November 2001 Archives

I bought my Amtrak ticket to Buffalo--I leave on the morning of the 10th and return two days later, leaving me a day to take my exams and a night to have fun in town with my friends. Now all that remains is for me to actually study.

Funny, but I've been taking it entirely for granted that I'm going to pass this time, which I might easily not do under the present circumstances. That would be kind of upsetting; aside from how humiliating it would be to fail in front of my former classmates and teachers, it would mean another trip upstate and another semester's tuition for my next attempt.

The plus side, of course, is that I already know what I'm going to be asked about, and the subjects are three of the ones I know best after three years of school. I think I can talk about derivational morphology for a couple of pages without a problem, and I'm fluent in the aerodynamics of speech. Quantifier scope might be more of a problem given that I can't find a copy of the textbook I used in that class, but I think I should be able to wing it with my notes and papers.

And then.

What an odd trivia night. Odd in its attendance; the rest of the place was packed, and my group contained Lisa, Jaye, Tim and a bunch of E's friends. Odd that we came in third out of twenty-two, four points off the lead, even though the subject of the quiz was literature and none of us was especially confident. Odd that we ran into Neil in the diner again afterwards--I wonder if this is going to happen every week?

E and Cheryl, of course, were at Roseland tonight, and it was a tiny bit awkward having E's friends around without the girl herself. They wound up bonding over the subject of fencing, which neither Jaye nor I is qualified to comment on. (Jaye was "PMSing", her word, and skipped out early--hopefully she'll be less mopey next week.)

My chief source of entertainment for the evening was the impossibly youthful lad who had been brought along by one of E's friends. My sense was that he was straight--he was completely oblivious to my checking him out repeatedly--but that's often even more fun. If he comes along next week I'll try sticking my tongue in his ear. Well, maybe I'll give that two weeks.

The Fynsworth Alley Contest looks like it was written by a virtual illiiterate. We all knew the label would be shedding its personality posthaste, but do they have to make it so painfully clear that they also don't give a shit about competence?

Anyone have 84.50 lying around? You might want to spend it to hear Michael Crawford sing a score that's actually good.

Or maybe not.

I like this one better than most.

Which Evil Criminal are You?

The following post is entirely for the purpose of testing my new method of notifying weblogs.com that my site is updated in order to please people like Matt. Pay it relatively little attention, even though it goes on for a while.

I'm kind of tired of how Bruce Yeko is using eBay as an online store for Original Cast releases, with $14.95 as the starting price. That's simply not what the place is for--we're supposed to pay bargain prices for things which aren't difficult to find and premium prices for things which are. I consider it a waste of time to have to scroll past Dearest Enemy every day, even if I still intend to buy it one of these days. Each listing costs him a few cents, so why doesn't he take a little plunge and put a secure checkout page on the OC web page? Or why doesn't he at least start putting pictures and more extensive information in his listings? Original Cast certainly can't be that much of a shoestring operation.

In further cast recording news, today I got the last two cast albums that Bruce Kimmel produced for Fynsworth Alley before he got canned. I haven't listened to the beautifully packaged Pete 'n' Keely yet, but I'm enjoying Do I Hear a Waltz? very much. The only significant criticism I have for the album (which applies to the production as well, I guess) is the omission of Renato's tour de force "Bargaining". As if to make up for it, the album includes several interesting little bits of music left off the original Broadway cast album (the risqué original lyric to "We're Gonna Be All Right" is happily restored now that Richard Rodgers is no longer around to object), lots of supporting dialogue, and a fine cut song ("Everybody Loves Leona"). The cast is a pleasure, with big-voiced Alyson Reed, Anthony Crivello and Carol Lawrence in the leads and the amusing Jack Riley and Elmarie Wendel in supporting roles--I don't know much about the Pasadena Playhouse, but this cast makes me think it's the West Coast equivalent of the Paper Mill. And, of course, there are the contributions of Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim, not the best work of either but excellent by any other standard. The album's not as much of a revelation as Fynsworth Alley's previous take on Bells Are Ringing, but I'll take it.

Be sure to stick around after the last track ends; there's a nifty bonus along the lines of that in No Way to Treat a Lady.

I ask you, was any of this worth reading?

I wonder if my buddies in Buffalo are enjoying their brand-new Apple Store. Sigh. The SoHo outlet is about a year in the future.

Ah well. The people at my neighborhood Mac-based retail store are very nice, and I imagine this will put them out of business. Better that they can pay the rent a bit longer.

Oh! Thanks, Jonathan--in all these years, I'd never been able to divine the meaning of "mind your P's and Q's". "P's" sounds like "please", and "Q's" sounds like the end of "thank-yous". Ha ha! I get it!

I think that in some odd way I lead a charmed life. I was just beginning to descend into a small panic over money, sure I wouldn't be able to survive for more than a month or two into the new year without a new job or some new shifts at the current one. And then I had a little conversation with one of the other doormen, one whom I only see when I'm filling in for another of them.

As so many of the doormen have lately, he mentioned how important it was to be competent and attentive during the Christmas season, to make sure all of the tenants are happy and tip well. Now, I had been hoping that the tips might add up to enough to allow me to pay my bills through January--five hundred dollars, maybe. But I didn't want to count on that, so I asked him.

He's expecting us to get about three thousand dollars apiece for Christmas. Every tenant (there are thirty) gives at least forty or fifty to each doorman, most give more than a hundred, and three are known to leave five hundred for each of us.

Now, did I see that coming? Did it result from a clever move on my part? No, I'm here to collect thousands of dollars because I've been bad at job hunting. The universe is all too thrilled to reward me for doing nothing in particular.

I swear I'm coming back in the next life as a snail.

So Elton John doesn't have time to accept his Tony in person, but he can appear at a bar in Boston to perform for a bunch of whiny lawyers?

Priorities, sister.

I got new slippers today, the old ones having long since broken their laces and developed holes in the fleecy inner soles. I've used the same moccasin design for a long time now, since they're the only slippers that aren't too girly for me to wear. The new ones have flannel inside instead of fleece, so they won't look worn out for a little while, and of course they have laces.

The best feature, though, is the color. Instead of the color of ginger snaps, they're the color of chocolate cake. I taste chocolate every time I look at them. How weird is that? My association with this color and texture is so strong that the taste comes along with it. Or maybe I just haven't had dinner yet.

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I-Con 21 will star Andreas Katsulas, Richard Biggs, Jason Carter and Julie Caitlin Brown from Babylon 5! Get your tickets now!

I think they knew they needed to make it up to us for I-Con 20--for the twentieth anniversary of the con, they couldn't come up with better headliners than Erin Gray and Brad Dourif? (Not to slight them, but they aren't exactly genre superstars.) Well, this clinches it. Even if they had Carter and Brown as guests already two years ago, and even if Katsulas refuses to sign autographs, and even if I have to miss a week's paycheck, I'm in.

Something for everyone!

Did Joyce Randolph, a.k.a. Trixie Norton, get a single punchline in the entire history of The Honeymooners?

A good-news, bad-news sort of weekend. I got to work on Saturday to find two weeks of paychecks waiting for me. (Good!) They had been delayed to permit the beginning of tax withholdings. (Okay...) The total withholdings were sixty dollars on a week's check. (Bad!) I absolutely can't afford sixty dollars a week--with other new expenses, that makes four hundred less I'll have a month, not two hundred like I estimated earlier. This would mean drastic cutbacks in my luxury budget. No plays, no CDs, no Pub Nights or Trivia Nights. Even then it would mean more debt.

The good news, or hopeful news, comes from the weekday late-night doorman I relieved that morning. He's an entrepreneur with a serious hankering to work more on his own projects and during business hours, and this job has seriously cramped his style. And as we were trading complaints, he blurted out that he might want to trade shifts.

And that's the whole ball game--I'd make at least six hundred more a month (not a salary you can move out on, but I'd break the twenty thousand mark). I could see shows at any of the standard 8 showtimes. I could go to Pub Night and Trivia Night, even if I'd have to leave a bit early. (I should be drinking less anyway.) I could have standard dates on weekdays and one late-night date every Saturday. I could do the work I've been doing for my parents without interruption. I'd be free for job interviews and business calls during the workday. And yeah, this is the shift when no one ever comes to bother me and I can watch TV or nap instead of having to bring a stack of unread books. So if I give up eight hours daily when I'm ordinarily just surfing the web or watching the Game Show Network (my Jerry Springer reruns are still watchable), I can make a quite reasonable salary. My soul would be substantially less destroyed if this came through.

Now, the guy has to decide to do it, mind you--but he's clearly in the mood for a change, and he has to make a decision for Fiscal 2002, so there's a shot. I also have to get the approval of the building manager (done; she loves me) and super (I don't see why he'd disapprove). And there's a slight chance one of the other doormen might want to fight me for the late-night shift...but I have more seniority than one of them, and the other has had the same shift for years and years. (And if he asked for it, I'd refuse to surrender my part-time shift, which would queer the deal. The evening shift would make my life hell.)

Anyway, the other thing is that Christmas is coming, and bringing TIPS and BONUSES with it. I don't know how much to expect, but between having 30 wealthy tenants and a healthy company, it'll easily be hundreds of dollars. There's my happy holiday right there, whether or not I get bumped up to "full-time" (which I have to put in quotes because it's more of a joke than a job). I'll be in trouble in the new year if I'm still working weekends, but hey. I've got to get lucky with a white-collar interview one of these days between my degrees and experience, and it might as well be before then. I certainly won't concern myself too much about it.

That's a new one, isn't it?

Oh boy...I just saw a commercial for Jenga: Truth or Dare, where the challenges and questions are stamped on the blocks. I don't play Jenga, and I don't play Truth or Dare, and I don't throw wild smutty parties. But Dude, I have to get this.

Wow! Karl Benz was born today! Happy birthday to the late Mr. Benz and anyone else unlucky enough to have been born in his immense shadow.

I'm feeling ridiculous a lot lately. My sister just phoned to ask me to play her the answering machine messages and get a phone number from her address book...but I was pissed off beyond belief because she called in the last five minutes of a show I was really getting into. (I'd also ding her for calling at midnight, but she knew damn well I'd be up.) Now that the experience is over and done with, it occurs to me that if it were that important, I could have just asked her to call back in five minutes or let the machine get it.

Ridiculousness part II: I've started to resent my father, the person primarily responsible for supporting me at the moment, because we're so much alike. Every time I see him lately I wind up muttering, "What the fuck is he doing here right now?" I'll get home at eight-thirty on a Monday morning after having worked all Sunday night and go straight to bed, and he'll blare 1010 WINS on the radio in the bathroom right next door, for oh, about two hours. I'll be in the mood to put on a porno tape and get...comfortable, and he'll sit down at the computer right next to my bedroom door and play solitaire for closer to three hours. And, as I've said before, every time I'm moments away from stepping into the bathroom to briefly groom myself before a date or a job interview, he hops into the shower and takes an ungodly amount of time to do whatever it is he needs to do. He's a regular fucking Santa Claus--he knows when I'm sleeping, when I'm awake, when I'm filthy and when I'm jerking off.

With my father I have the added difficulty of not being able to make adequate conversation. But I won't count that against him, as I would ideally prefer not to have to make conversation with anyone at all while sober.

Tonight I went out with someone I've seen five or six times now. And for the fourth or fifth time, he's been too tired to invite me home with him. On the night of our first date my parents were away, so I invited him home for a few very energetic hours. The events of that night have not been repeated, even in part. Tonight there wasn't even any discussion of whether it was a good idea as I bid him good night at the train station.

I'm beginning to wonder just what's going on. It might be a run of bad luck, because the times I've seen him certainly haven't been the best for both of us. (My schedule is virtually the opposite of a normal one, so there's only one night every two weeks where I'm entirely free at the same time as everyone else.) And he was snuffling all night tonight with allergies, and seemed eager to get to sleep. But we've now had quite a lot of dates without anything particularly romantic happening, and I'm concerned that the potential for it happening has diminished. I briefly thought that he might be hiding a boyfriend at home, but there'd be no point to lying about it--I think I've made it clear that I don't expect or desire complete fidelity.

The guy isn't cute by traditional standards, but I find his looks quite endearing. He's very bright and articulate, but he isn't driven crazy by my acting like a ditz half the time. We have a lot of opinions and interests in common, but not quite so many that we can't learn anything from each other. And the sex was substantially better than is necessary for a second date. There are lots of things I like about him, really. I don't want to see him wander off.

Yeah, yeah. I'll call him next week and demand to actually talk about these things instead of being coy and hoping they'll come up or be obviated by the situation.

Regarding Earth: Final Conflict...I can understand replacing the lead character, even after implying that he was in many ways special and would necessarily play a pivotal role in the events to come. (Babylon 5 did just that, although it also brought the lead character back for several episodes to play out the end of his storyline.) What I have trouble understanding is why a series would replace virtually its entire cast, leaving no characters for audience members to feel attached to. (Oh, there's one holdover: Von Flores as Ronald Sandoval. Between the ineptitude of his acting and the shrill nastiness of his character, he's going to have to be killed off several times before the series ends. Once will not be enough.)

I was excited about the show when I first heard that it was planning to follow a five-year story arc, again along the lines of Babylon 5. I can't imagine that these changes were part of the plan--certainly some people would go, but there's more intrinsic drama involved in creating a character and making her evolve over time than in killing her off at the first opportunity.

I suppose I don't have to watch the show. There just aren't many options on Sunday nights at three a.m., and if I want to read or listen to music, it's just more shit I've got to drag along to work with me. And again, the evening's all worth it for Andromeda. They started with the same raw material, notes stolen from Gene Roddenberry's desk after his death, but somehow Andromeda wound up with a terrific cast of characters, an engaging premise that was easy to follow and yet was somehow not too derivative of other sf series, and a pervasive sense of optimism.

Optimism! Great gods, we need that. EFC, like a lot of shows in other genres, responded to the public clamor for darkness and realism by draining out every drop of hope. What we wanted were situations in which our optimism might be tested, not ones that would demonstrate it to be unwarranted.

Survey: Gay college students less likely to use condoms than their straight peers

I think there's a consistent confounding variable in studies like this one: the simple fact that straight people have a far stricter operational definition of "sex" than gay people. We don't have an equivalent of vaginal penetration--anal sex is about as far as you can go, but many of us don't do it (or don't do it often). And while you kinda sorta should use condoms for oral sex, it isn't as crucial as using them for anal sex.

Are these surveys bothering to make a distinction? Judging from the informal ones I've taken myself, I think the answer is no. Barebacking may be chic enough to have its own nickname, but it hasn't reached epidemic proportions, certainly not to the point where straight people are putting us to shame.

I don't remember where I got it, but I recently got an incredible tip for hiding acne with makeup. (I was worried that I was being a little too demure and retiring lately.) Instead of trying to cover the thing entirely, just a little touch is enough...if the makeup is blue or green instead of flesh-colored. The resulting secondary color is something close to a natural skin tone. Not perfect, but I can get away with it under dim lighting conditions.

I've just broken out kind of badly, so I'm taking advantage of this little trick tonight--I'm having dinner with someone I met earlier this summer. I lost touch with him (he lost my contact info in a bad computer crash), and he only wrote again when I was really into one guy in particular. Now that I've cast my net a little wider, he's fortunately written again in response to a new ad I've placed, not realizing that I was the same guy.

Is this confusing? I'm half-asleep and in too much of a rush to edit.

So we're about to get reacquainted after a single months-old meeting. I expect we'll have lots to talk about--like, for instance, who the hell each of us is, as we've forgotten all about the other. And why portions of my face are blue.

One of my superstitious habits is to make a wish every time I look at a digital clock and the time is a straight (12:34, 3:45, etc.) or a flush (4:44, 5:55, etc.). For many years now, that wish has been for a boyfriend. More recently I've been trying to remember to wish for a job instead, but old habits die hard and I've been wishing first for the boyfriend.

It always bugs me, because the job is certainly a higher priority for me right now. Of course, given how reliable this method has proven over my adult life, maybe I should start wishing for world war or more reality television and leave the job and the boyfriend to attend to themselves.

Fuck. Mike, why don't you check your calendar before buying tickets to things, or before accepting invitations?

Lucky for you it's events that can be double-booked this time.

It's a little late to respond to Choire's birthday request, but why not. I don't think he reads me anyway, and it's an interesting exercise.

When asked what my parents know about my sexuality, my usual answer is "it's an open secret". Which is very true--they've seen copies of The Advocate and Out lying around my room, I'm fairly sure I've left a porn tape or two out where it could be seen, I was known to be a member of the gay-straight alliance in my high school, my hobbies would give one pause under any circumstances, and I've never had a girlfriend to the best of their knowledge. We just don't discuss my love life, period.

And I am happy about that in several ways. I remember how awkward it was when I was in high school and I'd get questions about whether I was dating anyone--awkward because it was my own damn business and I didn't feel like sharing it, particularly with my parents. The fact that I'm sexually active adds another wrinkle; the current arrangement allows me to sleep elsewhere for a night without an awkward scene the next morning. As my sex life is off-limits, it's as though I stayed over with a friend, plain and simple, and would I like some french toast?

The part I don't like to discuss...There is another reason why I've kept this up as long as I have. Not fear, really. More like anger. The first time I ever heard of homosexuality was from my mother, when I was in late elementary school. I was doing some kind of imitation of my sister to tease her, and this worried my mother. She took me aside and explained that I should try not to act this way, because that was how gay men acted and I didn't want to be like them.

Well. That messed my head up for a few years--for a little while I was in complete denial, choking back every thought about the male anatomy and forcing myself to think plenty about the female one. Standard torture. And the people I felt least able to tell, of course, were the ones right down the hall, as both of them tossed out little anti-gay asides occasionally once I was old enough to understand.

Over time it became clear that they were a little more sophisticated than they had let on--they were New York liberals, for crying out loud. A friend of theirs died of AIDS when I was in high school, and they helped with his cooking and laundry towards the end. Homosexuality wasn't the same taboo in the 90's as in the 80's. And, of course, it had started to become clear about me, and they were sensitive enough to expand their consciousnesses for my sake. On the third night of the Democratic convention last year, my mom bounded upstairs to tell me how much she had enjoyed Elizabeth Birch's speech. That was cool.

And? And I'm still not telling them. It makes sense in a lot of ways for me not to. And, incidentally, they hurt me a little and it gives me satisfaction to hurt them a little now.

Guess what, everybody? I'm a thief!

Well, sort of. I spent a little while tonight searching for a certain software package that was released for Mac OS X today, found it on Gnutella, downloaded it (three hours, not bad at all) and installed it. Which is a criminal act, I suppose...but I'm entitled to a free copy of that particular program as a UB student, so I have quite a decent rationale. I don't want to have to wait for my next trip to Buffalo to be able to do the very useful things that this software does.

Anyway, it's a treat. All Aqua-y. You wouldn't think this particular company (I'm being a wee bit anal, but I'd like to stay just barely under the radar) would do a decent job on Mac software, given that it has a virtual...well, that word would give it away, but it's the "M" word...on the market in this category. But I see myself being very happy using most of it, except for the part of it that's done better by a clunky old shareware program that I've been using since I was a freshman at Vassar. The rest of it's very attractive and, thus far, very stable.

Kudos, evil ones. I would try to avoid giving you money under any circumstances, but this is quite worth it.

I forgot the highlight of the concert: emcee Jim Caruso introduced Carolee Carmello as "a Tony winner for Parade". As Carmello took the stage, she happily said, "I'm sure Bernadette Peters will be disappointed to find out that she didn't win the Tony for Annie Get Your Gun."

Caruso didn't mention it when he returned, until his introduction of Priscilla Lopez at the end of the act. "She's a Tony winner...Yes, I'm fairly sure this one actually is."

Well, an evening with the boring and stupid (though admittedly very nice) guy is all right under certain circumstances--namely, Broadway's Helping Hand Benefit Concert. Announced performers Chita Rivera and Stephen Schwartz were unavailable, but we got Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway, Judy Kuhn, Bryan Batt, Christine Pedi, Carolee Carmello, Priscilla Lopez, Tovah Feldshuh and Andrea McArdle, plus Sally Mayes as an unexpected addition. Jim Caruso was very funny as the emcee, though for the life of me I can't remember what he sang.

And the delights just kept a'coming. Carmello provided a tremendous "I'm Going Back", demonstrating that she and not Faith Prince should have been entrusted with the Bells Are Ringing revival. Lopez gave us "Nothing"'s amusing answer song, "Something". Batt sang the first song he ever heard on Broadway...Gilda Radner's "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals". Pedi paid tribute to Eartha Kitt, Joan Rivers, Carol Channing, Ethel Merman and Marlene Dietrich (was that who she was doing? She didn't linger on the last one) with "I Will Survive". Feldshuh sang an extremely weird but utterly compelling medley of Gershwin songs interspersed with traditional Jewish music, her memories of childhood, and a monologue about her son's fraternity hazing. Mayes (who was very eager to get people to come to see her at Arci's) performed her comic number "Viagra", then followed it up with a huge-voiced "I'm Lost". She was one of the crowd's two favorites for the evening, the other being Ann Hampton Callaway (who was stunning on "Blues in the Night", then topped it with "Being Alive"). Naturally, McArdle closed the show well with an unmiked "Tomorrow".

Sure, it was disappointing that Liz Callaway had time for only a single number at the start of the show, and that Kuhn's version of "Meadowlark" (from the current production of The Baker's Wife) is simply not as good as Callaway's (or Patti LuPone's, for that matter). But all concerts have to have their weak spots. This one was pretty sturdy.

I may go back to Town Hall this spring for the Broadway By the Year series of concerts, featuring songs from 1933, 1940, 1951 and 1964 sung by Brent swoon Barrett, Liz Callaway, Karen Mason and Mary Testa, among others. Thirty bucks a pop, with a 20% discount if you order the series of four by December 15. It sounds thoroughly amazing, though I think I'll wait at least overnight before ordering...

I think we're scraping the bottom of the barrel with these by now...

Take the Affliction Test Today!

FBI Says Anthrax Mailer a 'Cold-Blooded Murderer'

Maybe it comes from having read too much Agatha Christie lately...but wouldn't it be cool if it turned out that the anthrax mailer was really just someone who was out to kill someone who worked in a mailroom somewhere, and hit on this as a way to do it without attracting attention to his own motives?

Upon speaking to Richard I learned that they had interviewed only one other applicant for that job last week.

Wow. I don't know how that makes me feel--should I be happy that I was one of the only two candidates deemed worthy of an interview, or upset that the only other candidate beat me out?

Oh, for crying out loud. I dated this guy about two months ago, was too turned off to even consider a second date, and told him that I wouldn't mind being friends. It's cruel to do otherwise when you're asked point blank, isn't it? He, of course, took me at my word and has been calling every few days to try to get together.

I've been lucky enough to avoid seeing him so far, but he hasn't taken the hint and waited for me to call. And over Thanksgiving week I couldn't pretend to be busy every day, so I'm seeing a show with him on Monday. Fuck. He is possibly the stupidest man I've ever had any sort of prolonged contact with--his speaking patterns and preferred conversational topics are indescribable. He has one of those New York accents where it sounds like you're always really bored (think Fred Stoller), compounded by the fact that he always whispers.

I should be flattered that he likes me enough to pay me this attention...but my suspicion is that he just doesn't have anyone else to call. Well, fine, then. I doubt he's bright enough to suspect that I feel like I've been trapped into this.

Cute coincidences: after trivia last night at Rocky Sullivan's, Dan, Lisa and I went off to a diner on the lower East side for lots of things that I shouldn't be eating together (blintzes, potato pancakes and pierogies with a black-and-white). Tim was there with some of his geek friends, and one of them was none other than Neil, an old high school buddy of mine. The last time I saw him was more than a year ago, when I ran into him on Broadway and we had coffee and hung out for a while. Eerily enough, he was at the time going to college in the same department as the guy I had a date with that night.

It's not much different this time--within minutes I discovered that he's a devotee of Narbonic. Yet another person from my high school days that has a connection to my college days totally independent of me. Let's recount these, actually:

1) Matt Fox, a.k.a. Mathias, went out with my friend Jen in high school (I met him on New Year's Eve 1993 and went to Rocky Horror with him the next night), then became involved with my housemate Karoline when we got to Vassar.

2) Karoline is the second cousin of Tommy Brown, who was in the same prom limo as Jen and I were.

3) I succeeded James Robinson as editor-in-chief of thedeepend (where Neil succeeded me, actually), and James went to Vassar.

4) Neil was succeeded by Arie, who then came to Vassar and became tight with Cheryl.

5) A competing humor magazine was founded by Rose, whom I had passed over for editor-in-chief. She then met Kate, who replaced Keri as Chronicler of the NSO (am I getting that right?).

I suppose this is better than my first days at Vassar, when Padmini was in my student fellow group and whatsisname and whosywhatsy were in my orientation group. At least these were all people I liked more than a little.

Y'know...I don't like having my time wasted, even when the purpose of what I'm doing is to waste time. It's lately been bothering me that Family Feud (which, sadly, is the best thing on in the early afternoon besides The Kids in the Hall, of which I've seen every episode ten times) only needs to be a third of its length. Some might say that it doesn't need to be a single second long, but I'm serious. There's no point to the game before the "sudden death" round.

To elaborate: to make the game more exciting, the final round is for triple the points, and a single mistake eliminates a team. Fine. Except that means that the team which wins that round always wins the game, regardless of who won the two or three rounds that preceded it. And the prizes for those two or three rounds are less than three hundred dollars total, spread over five adult family members.

I know that nearly all of the contestants and much of the audience are completely brain-dead, but surely someone's noticed how incredibly padded the show is.

Variety.com - New producing team signs on for 'Years'

Hee-frickin'-haw! This is terrific news.

I was concerned a few days ago that Susan Egan was absent from this week's Nikki, not even appearing in the opening credits. So I set out to learn the truth. As you might expect nowadays, I came up with nothing less than a week-old chat transcript that makes reference to the question at hand.

Mourning Missing From Heat Over Mysterious Ailment

How many people reading this would have come to the correct interpretation before looking at the article itself? The words "Mourning", "Missing" and "Heat" can be read several different ways, the prepositional phrase ("Over...") can attach to "Heat" or to "Missing", et cetera. On first glance I thought it was an article about grieving relatives who had lost loved ones in a late heat wave. Then I grasped that "Mourning" was a person, but figured he had gone missing because of a scandal involving some sort of STD.

I think the world could use more editors.

Bad Mike! Despite having planned to see it with lots of other people (I still will, never fear), I went with David to see Noises Off yesterday afternoon.

I think I liked it better than anyone around me--David was neither amused nor annoyed, but the people behind us were loudly saying how it was by far the worst thing they had ever seen on Broadway, starting ten minutes into the first act. (Yet they stayed, dammit.) Well, it certainly wasn't that bad. It could have benefitted from better direction, sound design and casting, but the writing is so strong that the execution can afford to be flawed.

Patti LuPone has again failed to find a role suited to her talents--billing notwithstanding, Faith Prince and Edward Hibbert outshine her and the usually offstage Peter Gallagher. (Prince looks terrific; apparently the strategy of the Bells Are Ringing people was to make her up as unattractively as possible to underscore the difference between her and Marc Kudisch.) Everyone else does what they're supposed to, and does it well.

If you know what you're in for in advance, it's a good two hours. Too bad, though, that they had to put the intermission after the perfunctory first act and not after the hysterical second; the audience would have been much more confident had there been big laughs before they had a chance to leave.

So, for a week and a half I got to pretend that I had a fantastic job lined up, something that was going to change my life. I'll always appreciate that I've had that week, right?

No? Didn't think so.

Anyway, that rounds out the list of things that might have made things seem just a teeny, tiny bit better, and instead left me feeling like absolute shit. (The guy hasn't been heard from in some days, so who knows what's up with him.) I was clinging to one last little superstitious hope, that since the bad things began with last Election Day, they would end with this one. I should have known yesterday morning that nothing was different at all.

The Fynsworth Alley web site is newly updated to reflect the release of Do I Hear a Waltz?, Pete 'N Keely and the new Stephen Schwartz album. It's very sad to look at; the personality that once permeated the site has been completely wrung out. The copy has clearly all been written by flunkies with only a passing familiarity with the music they're selling. And it's just tacky of them to act sad about the recent setbacks in the business of show music recordings, given that they are responsible for one of the biggest ones.

And you know what? I promptly bought Do I Hear a Waltz? and Pete 'N Keely. I feel crummy about it, but what's the alternative? Pretending they don't exist? I can't and won't do that. I've been excited about these albums for a long time, we're lucky to have them coming, and they remain very important to the people who created and produced the shows and to the wonderful cast members. The same goes for Brent Barrett's new album and the cabaret recordings by Klea Blackhurst and Donna McKechnie.

It's a terrible choice. But there is no true competition in this industry--one album is not an adequate substitute for another--so I don't feel I have the luxury of being able to boycott them even if they haven't treated my friends ethically. And that's what it's about, really; there's no question of skipping whatever RCA Victor releases in the future just because they fired Bill Rosenfield so disgracefully. They will release other albums, and I'll grimace and buy some of them too.

Not all. I bought nearly all the Kimmel/Levy creations even when I wasn't interested in the performer or composer, and threw in catalog albums with each order to boot, just because I liked the company and wanted it to succeed.

I don't know why anyone finds it reassuring that this is likely to have been an accident and not an act of terrorism. If three hundred people died because of the actions of one group, we can figure out what that group did and prevent it next time.

How can we prevent engines from falling off the planes? This is something I'd never had occasion to worry about before.

Dan (not Sparky) has suggested an outing to Kiki & Herb's Christmas show on Nov. 30. Anybody care to join us? Bloggers, college people, Pub Nighters, whoever you are.

Fleetwood Mac's New Chapter Begins Without Key Member

How utterly bizarre. Christine McVie's dislike of touring has been known for quite some time--she appeared on the album Time but sent a session keyboardist on the road in her place--but this is the first time she's declined to record her own songs for a Fleetwood Mac album. (Of course, her Time songs used a completely different crew from the rest of the album, suggesting that she phoned them in later and never participated in the main sessions. The quality of her contributions to the last three albums further supports that idea.)

One might have expected the total freaks Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to beg off, citing their deep and abiding mutual hatred and their oft-stated desire to work on more solo projects. But apparently they're working more closely together than ever, almost certainly because they've realized to their chagrin that they're far more popular together than apart. They must be ready to murder each other by now.

This album is going to be so fucking cool.

Mmm. I have New Toothbrush Mouth.

Wonderful! I'm not a complete idiot!

When I left school, I impulsively decided to fill my coffers by selling all of my textbooks. A wise move, overall...except that I hadn't taken my comprehensive exams yet, leaving me with little to study from. The New York Public Library seems to have almost nothing on linguistics, incredibly enough. I also threw away most of my notes as a symbolic gesture. Heh heh.

Of course, I should have known that I would never have let myself do something foolish that could not be remedied somehow. I didn't throw away all of my notes, as it turns out--only those from classes unrelated to subjects I have exams in. I still have syllabi (with reading lists), outlines, and big stacks of photocopied articles. Papers with comments, too.

When I go back in a month, I'll know something or other about everything I'm being tested on. And yes, Virginia, I'm gonna get my degree.

Earlier this evening I had one of the oddest sexual encounters of my life, one which I simply must blog about even if it's a bit indiscreet. The guy e-mailed me earlier in the week, directing me to his ad (fairly interesting) and saying that he'd be in town on Friday. He was more or less my type in several respects, so I decided to throw caution to the wind and at least meet him for a drink.

Said drink went moderately well--he was friendly, inquisitive, and had a knack for identifying my defining traits. I was flattered that he had such an interest in me, and agreed to return to his room with him.

It was only once there that I learned that he considers himself bi, and, because of this, is an exclusive top who will not perform oral sex or kiss men. That's an odd little leap of logic, but not one that necessarily destroys everything. What destroyed everything was that he was, to boot, impotent, making all other forms of sexual contact beyond masturbation impossible.

I kept thinking, "Now why am I here again?"

Once sex doesn't go well, too, other problems begin to arise. There's a fine line between assertiveness and pushiness, and between inquisitiveness and nagging. Eventually I sent him packing and went back for a nightcap at the Duplex...which ultimately salvaged the evening, as I met and spent a few hours with the cute guy who chatted with me on Halloween. He may or may not be interested in a date or even a quickie--he's a jovial, affectionate type who may have paid me attention without meaning anything by it--but I was interested in his company, which is just the tonic I needed after those torturous hours.

Who knew it might be ill-advised to have sex with people you barely know? Ah well. It just goes to further pique my interest in the serious contenders I have on deck.

Update, 2/14/2003: All right...this post is accessed daily almost two years after I wrote it. Could one of you people reading it let me know how the hell you found it and/or why the fuck you care?

I like having readers, but I don't especially want to get them through a freak of Google that I can't even explain.

Topping my list of recent irritants: eBay just added a "checkout" section to its item pages, with which confirmed auction winners can send their payments conveniently to the sellers. Great, right?

I have yet to be able to use it to complete a transaction in a single sitting. Most sellers have different rates for domestic and international shipping, and the system is not intelligent enough to determine if you qualify for the lower domestic rate based on the address you give it...so nine times out of ten it will allow the bidder only to e-mail a request for a shipping total to the seller. You know...like we've been able to do since day one of eBay, except slightly automated.

A moment ago I used it and was excited to find that the seller was not accepting international bids, and had specified a single rate for shipping. Perfect! I'd be able to pay with one click.

That is, if the seller accepted eBay's payment system. The final page read "Congratulations! You have completed Checkout. Please submit payment to the seller." So I essentially sent the seller an e-mail saying who I am, what my address is, and that I'll be sending payment shortly. (Which I did through PayPal a minute later without any problems.)

As far as I can tell, this feature offers no benefits whatsoever. I understand eBay's desire to take some popular bid functions in-house and keep some of the cash for itself, but they've got to do a lot better than this.

Bleh.

This year's Encores! shows: Carnival, Golden Boy, and The Pajama Game. Three shows that aren't really done often anymore, but are still very much around. Two scores which have not exactly vanished into obscurity, and a third which still has a cast album in print because of its irreplaceable star. No serious opportunities for major new recordings that offer very much.

The musical theatre canon is not so impoverished that a series created to focus on flops (or long-forgotten hits) needs to bring up shows which are already familiar to virtually everyone who will be attending. Shit, I saw The Pajama Game at my high school--is it going to be much different with, say, Patrick Wilson as Sid and Cady Huffman as Babe?

You know who I'm really angry at? Mark Green.

I still don't like Bloomberg, and I still get tense when I hear him referred to as the Mayor-elect on TV, but the blind rage evaporated once those damned TV commercials stopped running. The constant attempts to sell him to me kept stoking the coals of my hatred, and I'm willing to appraise him more fairly now that they've stopped. He did what he had to do to get elected, and it was entirely fair and effective. I'm unconvinced, but whatever. We'll get over having a quasi-Republican in office.

As Bob Herbert said in the Times today, though, it did not have to be this way. At any stage in the campaign, Green could have played it like a decent human being instead of like a creep, and he would probably have won by at least a nose. What on earth was he thinking doing any of that? I'm still walking around all confused about it. Mistakes of this magnitude simply should not happen--when you need to pull together an unusually diverse coalition of voters, you can't write the minority vote off! Neither can you score points with scandalmongering attack ads that are irrelevant, unimportant and unlikely to even have their roots in the truth.

I don't understand it. Two huge trump cards to play, and he instead falls into all the traps that he's supposed to be able to avoid after twenty years in some office or other. How can you not stress how much experience you have, when it's the single most important thing your opponent lacks? How can you not speak gushingly about your plans for the next four years, when your opponent doesn't have plans that are nearly so extensive?

I'd have forgiven this had he won--at least then we'd have the city back for the Democrats. But as it stands, Green is now up there with Liz Holtzman, whom I have detested ever since she brought Geraldine Ferraro down in the '92 Senate primaries and allowed Al D'Amato to win a third term despite pathetic approval ratings. We hold our grudges a long time in New York. Green had better hope someone gives him a professorship somewhere, because this is the end of his political career.

When you've gotten what you want, something that upsets a lot of other people, you would be well advised to have a little bit of tact about it.

There are certain people I don't feel like speaking to right now, because this is frankly not the right time to jump in and start defending The Way Things Are to me. I can and will accept most turns of events given a bit of time, but until the wounds heal, I will want to sock you in the jaw if you make any kind of smirky comment.

Are we clear?

Celebrity editions of game shows are usually much worse than standard episodes, given that celebrities aren't famous for their encyclopedic knowledge of trivia. (But you knew all that from Saturday Night Live's classic "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches, right?)

I discovered the exception a little while ago. Today Family Feud features a faceoff between cast members of General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, and it's better than most episodes. Regular Feud contestants are, well, dumber than stumps--how else to account for the fact that they're playing for four grand apiece, lower than the grand prize on even Win Ben Stein's Money? The format of the show, too, demands not that they think of clever answers but that they give the most generic ones they can think of. (Someone, I forget who, pointed this out the other day.)

Celebrities, of course, are at a disadvantage here, as they have a bit more sophistication than the one-step-from-Springer families who usually appear. In other words, their responses are more likely than most to be clever or at least off-color.

Case in point: the question was "Name something a right-handed person with a broken right arm might have trouble doing." One lady from General Hospital immediately answered "masturbating".

Broadway.com On Stage! Online.

Bad news for all. It's a hysterically funny show, and I think I'm going to try my damnedest to go again before it shuts down. (Just like I'm doing my best to see The Fantasticks before it goes; it's just priceless.)

If anyone wants to see one of those with me, just ask. Ditto for Noises Off, which I don't think is in danger of closing anytime soon. So far Jeff, Karoline, Dan and possibly others from the other night's Buffy viewing are in.

Anyway, that's that. As usual, I feel better having had a long sleep and sobered completely up from the night before.

As for Bloomberg...no, I don't hate him for most of his positions, though he was about the only major candidate who declined to march in the gay pride parade and has expressed reservations here and there about rights legislation. (Mark Green's web site contained comments in support of gay marriage, but I never saw a single reference to gay rights on Bloomberg's.) I don't hate him for any of that.

I hate him for claiming that his private sector experience is equal or superior to experience at the top levels of local government. It's one more instance of Republicans sneering at government and what it can do. And, of course, it's entirely hypocritical--if the public sector was such a trifling place to be, they wouldn't be spending their fortunes on campaigning to join it.

My second beef with Bloomberg is that with the exception of the two weeks following Sept. 11, he has not left us alone for as much as an hour. Not a commercial break went by in New York without a "Mike for Mayor" spot. An extraordinary expense, one which even a New York Democrat (particularly one with a primary) could never be expected to duplicate.

My third beef is that the Bloomberg TV and radio spots were so goddamn annoying, grating at first, then full of cheap shots and cheap sentiment.

My fourth is that I find it so repellent that the terrorist attacks managed to singlehandedly reverse the course of the election. They certainly weren't his fault, but he benefitted from them just the same.

My final complaint was seen at the end of the New Jersey campaign, where Giuliani did commercials for the thoroughly icky Bret Schundler. It didn't work under these circumstances, of course, but might it later? Forget about what positions he's taking and what plans (if any, that's another problem I have with him) he has. He is a big feather in the cap of the GOP, and he will help them win other races with candidates who aren't gay-friendly at all.

Motherfucker.

That's two.

If you voted for Bloomberg, you know what you can go and do as far as I'm concerned. (And Green still has only himself to blame for fucking it up so thoroughly.) But that's almost irrelevant.

Dear Lord, I need this job. I've just gone on the books in the doorman job, I've been asked by my parents to pay for my grandmother's medical alert bracelets in lieu of rent, and I will have to start paying my student loans back in a month or so. That's about a $200 increase in my monthly expenses when I'm not raking it in to begin with.

I need this job. And I don't have any optimism working for me anymore. Everything important that's going to happen to me from now on is going to be shitty, I just know it. I know it. The Yankees can't handle a mediocre team in the series, and a Democrat can't win in New York, so how can I land a job or a relationship? The odds are against me.

And I can't handle this much longer. The rest of the world just sucks, utterly sucks, and I don't have a happy little bubble I can close around myself to keep it from grating on me. No job, no life, no nothing. No hope that tomorrow is going to be better, or that the best days are ahead. I can't bear another disappointment with good humor. Not one more.

Bugger! Eudora is refusing to pick up my mail again, and I need to stay updated on things like who's coming to watch Buffy tonight. (If you're reading this and in New York, you're invited. Just write me and ask how to get to my house.)

Everything on my computer has been breaking lately. Not in a serious or lasting way, just in a way that's sure to be annoying.

A few days ago I was thumbing through the liner notes of an album in Sony's West End series (which includes the Judi Dench Cabaret, the Larry Kert Company, and other things that are now very rare), and I noticed a reference to On the Town as part of the same series. I hadn't been at all aware that it was ever on CD, actually. Me!

So I went onto GEMM and lucked out, and today I got my copy. Not at all bad...but I can only wish that someone had had the sense to instead record the Broadway revival with Bernadette Peters, Phyllis Newman and Donna McKechnie as the principal ladies. How can you beat that?

The Mark Green ads running today (regarding Mike Bloomberg's responses to a sexual harassment suit and an employee's unplanned pregnancy) are so sleazy and obviously desperate that I almost don't want to vote at all.

I will vote, of course, because I don't want the evil of the world to force New York to suffer the additional indignity of a third term of Republican government. But it's just pathetic that this was the only way he felt he could respond to Bloomberg's (equally incompetent but somehow more successful) campaign tactics.

Eight years ago, the New York Times' endorsement of Dinkins was withering in its faint praise; I remember it saying that "something is seriously wrong with a system that does not produce candidates stronger than David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani". And it's as true now as it was then. Everyone who is not pitied for his obvious ineffectuality is detested for his memorable character. Makes you weep.

Apparently ICQ has gone psycho--I don't know whether it's just my setup or a general failure, but it's gone down and I can't get a connection with any of my clients. AIM is always better for me anyway.

One down.

Tonight: the social event of the season, Cheryl's birthday party in midtown. I ran with a few different crowds at Vassar which overlapped but were still easy to differentiate--whereas Hank and Carolyn's engagement party was a reunion for the Tribe, this was a big late-period NSO night.

Among the great pleasures of the evening: seeing Karoline and Jaye chatting merrily for what might be the first time since their breakup last year. Explaining to Lisa what I had to do to get a job recommendation. Flirting with E, but ultimately giving Allison (post-Long Island Iced Tea) the big wet smooch on the lips. Getting sympathy from John over missing a chance at a four-way. (He says that being straight in no way prevents him from seeing the tragedy of such a situation.) Buying that drink I owed Andy, but deciding to do the pub thing anyway with him and Michelle some time next week. Talking politics with an unexpectedly liberal Dave D. Getting hit by Dave B.'s errant Frisbee throw. Stepping over Keri to get to the bar, only to lose my hard-earned couch spot. And seeing cameos by Matt, Tim W., Tim R., Bartow, Shelley, and a few people I could recognize but didn't know from Adam.

I drank far too much for someone who has to be up in the morning, but I had a tremendous time. Fuck, I should be doing this every week. Life is just too short to allow people you care about to fade into the shadows when one night is sufficient to bring them all out.

I'm no good at this positive thinking stuff. In the next week, the Yankees could win another World Series. Green could win back the New York mayorship for the Democrats. I could reach a new level (of sorts) with a guy I've been seeing sporadically for a month or so. And I could get myself a new job with a good salary, outstanding benefits and a real chance to start a career.

The flip side of each of these scenarios is apparent. Oh, and American society could spin on its axis once again, with more death and destruction and uncertainty about the things we take most fundamentally for granted.

My problem is that I don't see these as alternatives, but inevitabilities. I see the events of the first category in the same light as I might see myself winning the lottery, as things that would be nice but that are going to be denied me. Well, not quite the same. I don't have any emotional investment in the lottery.

God, I want this job. I didn't want to take the sales job, or the doorman job, or even the software startup job of last year. They brought paychecks with them, and that's about it. This would give me a life, from zero to sixty in nothing flat. I did close to my very best in the interview, I bring lots of things to the table they seem to want, and I have the recommendation of the person I'd be replacing.

And I see the job hanging just out of reach, and I see it being snatched away. Just as surely as I see the Diamondbacks winning the last two games, or Bloomberg picking up a few thousand unexpected swing votes, or my squeeze deciding he's not as interested in me as I am in him.

Just as surely as I see those sons of bitches taking something else away from us, something else we didn't realize we loved or needed so much.

My Encores! tickets have arrived--February 8, March 22, and May 3. Good deal at $10 apiece, though I imagine they'll be unbelievably far back at those prices. Still, I'm sure I'll see something.

Oh, regarding the interview: I'm fairly psyched. I did all right with the HR person and a director of new media I had to meet with, but I think I really knocked out the two editors (it's a publishing company) I met with; the conversation went briskly and covered the relevant points on my résumé exhaustively. They were interested in the Cast Recordings FAQ, which I played up as both a simple example of my coding skills and a strong example of my attention to detail. I even went into my tenure at New Directions five years ago, which they were eager to hear about. One of them even said something that indicated that she felt I was a shoo-in (which I hope is not just wishful thinking).

I like the place, too. The title of the job is "Editorial Assistant", which is an entry-level position with really flexible requirements. It comes with decent pay (I could probably move out before long), benefits (fantastic), and lots of different responsibilities. I could theoretically start with a concentration on simple things that don't require training, then over time begin to take on duties in copy editing and proofreading that I'm not qualified to do yet. It's a big and long-lived company that's been doing well even in the current economy (so it's a secure job), and the corporate culture is very warm and nurturing. I really think I'd thrive there.

We'll know more in a week or so. Whether I get this or not, my confidence has gotten a real boost out of the interview--I went in not thinking that I had even a remote chance, but whipped up a full head of enthusiasm and left with wide eyes and some real excitement.

I think I've now been thoroughly corrupted. I just bought a carton of cigarettes off Esmokes.

Oh, who are you to judge me.

I've been smoking on Wednesday nights at Pub Night just for fun. That's the thing they never tell you in those anti-tobacco ads, that smoking is fun and cool. It is! It can be a filthy habit if you need a few packs a day, but a pack every two or three weeks is different. As far as carcinogens go...well, given that we're inhaling asbestos and benzene and pulverized concrete and incinerated people with every breath now, it's a little harder for me to take those risks seriously.

One carton will, I think, last me for about six months of Pub Nights at this rate. Maybe I'll have a job by then!

Incidentally, why hasn't Mark Green been running ads that say, oh, "How in God's name can you even think of putting someone in office now who hasn't ever held public office before?"

If you live in New York and don't vote for Green, I'm going to be so fucking pissed at you it's not funny. In case it's not clear, I loathe Bloomberg, who certainly has his nerve running for mayor. It's infuriating that he's been able to capitalize on all of this by spending a fortune on stressing his one dubious strength. (Does being a successful businessman suggest that he's capable of rebuilding the city? No, but he's betting you don't know that the mayor's role in urban development is different from Donald Trump's.) Infuriating that he has as little to offer today as he did two months ago, but the murder of thousands of people has given him political capital he doesn't deserve.

I don't like Green at all anymore, but that's still no less than I've liked anyone that I've ever voted for. He's adequately prepared for the job, and that's what matters. Please get him in office and send the poser back where he came from.

God damn it. I hate this--hate that I'm almost guaranteed to miss every single opportunity I have to see anyone romantically. Should an unexpected chance come up to see a great guy when neither of us has work in the morning, rest assured I'll be busy that night. If several cute guys get friendly with me when I'm out at night, I'll have a job interview first thing the next morning.

I'm free just about all the time, except any time I might possibly hope to get laid.

I need to comment on tonight while it's still fresh in my mind. Yet I'm still tipsy and have to be up in three hours or so for a job interview. What to do.

Ah well. So tonight I tried as casually as possible to set two of my exes up with each other, and seem (at first glance) to have succeeded in setting the stage. Over a few hours I got them talking alone a great deal, which has got to be a good sign.

And somehow I managed to get some attention for myself, sort of. When I retired to the Duplex for what should have been the final drink of the evening, a nice-looking guy kept smiling at me. Cool, but I found myself wishing that his cuter friend were the one doing the smiling. He eventually said hi and drew us into conversation. And I wound up talking alone with the cute friend for some time.

All of which would be terrific, except that (a) the cute friend was busy with a host of other guys as well as me (he was very cozy with one in particular for a few minutes), and (b) the less-cute guy wouldn't accept that I was principally interested in his friend, and wound up kissing me as the evening wore on. It's hard to stop someone from kissing you--I would have just accepted the kiss graciously had I not been trying to indicate interest in the friend, who was still in the room.

Eventually the clock struck four and it became massively necessary for all of us to go. The hornier of the two guys suggested breakfast (and implied that a trip to Eastchester was in order), but I demurred. And I'm pissed off that I had to; I wanted (and want) to find out exactly what was going on with the cute guy. But he has my number, so maybe I'll be getting clued in next week.