Porgy and Bess

When I was a kid, like third grade, my parents took me to see “Porgy and Bess.” It’s like one my best memories, hearing that music for the first time, and I still have an affection for the songs from that show because it’s one of the first times I saw live theater.

Do you know the plot of Porgy and Bess? There’s like drug addiction and a man kills another one ON STAGE. My mother said the show completely shocked her, because she had never seen a staged murder before in her life. Whe thought “Porgy” was going to be a porgy fish, and we were headed to a kid’s show.

Just note our vastly different reactions. Am I not adopted.

the mentalist

So this one-hour detective series pairs like the straight-by-the-book female police investigator with the “mentalist,” this dude who is not exactly psychic, but very good at reading people and manipulating them into confessing through unconventional methods like hypnosis and just guessing the identity of the true culprit through an obscure series of mental clues. I’ve seen a few and like the show, but in EVERY episode, he’s always the one to solve the crime that befuddles the cops. Really? EVERY time? For EVERY case, the off-beat, unconventional guy solves the crime before the normal investigators? What if lady cop figured it out by just traditional interview or like finger prints, just like once.

I don’t know why it bugs me, b/c I eat it up through “Medium,” where EVERY crime is solved by the psychic Patricia Arquette, who proves the conventional cops are incorrect in their assessment EVERY time as well. Maybe it’s the hair that’s throwing me. The guy on “The Mentalist” has very perfect, cherubic curls….which I find a tad creepy.

george clooney, email me

So last week, because I didn’t have access to personal email (my office blocks access presumably for virus reason, although IT freely accesses theirs all day…hmm) I missed an audition for a bit part in a George Clooney movie directed by the guy who did “Good Night and Good Luck.” A GEORGE CLOONEY MOVIE, PEOPLE!!! Sure, it was a little bit for a spiritual Viet Cong lady, which I’m sure I’d mangle, be wrong for, and totally be offended by, but if a movie like that calls me, I want a chance to throw my hat in!

So instead of eating my heart for the rest of my life, I decided to be constructive and got a blackberry. Now, you all can email me whenever and I’ll get it in seconds.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

People, this is the number one movie in America right now, two weeks in a row. What the hell is wrong with us? I mean, I’m all about popular entertainment, but this one looks like it could lower your IQ. Seriously. What will the French say about us now?

The Village Pet Store

This is why I LOVE New York — for random, weird stuff like The Village Pet Store, the first exhibit by the British graffitti artist Banksy. I wandered over tonight at 9 p.m. or so with my friend Alex, who had read about it in the Times.

It’s kind of a fake pet store filled with animal displays, but the animals are mechanical robots and they’re like, I don’t want to give all of them away, but my favorite one was a chicken with its chicken children — in the form of robot chicken McNuggets who dip themselves in McDonald’s McNugget sauce. I almost understand the point of all the displays, but most importantly, I was simultaneously tickled and skeeved out. Yes! Couldn’t stop laughing, so clever.

What is it exactly? Go see for yourself — it’s located on 89 Seventh Avenue, south of Christopher and right next door to the Jekyll & Hyde, open every day from 10 a.m. till midnight till Halloween. And it’s free!!! Is New York not awesome?

hillary, madonna, etc.

When I watched the VP debate, I thought it was very shrewd that Biden was unfailingly polite to Palin. Had he eviserated her, the public’s pity party for Palin would have started and she would have enjoyed a boost to her popularity. But why are people so nice to Palin but eat Hillary for lunch? No one feels sorry for Hillary and no one likes Madonna either. Even when she does good things, like adopt a kid from Africa, she gets racked over the coals.

I’m not necessarily a fan of hers, but when I read this review of her Stick and Sweet concert, it did strike me that, Jees, this woman can’t get a break. The writer criticizes how she’s too flawless in body and beauty, and how her whole performance feels labored and forced — which, I’m sure it was, but the whole thing got me thinking, what is it that makes Hillary and Madonna so disliked? Is it their ambition and their calculated approach?

Of course, for live performances, I think people forget how to pull of a theatrical event. They pay boatloads of money for production, but forget that the magic of theater (yeah, I used the word “magic” in a sentence with no mention of David Copperfield, what of it) is the whole is more than the sum of its parts — when simple sets and props evoke a universe.

Here’s my horribly uncommercial idea — what if Madonna toured with a story theme, or a character in mind, like “The Seagull.” She could play Arkadina, an aging star afraid of losing attention and beauty. At a desk with a quill and traditional Victorian dress, she can sing “Papa Don’t Preach.” Ha ha ha. Would people like her then? What if Hillary sang “Papa Don’t Preach”?

It’s late. Don’t judge me.

mimi and nick cannon

I hope they last. I don’t know why I care. I have no idea who he is, and I’m not a fan of Mariah Carey’s music (though I did attempt to sing “Touch My Body” at kareoke two weeks ago with disastrous results. Ha ha ha.)

I just don’t want them to melt down into a whole vat of crazy. I’m tired of these mental breakdowns. Please, celebs, keep it together, for my sake.

tina fey and john mccain

Mostly, I have hopped on the Tina Fey love train, but earlier in her career, she seemed fake to me — someone who packaged herself as a feminist, but then dug John McCain. I know she is liberal, but she’s alluded to her love for this gentleman in the past, posed with him on a magazine cover (I couldn’t find it!), sneaked in a line on “30 Rock” of her liberal guilt for loving him, and my friend Nancy saw her at UCB admiring McCain for surviving Hanoi torture, in particular noting he cannot lift his arms above his shoulders.

And thankfully, she’s clearly on the side of the left with this upcoming election, but SERIOUSLY, Tina Fey, STOP YOUR JOHN MCCAIN LOVE! HE’S NOT COOL!

Read this Rolling Stone profile of McCain if you don’t believe me. Total good ol’ boy. Maverick, my arse.

Awww, say it ain’t so, Joe

Okay, so the VP debate, which I understand is old news by now, resulted in Biden being considered the winner by only 51% — absurd, but makes sense. Palin avoided answering questions frequently, instead, choosing to pass on her own ideas, like selling her state down the river for its oil, giving a shout-out to third graders and giving them extra credit, etc. I don’t think that she failed to answer questions will bother most Americans, b/c have you ever noticed, most people don’t answer the question you asked? Most people don’t listen? It’s the way we communicate, so in that light, Palin seems “like one of us.”

A great stink has been made about Palin’s personal appeal, that she’s vivacious, speaks well, comes to life in a way the other dudes running are not. Though I don’t like her, I can see what they’re talking about, especially compared to wooden, scripted wonks. In today’s age, how you appear in the media counts more than being able to articulate policy. It’s not an accident that Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary this past summer b/c she choked up at a diner and said “I wouldn’t do this…if I didn’t care.” Biden also, I think, scored points when he got briefly overclempt alluding to his days as a single dad when his wife and daughter died in 1973.

I don’t know what to say. Health care policy, what the hell we’re going to do in Afghanistan and Iran — these are not warm and fuzzy topics, and they are way too complicated to squeeze into sound bites, which Palin is so expert at (which maybe she is in part b/c she doesn’t get the complexity that’s part of the job she is gunning for?)

I just wanted to say that there can be a place for Palin in the public, but not in the White House or really, any position that requires thoughtful decision-making. Here are the jobs for Sarah Palin:

* “Fear Factor” participant
* Host on QVC, pitching her own line of hair extensions
* Reality show star, a.k.a. “Sarah and her brood”
* Sarah on the Road: A summer across Alaska, hunting caribou
* Host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (actually, I think that would be most appropriate for her talents)
* More to come