in the history of old fashioned music, or in case you never heard of youtube.com, I have done you the favor of locating the advertisement in question which includes the url for a cancer prevention website created and developed by GSK:
In unrelated news about all the money that people stand to make by keeping health care in the US a private enterprise without really having to prove that having a program where everyone in America puts a portion of their taxes towards paying for health care so that everyone in America could get basic health care would lead to long lines and sub par treatment and the death of life as we know it, I bring you someone who I generally make it a point not to write about because I figure that anyone who can almost become the V to the POTUS and a year later attract a whopping twelve hundred people to a convention for a new political party that no one is really sure if she's a part of probably doesn't need me giving her any more html space than she's already getting: Sarah Palin.
But then again, she's someone I would totally like to spend a few hours with a tiara objectifying and furthermore, I am a firm believer in giving props where props are due. So in case you missed it because you've been too busy arguing with your spouse about the proper way to dice red onions and how it's different than dicing white onions, today I'd like to give some props to Mrs. Palin as reported by the Huffington Post for dusting off her well worn copy of Jaged Little Pill and discovering for herself the true meaning of irony. Here's the text of an article that's short enough you won't even need to pop a Ritalin to get to the end of:
"Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.
"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"
The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.
Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits."
In unrelated news:
In related news, I'm reading an article about teachers and how for the last 75 years people in the business of teaching have been forgetting to teach teachers how to teach because it's boring. You can read it too if you want: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html
For today's installment of "Go F#@k Yourself!" I'd like to show off my html chops and direct you to click on the words "Go F#@k Yourself!" if you want to read about today's installment of "Go F#@k Yourself!"
P.P.S. "The US has said Israel's authorisation of new building in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank does not violate a recently announced moratorium."
P.P.P.S. Damn, I thought my love life was complicated!
