gay politic..tic,,tic

Interesting issues surround Sean Penn's nomination for best actor for the movie MILK, named for Harvey Milk, the first out gay elected politician in the US. At the same time that FOX News is being outed for omitting the little detail in reporting on the film- "It's about a politician in the 70s...Sean Penn smiles a lot.....will have a small audience-" in other words belittling the film's significance because it is about gay America.

Dear FOX NEWS, why not just state you hate, loathe and otherwise don't cover films about homosexuals, instead of this slimy code.

Meanwhile, Penn is also getting heat from The Advocate for his article in The Nation 'Conversations With Chávez and Castro.' Unlike Castro Street, the Castro Bros. now co-dictators have a genocidal record for Cuba's state policies and treatment of homosexuals since the revolution.

Stay tuned

Thanks to by Derek this week at L2 Restaurant for this shot. I need to prove to Bill that I don't put old photos on my blog.

POTD by Jan Carroll

I'm thinking Moby Dick on Ice

bloggerdriller

Idiot's delight

That two ton political Tessie, Rush Limbaugh is at it again this week. Not content with all of the publicity he got over venal "I want you to fail" statements hurled at the President in his first week in office, he thinks he's baited the president into a serious tete- a -tete. "By telling Republicans not to listen to me, he wants me to fail." Oh, Rush, how hard can you blow.

short story

Toss

“You’re getting it wrong, we don’t have to be there yet.”
Lance said without glancing up from his book.
“Thanks for telling me.” I, Scott, said back limply.
“Well , don’t sulk.” My once and only lover for a brief and shining moment, cooed.
“Let’s just have a drink before we go.”

That kind of sums up our relationship now, on the 18th month track to the badlands. Unspontaneous, predictable, slouching toward Cheeveresque.

Shame I can’t say that he might laugh and we would actually have to decide to split.

I’ve suspected he was having an affair or at least anonymous sex, perhaps both, for about a year. Not that he doesn’t give me complete satisfaction as a husband and a lover, but lately there is a nagging vibe of a been there, fucked that, attitude.

“What are you reading?” I ask as I make our martinis, knowing that it is one of his pet peeves to be interrupted from reading to tell someone what he is reading.

“Nancy Drew and the missing dildo, smart ass. Actually, I’m bored with it so I’m not going to finish it, so you didn’t really get me.” Lance then hurls the book in the corner. He likes to throw things. It‘s his trademark actually. He told me once he would throw everything within reach as a child and that his nickname was ‘Chuck’.

On our first date we got out of the cab and he tossed his wallet to me and said “Can you pay him, you beautiful man. I’ll be busy looking at your ass.” Even though he could sound like a mutant member of The Rat Pack, he was actually very romantic.

How could that fire be going out so quickly? I ask myself, immediately putting it out of my mind when he switches on the tv and we have the safe zone of discussing the news. We are both broadband liberals and that has kept a lot of passion in our relationship.

Just as I was mind-munching on this, Lance, downing his drink with a flourishing ‘Ahhh’ said “Ok, Scott, let’s walk so we don’t have to talk. Great, now he was fucking reading my mind.

“You hate walking.” I said.
“Well, you hate talking, so we’re even.” he said.
He swept open the closet door and pulled out our between season leathers for the theater.
“Let’s switch them. Your coat goes half way over my ass which I think looks good on me.“

Lance said this without a hint of vanity even though it sounds completely egotistical. He actually doesn’t even think of himself as attractive, but has an very natural style about what looks good on his body. He could have been a model because of his bored attitude and neutral, read pissed off, leer.

“Yes but yours looks way too short on me.”
“Wear a sweater and it will look great. Anyway, you are always in my closet, so you can lend me your jacket.” He said, tossing it to me, like we were roommates now instead of lovers.

Another piece of evidence of his evolving decision. Transparent as cheap glass sometimes is a thought I’ve had before.

“Sure.” I said limply not noticing that he was actually having another drink.

When I turned back around Scott was crying. It was the very first time I saw him cry outside of a wayward tear during sex the first night we met. I never forgot it and over time thought that it was not the result of a sneeze, but that he was actually smitten by me in the first blush of love or lust or some emotion that he couldn’t really control.

Politic,,tic,,tic

Gov. Rod Impeachhimasfastasyoucan Blagojevitch doing the talk show news circuit to make his case as the Illoinois legislature listens to FBI recordings of him trying to make quid pro quo deals for Obama's Senate seat. Everybody but his hairdresser and his newly unemployed wife knows for sure.

upcoming for The Philadelphia Flower Show

Delphinium, A Gay Garden May 2000,

with new verses featuring the cast of Amaryllis Stem Theatre loitering with intent.

metroscape

Rittenhouse Square snowy and sloshy with clouds hanging like Miss Haveshaim's drapes. Want it to be a snow day, but there is not enough to play hooky without guilt, so will just return 'Tongues Untied' and 'There Will Be Blood' to the RS library branch instead of playing in the snow. Want to chase down motorist on my bike and splash them back. They are tearing around the Square deliberately hitting puddles and otherwise menacing the Rittenhouse doves trying to cross the streets in the wrong shoes.

LsOTD-

Checking in on Jeremy Denk's blog to read more about those tormenting dreams of insane sandwiches, which should be painted by Dali descendent, I found he has clips of his live piano. Which is along with this entry, is like spending the afternoon together.

“Go home,” they will say, “write a poem, eat a bagel, have a massage, do a crossword puzzle, fall in love, and then, only then, come back. “

-travel entry, ThinkDenk

Mozart's birthday which is really just another of a gazillion reasons to remember to listen to his music. All day on WRTI if you can buzz out the pledge drive banter, course, they must hate doing it themselves. Wolfgang was always broke, begging his dad to send him money and always answering to Leopold over rumors about him.

Qotd- Letter from Wolfgang to Leopold-

"The voice of nature speaks as loud in me as in others...I am able to swear to you that I have never had relations with that sort of female-for if such a thing had occured I would not have concealed it from you."

potd by Jan Carroll

So much for the Weather Channel. While we are waiting for snow how about Jan's

'Wish on Ice'

Dancemetros

A gray damp Sunday turned into a fab afternoon at the rehearsal of KYLDancers at CHI Dance studios that really has turned into a haven for dancers and independent companies in Philly. Dancer-choreographer Kun-Yang Lin and his partner Ken were directing Kun Yang's dance company internationally from there NY base, when they decided to relocate. Lin was also teaching at Temple and he decided to establish his company here. The couple put off trying to adopt a baby and used their savings to to buy and convert a building on S. 9th St. for their studio/performance space. They will make great parents, meanwhile they are welcome gay godparents to the dance community in Philly.

Obamerica

Weekly address - A man and his missions- clear, decisive, not playing to beltway fallout, with ideas in place to tackle a massive mess.... Ariana Huffington headlines Obama's 1 week policy changes and intiatives on Huffington Post. Sharp and hot profile of COS Rahm Emanuel by MARK LEIBOVICH in the NYTs Sunday.

cosmia fiamma

latest from NASA STEREO spacecraft images

POTD by Jan Carroll 'Hints'

What to wear if accused of being a witch and sleeping with your stepson

For the concert version of La Fiamma, Jan Cornelius wears a jaw-dropping burgundy organza body tight opera gown with a stiff outflowing bias and inlay corset laces at the back. The gown is completed with fiery pewter diamond necklace and tear drop earrings. If she is going to go down in ariatic flames, she'll do it in high style.
Earlier this year she also nailed the Elizabethean couture of Anna Bolena

AVA ignites La Fiamma at the Perelman last night

When the bewitched, bothered and beleagered Silvana, decides that she may have inherited dark powers from her recently burned at the stake mother in 7th century Ravenna, she confesses her love to her stepson Donello. Gasp! Call Mia.

Ottorino Respighi’s ‘La Fiamma’ is fully ignited with inappropriate relationships and botched spells that are otherwise on operatic fire in AVA's concert version.
The witch and the stepson, played by soprano Jan Cornelius and tenor Michael Fabiano, don’t merely have a brief stage kiss, this is a cinematic lip lock.

The Flame is the first Respighi that musical director Christofer Macatsoris has mounted at AVA, but if there were any technical flaws it hardly mattered. Fine detailing and robust pacing in the Respighi score, with its relentless forward moving narrative of both text and orchestration.

bloggerslacker

Bit creepy that last one. All those heads. Now for something completely posh.





POTD by Jan Carroll

Syd ala Veronica Lake

Rush, Ann and Bay

The axis of evil. The three right wing circus. Republican shills. Xenophobic, homophobic, bigoted- ah. who cares. They are just ugly inside. Actually, I'm grateful to them because they are so toxic that even former supporters are turning on them. Rush has gone from being just garden variety gasbag to a methane cloud. His latest blowhard pronouncement about Obama "I just want him to fail." is the limit.

It's almost like the reincarnation of that self-righteous slob Joseph McCarthy. Limbaugh is crowing about the Obama's mission of "absorption" of private enterprise. It would be different if the man was too stupid to be an idiot, but he really wants the president to fail so he can be finish some venal scenario that has no relation to reality outside of his fat head. Rush, cram it down your own throat along with your oxy perscription.

This has totally ruined my morning- All of their bobble heads swirling around mine. Ann especially looks like she could rend the flesh of a rhino. Oh, that would be Rush. And Bay- she's slash/ gore wrapped in botox around a collogin.

Next up Ann's vitriol and tonic and Bay's frightwig

Rearview

As engrossing as the Curtis Symphony Orchestra concert was on Tuesday night, I couldn't help notice a couple who kept napping- one or the other and sometimes together, their heads would sink down- bonk- out cold. They must not have been making any noise because there was no rustle by others around them.

Blogerslacker

Catch me if you can

Lui commands in Barber concerto

Fine program on inaugural night in Verizon Hall where Chistoph Eschenbach was back conducting the Curtis Symphony Orchestra with guest pianist and alum Meng-Chieh Liu. Liu's technically lush command in Samuel Barber's opus 38 piano concerto just splashed over the audience, with Curtis' mighty strings again smashing any wormholes in Verizon. Lui has made a remarkable return to the concert stage after an immobilizing muscle disease with his doctors giving him zero chance of resuming his concert career. His knowledge of his own body, will & therapy proved them wrong.

inaug comments on CNN facebook w/2m.others/in reverse order

state functions.via CNN.com Live - 11:46pm - Comment
The Carters were Arthur Murray dancers, the Clintons were pretty rote, but occassionally had romance. The Bushes were horrible, George couldn't even manage a box step and he would pump Laura's arm like a chicken wing. Later in his presidency he had dancing torrets and would have spells at state functions to the shock of the world.via CNN.com Live - 11:44pm - Comment
Past Presidential dancers- The Kennedys were the classiest, the Reagans went through the MGM so they were polished within an inch of their lives, the Nixons weren't bad, but he was used to being dodgeyvia CNN.com Live - 11:41pm - Comment
Michelle's gown would look better aswirl, he needs to lead her out of that prom sway.via CNN.com Live - 11:38pm - Comment
Barack is ready to break out his dance moves, but only when he feels he's part of a group, then he will move as well as he does on the basketball court.via CNN.com Live - 11:34pm - Comment
is watching some really bad dancing, but the music is bad too. The GLBT ball has to have a better dj, but have they been there yet?via CNN.com Live - 11:32pm - Comment
is wondering how foolish those people who took their money out of banks and bought extra guns feel now when they witness this magnificent display of diversity.via CNN.com Live - 5:17pm - Comment
is glad that gay America was represented via the music of Aaron Copland.via CNN.com Live - 1:06pm - Comment
Poems for occassions are always self-conscious and Elizabeth captured beautiful epochal themes, although she could have strengthened with imagery & tonality.via CNN.com Live - 12:53pm - Comment
A transformational leader already.via CNN.com Live - 12:08pm - Comment
Emily, yeah I have some fouffy stuff on for this. Wish I was going to the GLBT ball in DC tonight. I have an outfit.via CNN.com Live - 10:59am - Comment
Wish my late lover Jack was here to see this.via CNN.com Live - 10:57am - Comment
Write a comment...EditLewis is not paying for cable and catching up online thank the gods.via

We are experiencing technical and mental difficulty. Please stand by. In the event of an emergency you will be instructed to camp out under your desk

The Dream

“Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same Mall where Dr King’s dream echoes still. As we do, we recognise that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked,” said Mr Obama. “We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let’s remember King’s lesson – that our separate dreams are really one.”

TIMES LONDON 1.19.2009

Flashback LOTD- The Long National Nightmare is Over

LOTD

3:32. "Tormented by dreams of insane sandwiches."
Jeremy Denk, concert pianist, having trouble sleeping on a London flight.

metroscape

Noticing that this could actually be a snowday in Philly, which gets rarer with each global warming decade. Then checking how heavy it was getting when I checked the mail so I could ignore more bills, when I remember that there is no mail because it is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Happy MLK Day!

Later, walking through Rittenhouse Square, sparer than usual with commerce, this is a day of reflection. Reading King's words on the civil rights movement in Parting the Waters, after the Kennedy assassination-

"Because I'm convinced that had he lived, there would have been continual delays, and attempts to evade it at every point, and water it down at every point..But I think his memory and the fact that he stood up for this civil rights bill will cause many people to see the necessity for working passionately. So I do think we have some very hopeful days ahead."

The snake calls the viper asp

So tempting to unload eight year's worth of cheap shots at
the back end of this exiting president, but let's leave it
to Shakespeare's morally vacant and otherwise viperous King to sum it up for us.

Macbeth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5

POTD by Jan Carroll

'Eyesinice'

A Wyeth Century

The great American painter Andrew Wyeth died today at age 91. Both exalted and ridiculed by the snarky art world, Wyeth nonetheless prevailed as a defining figure in American art as a populous painter. It struck me at 2007's the Basquiat-Warhol- Jamie Wyeth exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford that a lineage of American art is so connected to Andrew Wyeth's work. It is impossible to resist looking at his work again, nomatter what else is showing.

script/politic

Without tv for a while I was blissfully ignorant that The Sarah Palin Show was still on until I was scanning CNN online and saw her interview with Wolf Blitzer. There she was again in her snarky doublespeak- She, of course, will work with Barack Obama but is still concerned about his association with William (the domestic terrorist who bombed the Pentagon when Obama was 8) Ayers. In fact his politically glancing acquaintance with Ayers has been completely examined and is tantamount to being at the same cocktail party with someone. The queen of innuendo can't bury this bone though. Wolf, unfazed, at her veiled mudslinging tried to get her off script, but the woman is relentless. Course, she is never ready to answer the simple question "So he knew him, what are you saying exactly?"

word current

desist
desk
desktop
despair
desolate, adj. - abandoned, bare, bleak, derelict, desert, destroyed, dreary, empty, forsaken, isolated, lonely, lonesome, lorn, ruined, solitary, unfrequented, uninhabited, unoccupied, vacant, waste, wild

I lived out my desolation watching sitcoms.

booksbooksbooks

Picked up Suzanne Finstad's 'Natasha' her biography of Natalie Wood at the library dump shelf for .25c. Which was a real find because I always intended to read this. Not your standard Hollywood bio, much more substantive and Finstad never gossips, even as she doesn't shrink from any subject. It also has one of the most ruthless and fascinating stage mother (in this case movie mother) stories in it. Natalie's mother, a Russia-China border 20s emigreee, makes Gypsy's mother look like Donna Reed.

POTD by Jan Carroll

That ever instructive 'Thin-Ice'

Thanks Jan for venturing out over the ice in the freeze when you are under the weather.

and now a word from our station

post100
For those doves who have tried to comment, but have been blocked by administrative hassles, coast is clear.

blogcredo- I don't care what you say about me, just so it's behind my back or on my blog. ta, Lew

potd by Jan Carroll


Icemagic

booksbooksbooks

Jameson Currier introduces 'Still Dancing,' a fine new collection of 20 shorts stories, with the famous Robert Anderson quote "Death ends a life, but not a relationship" Currier's fictionalized queer life and times from three decades of the AIDS era at warp speed, has the literary heft of Camus and the quiet urbanity of Cheever.

These intimate 'non-fiction' novel episodes unfold from gay Wonderland culture of the Chelsea boys in the late 70s juggling carefree tricks, gyms, bars, clubs, tubs, lovers and ex- husbands that fast fades into the freefall of hospital rooms, brutal relatives, heroism, buddies, grim reckoning and a world of homosexual men in a grievous time.

Currier, whose many books and documentaries about AIDS, chronicles not only a defining era in gay America, but the private lives of the people who triumphed through what looked like defeat. These lives are often so finely drawn, Currier never has to resort to cliché.

On the streets of New York in the late 80s, it might seem like a ghost town of lost souls, but is anything but for Currier where seemingly insignificant moments are crackling with human understanding. 'Ghosts' is not only a masterfully crafted short story but an unforgettable metaphor of survivor's guilt that investigates aspects of grief and emotional infinites.

This is a test from the emergency opera broadcast network. In the event of a devastating aria, please give me cab fair

Photo from Metropolitan Opera.
Bass-baritone Gerald Findley tests his nuclear and sonic power as John Oppenheimer. WRTI will broadcast John Adams' seismic opera Doctor Atomic on the Toll Bros. Saturday live from the Metropolitan Opera performance recorded in November.

better LOTD

Jan. 12 at President Bush's last press conference, he delivers a complete thought,
"Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake."

LsOTD- eat your heart our Christiane

Samuel J. Wurzelbacher aka Joe, the Plumber not happy with his
freaky 15 minutes of political fame, is on "assignment" in Israel "reporting"
on the military offensive in Gaza-

"I don't think journalists should be allowed war (sic). I like back in WWI and WWII and you go to the theater....

adding with no irony "...I think media should be abolished from reporting.

from
Glaucous Harbor

(the barnacles)

Me monicle is steamed
My other eye is dead
My nostril stink to high heaven
They's evelution in me head.
I've paid for all me dreams,
eaten most down whole
But one got stuck down my throat
a rattletrap
'I heard you've got a soul,
I 'heard you've got a soul, my dear
'eard you have a soul
I felt you in the morning
I missed you at the roll
I stopped you burning quiet at night'
they sang
Deliver me or skoal!

metroscape

Walking to new grocer at the corner of Spruce and 20th to splurge on a lb. of la Colombe coffee after an hour trying telling myself to be satisfied with basically flavored water similar to coffee for a month. Really bugged that I haven't had a real coffee yet this year. So the stalling made me leave the apartment just as these silver gelatin clouds right out of a Universal Studios 30s werewolf movie were passing over the an iceblue moon that it stopped me in my tracks on Panama St. taking in the city skyline lit in cobalt.

bloglog

Tilt your hat and put on a respectable coat today in remembrance of Coco Chanel who died on this day in 1971.

Peter Reynolds, co-director of Mauckingbird Theater, vacuuming the entrance to the Second Stage Theatre at the Adrienne on Friday night and hour before the final dress for his 3rd production here in a year. He took five with his leads for a few comments about their new production of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler- Jennie Eisenhouer who plays the title role and Sarah Sanford is her former paramour Eilert Lovborg.

Here is an excerpt-

Sarah: I feel there is definitely a different kind of illicitness which is sexy and enticing, especially between my character who is very comfortable in her body and comfortable with other womens’ bodies and Hedda’s character. There was discovery for me, finding how I can make advances. The restraint of that time...…The text is one thing and under the text is a whole cauldron.

Jennie:
Beautiful words and all of this hidden meaning. Peter has been great guiding us through that.

Sarah:
Ibsen hated the mores of the middle class at that time. It’s so real …and his observations are so acute.

Peter:
I thought this Hedda was far more intense in a magnificent way. They are all bound up in these clothes and a touch to the cheek...is just electric.

Bloglog

I had what I call my bi-yearly Dusty meltdown-
Keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head.
and Jack and I were alone on a dancefloor in Atlantic City dancing to Dusty's version of 'The Look of Love.' Dusty in Memphis, which I'm listen to now, was one of our favorite albums especially 'No Easy Way Down.'

dancemoment

Lar Lubovitch's 2007 “Little Rhapsodies” from the very romantic Symphonic Etude by Robert Schumann edge on purple choreographic prose with very expressive gestures and dance decoration. But once again Lubovitch gets inside the music and is free enough to be calligraphic.

Highlights are the three men camaraderie lurches and glissades, reminiscent of Cossack dances. All of those pretty steps break away into three intriguing solos with an impressive range for each dancer- Attila Joey Gaiki, Jonathan E. Alsberry and a very Byronic Jay Franke.

Dancemetros

Philadelphia dancers are working the Big Apple this weekend
Ballet X and Koresh Dance Company are
Part of Dance Gotham at Symphony Space
Sunday Jan 11 with [ZØGMA] collectif de folklore urbain,
ARENA Dances, Ezdanza, Montréal Danse, CityDance Ensemble
& Helios Dance Theater

And Miro Dance Theatre and Rennie Harris Pure Movementare teaming up for a one night only showcase at APAP Jan. 11 - Amanda Miller, co-artistic director of Miro is moonlighting from her own company to dance in Orfeo ed Euridice at The Metropolitan Opera.

Philly dancers welcomed back after a 13 year absence the Lar Lubovitch Dance Co. at the Annenberg Fri night. Former Pennsylvania Ballet dancers Meredith Rainey who is choreographing more and guesting with Ballet X. BX’s Christine Cox and Matthew Neenan were reminiscing with fellow PAB veteran David Krensing about Lubovitch’s Concerto 622, which they performed together at PAB in the 90s. Not holding back on saying they were holding back the tears to Lubovitch's elegy, the adagio section,to a generation of dance artists lost to AIDS. Dancer scholar Brenda Dixon Gottschild was also recalling the PAB’s performance as one she will never forget.

Sunflowers in Winter

potd by Jan Carroll

Choreographer Lar Lubovitch returns with his company to the Annenberg tomorrow for the first time in 13 years. On the program is ‘Concerto Six Twenty-Two' scored to Mozart, a work was created in 1986 and premiered at Carnegie Hall at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The adagio movement is the elegiac male duet at its center. It captured the gravitas of the era and became a timeless dance document. Lubovitch‘s elegy to a generation of gay men lost to AIDS, captured the gravitas of the era and became a timeless dance document. He talked about making the piece this morning.

“I felt that the dance world had not responded to the presence of AIDS and I created an event called ‘Dancing for Life’ at the NY state theater. My response was to create Concerto 622. It is an essay on friendship. There was a demonstration of an incredible depth of friends helping friends to die or to helping them to live. ..that resonated to that moment. The central duet became very well known and resonated beyond the original motivation. The underlying context had a strategic connection at the time, the dignity they showed in the relationship and the spirit of community.”

Letter in the Times a year ago

To the Editor:

Thank you, Bob Herbert, for capturing not only the spirit of the American people (“The Obama Phenomenon,” column, Jan. 5) but also the reality of the man and the historic relevance of his moment for all of us.

Lewis Whittington, January 5, 2008

From 'Still Lives'

The Spanish archway gives way to
an afterthought mock foyer that
is crammed with bookcases
over the passageway
is a black shingle
that Jack retrieved from a wet
heap on the street
with English font spelling
'Eden Cottage'
Like some foredrop in
Mrs. Miniver
fade to an urban
cell of sterile design made
into our arena of slumber and sex
and celibacy and anti-intellectualism.
of smoked mirrors caste
at 4:24am
silhouette
the maligned sweat
of naked warriors
on majestic steeds.

bloggerdrill

Central High School, which has a longstanding student-faculty gay-straight alliance was the target of the anti-GLBT Westboro Church, led by the morbidly homophobic self proclaimed 'Reverend' Fred Phelps. They promote hatespeech and deeds in the name of religion. They were the group that carried Matthew Shepard burns in hell signs at his funeral. They carry their GODHATESFAGS banners and vile messages all over the country. They claim to have no money and I would like to know where they get the cash to carry on their violent campaigns.

They have been in Philadelphia several times in the past 6 or so years and they are usually swarmed with counterprotesters. Liberty City reported that at 7:15 this morning -

"friends and allies of the LGBT community outnumbered hatemongers. Here is a more full report from Mayor Nutter's LGBT liaison Gloria Casarez:

The Phelps group from Kansas came (there were a handful of them) and were greeted by a couple hundred counter-protesters, with bright (pro-gay) signs and slogans. It was very refreshing to see that the crowd seemed to be comprised primarily of students and recent grads, with gay-straight alliances well represented. The administration at Central did a good job at communicating with students in advance through the school's website and coordination with the gsa and the Principal was present with the students the entire time."

potd by Jan Carroll

greenworld

WAITING FOR YOUR DOUGH

a comedy in one reel

Players-
LAUREL
HARDY
LUCKY

Laurel & Hardy enter onto a bordello set under musica commedia

Laurel: Boy that was close!

Hardy: (annoyed) You can say that again.

Laurel: What do you suppose made them so angry?

Hardy: You've got a lot of nerve asking a stupid question like that!

Laurel:(holding back tears) Well, Ollie, I was only trying to help.

Hardy: Help?! You could have gotten us killed.

Laurel: (indignant) Yeah, well I didn't...so...so there!

Hardy: That's not the point now, is it?

Laurel: Oh, and I suppose you know what is?

Hardy: (incredulous) Offering to hold the bag while those crooks robbed the bank. Have you lost what brains you have. Indeed! I have half a mind to leave you to your own devises. Then (poking him with each word) you-will-see-what-happens!

Laurel: Well, Ollie, you don't have to be nasty about it. She was an old woman who looked like she was going to fall down. What was I supposed to do? Uh? How was I supposed to know that she was leaning forward to get her gun out.

Hardy: (exasperated) Ohhh, will you...just forget it! (pushes him back)

Laurel: (recovers and brushes off his clothes) Anyway, I made a profit. And boy do we need it!

Hardy: You WHAT?

Laurel: She gave me a dollar and told me if I played my cards right there is more where that came from.

Hardy: (deadly) Give me That. It's just lucky for you I know how to keep my head. I don't know hat you were standing in line for anyway. You haven't go any money in the bank.

Laurel: Do too!

Hardy: (meticulously) NO(pokes his chest)you don't!

Laurel: Do too, Ollie. I mean it. I've got 22 dollars and 78 cents left in interest on my father's chicken feed stock.

Hardy: (excited) Well, where is it. You know I handle all finances.

Laurel: (hedging) I don't have it. (starts to cry)

Hardy: (pause) Well...why ever not?

Laurel: They didn't give it to me.

Hardy: What's that.

Laurel: (looks around)

Hardy: Why's that Stan?

Laurel: They didn't have it either.

Hardy: Well..who does?

Laurel: (looking at his feet) Nobuddy.

Hardy: Wellll...what happened?

Laurel: (weepy) They told me I lost all of my interest in teh crash of '29.

Hardy: You mean to tell me you didn't realize this before now. You IMBECILE. You half-wit. You...you...Dooouuul

Laurel: Pauper?

Hardy:(exploding) NINCOMPOOP!!!

Laurel: (dignified) Well, that's not a very nice thing to say Ollie. It's not my fault I haven't had time to keep up on all of the economic news (smiles and scratches his head).

Hardy: (deadly) All the economic news!? (pushes him down) InDEED!

Laurel: (gets up & brushes off, like his body & memory has been jogged)
Nothing to be done.

Hardy: (fussy) What now.

Laurel: There's nothing to be done about it now.

Hardy: You can say that again.

Laurel: There's nothing to be done about it now.

Hardy: (harshly talking over him) Will you shut up. (prissily) I heard you, you don't have to repeat it.

Laurel: Well, I know but, you never know when someone says what you said.

Hardy: I know what I said. It was merely a figure of speech. Forget it. Anyway, we've got more important things to worry about now. I wonder where they could be?
(aside) I wish I were alone. Was, I wish I was alone.

Laurel: I wish you was too Ollie.

Hardy: What.

Laurel: What did you say Ollie?

Hardy: I said. I wish I had a loan. I mean...I wish somebody would lend me the money.

Laurel: So Do I.

Hardy: Now, what in the world would YOU do with money?

Laurel: Well, I would start a business.

Hardy: (mocking) A business? Well, what kind of business?

Laurel: A chicken feed business. My father always said there was a fortune to be made in chicken feed. (backs away) Feed.

Hardy: Oh, he did, did he. Well you don't, so there isn't!

Laurel: (resolute) Well, I can still dream, can't I!

Hardy: Now now. Not now. We've got other matters to attend to. I hope we're not here early. Perhaps we should have come yesterday.

Laurel: You still haven't told me what we're doing here. Are we waiting for someone?

Hardy: (pause, annoyed) Do you mind not talking for the rest of the day?

Laurel: Not in the least.

L & H begin to move around the room. Ollie with a curious authority, Stan swkwardly following until Ollie stares him away. Stan paces and goes to a closet to investigate he takes a robe out, puts it on and sits in a chair where he finds a pipe which he lights. He reaches under the chair and gets a book and starts to read. Ollie has been watching him and mugging. He goes to him, rips the pipe out of his mouth, slams the book to the floor and bops the hat off of his head. Stan is passive at this assault and ends up in tears, but recovers with a scratch of his hair. They stare at each other until there is an eerie child's piano heard.

Laurel: Ollie, do you know where we are?

Hardy: Why, Stanley, of course I do.

Laurel: Ah, where, then?

Hardy: Are you insinuating that we've come to the wrong place?

Laurel: Well, it's not like it hasn't happened before.

Hardy: There a nerve. You are alive because I've brought you this far or have you forgotten.

Laurel: How could I forget. Anyway, you said this was going to be a cat house.

Hardy: Well, if you'd look around you would see that it is.

Laurel: Well, where are they then?

Hardy: Where are what?

Laurel: (loud) THE CATS?

Hardy: (explodes) Will you keep your voice down. They're here. I told you, so they are and that's it.

Laurel: Well. I don't see them.

Hardy: Well you are not supposed to see them yet.

Laurel: When then.

Hardy: When then what?

Laurel: Are we supposed to see them?

Hardy: After we've been introduced, naturally. They happen to be a very special breed. Seen you appointment only. They are extremely rare and ...permanently busy. And since this is your (pokes him) time, you only get to watch. I've met them, YOU haven't..So.

Laurel: So what?

Hardy: So there.

Laurel: Watch what?

Hardy: Us conversing of course. Talking conversing. You stand over there and just watch like a statue. Remain perfectly still until I introduce you.

Laurel: Oh goody.

Hardy: Fine.

Laurel: I've never met talking cats before. How big are they?

Hardy: Oh, I'd say...How big are what?

Laurel: The cats, that's what. Seems like they'd be pretty big to have a place like this.

Hardy: (exasperated) Now what difference does that make?

Laurel: Well, when we’re introduced should I be standing or should I get on the ground? First impressions are very important, they come in handy later on, you know. Maybe I should just bow low.

Hardy: (done in) You don’t say or do anything. Now one word. Got it! Just stand there like a statue, and do not make a move. (Grand) I will do all the talking for both of us. Understand! (waves his finger about) And that is the end of that! (All this time Stan is nodding his head and they finish that together).

Laurel: (fidgeting)

Hardy: What now?

Laurel: Is it all right if I just purr? Then at least they would know that I am friendly.

Hardy: (furious & distracted now) Will you keep quiet! How much money have we got?

Laurel takes out old style billfold that is stuffed with paper, he starts pulling out all of his pocket linings and checks under the rim of his bowler. At some point, he drops his hat and he and Ollie both go for it and bump heads. Ollie takes charge and brushes Stan’s front and grabs the billfold out of his hands. He shoves his hands in all of his pockets and counts the money.

Laurel: Six dollars and twelve cents.

Hardy: Six dollars and twelve cents? That’s impossible.

Laurel: Is not. Not, it’s not.. All right.

Hardy: (distressed) All right. Now, when you see a lady come out from behind that curtain, I want youu to pretend that you are my valet and that you have stupidly forgotten to bring my pocketbook with you.

Laurel: (lost) What’s a val- let?

Hardy: A servant. A man. You will be my man.

Laurel: I didn’t know you felt this way Ollie.

Hardy: A MAN! Not my man. You'll be ..A man.

Laurel: (proudly) But I am a man Ollie.

Hardy: Not that kind of man!

Laurel: Well, what kind of man then?

Hardy: The kind of man who keeps his mouth shut! A man that is paid to do his duty quiety, without comment!

Laurel: Duty? Oh, so I get paid. I didn't know I was going to get paid.

A prostitute in a satin robe that flaps open passes through the room. Stan looks at her with curiosity; Ollie plays with his floppy tie.

Lucky: Zo you aer zee von? Huh, vell, you bedder cam vish me.

Ollie moves toward her, but Lucky shakes her head vehemently

Lucky: NIEN, Nnet, Not YOU. Not on your life baby. Schtand Baeck!

Stan whispers to Ollie-

Laurel: Is she one of the cat lovers?

Hardy: Good evening Madam, we were just...

Lucky: I'm not madame, vu verb. Madame isk Calico. I am Lucky. YOU come vish me, no? Over here first. Let me look at vu. Turn around. Valk. Look back. Turn. Halt! Think. Good! You come vish me, no?

Laurel: (goes past Ollie with a snooty flourish) So there!

Hardy: (dodges around stage, finally flops on chair and fiddles with a lighter until he burns himself) Now where is that idiot? You can't trust him to do anything right. One simple thing I ask him to do and it turns into disaster.

Laurel enters in a flapper dress with no make-up except for a painted on beauty mark. He is befuddled, but not embarrassed.

Hardy: WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? WHY HAVE YOU GOT THAT DRESS ON? WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE THAT TO ME?

Laurel: Well, she did say I wouldn't look good in the pink and that this would make my gams look shorter.

Hardy: Do you realize you’re going to get us both arrested . Who told you to put that get up on? (explodes) What are you trying to do to me?

Laurel: (crying) I was only trying to do what I was told. That’s all I ever try to do and it’s never the right thing. I don’t know why…I…bother. They told to put this on and to wait outside with the other girls and to not to speak ‘till I’m spoken to and to get rid of the fat one in the parlor, if I know what’s good for me.

Hardy: Well!…I never.

Laurel: Well, Ollie, neither have I.

Hardy: The nerve of some people. You might think that I wasn’t a paying customer.

Laurel: That’s what I said!

Hardy: What?

Laurel: That’s what I said. That you we’re a paying customer.

Hardy: (distressd) Now why would you go and say something like that?

Laurel: Fate, I would guess. Me to do. I don’t know. What do you expect after all of this time waiting?

Hardy: (looks offstage) Stan, what are they doing with those weapons?

Lucky: (enters) Oh, I bedder teull vu, you ain’t goin’ noplaze. You can’t leaf anyway out. You stuck heres baby. No escapee. Dis shows got no intermission…because you that no madder who vu are, or what you don’t know..you better realize the fa tal compliat. They are waiting for your dough.

Laurel & Hardy jump in the air-

BLACKOUT

end
Notes:
-One of the first productions of Samuel Beckett’s existential drama ‘Waiting for Godot’ was performed by actors impersonating Laurel & Hardy.
-In their films, Laurel occasionally ended up in deadpan drag.

Piccadilly

To all media. Stop fucking bleeping fuck. It's a fine word with pedigree that goes all the way back to the Canterbury Tales, which means it was around long before that. When you bleep, garble and pixilate the word fuck, you really are just underlining it, highlighting what you purport to want to delete. The word is already trashed from overuse, so popular media wants it both ways. Do you think we're fucking daft. If they think they are protecting children, be assured that they hear that word and all of its meanings and declensions the moment they walk into a schoolroom.

If you must substitute FUCK, my suggestion would be to use the excellent British slang SHAG.

POTD by Jan Carroll