Man, This Place is Like a Circus

Yesterday 2 friends of mine invited myself and a friend of theirs who has a seven year old daughter to go to the Ringling Brothers circus at Madison Square Garden. Four adult gay men and one 7 year old girl. It was like the time I directed a play at the California Theatre Center in Sunnyvale and four of my friends drove down together but I didn’t know whose name to give for the tickets waiting for them and so I said to the woman who was in charge of the ticket table, ‘you’ll know them, four grown gay men, no children’.

Anyway, yesterday’s trip to the circus gave me the following reflective thoughts:

1, The spectacle of hundreds of whirling thingabob lights throughout the crowd is one of the most beautiful man made sights. A child’s smile reacting to said sights is one of creations more beautiful sights (no matter how much said smile is stuffed with the man made delights of hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn or snow cones).

2. I love elephants and feel that no matter what I know about how they might be treated and trained, I still want to see them and the entire day was made for me at the sight of a dozen pachyderms parading through the coliseum, some with beautiful ladies in colorful costumes riding them. It’s a simple pleasure and I can’t underline enough how happy this made me and I’m willing to look the other way on animal rights abuse issues (ok no I’m not but I was for the few minutes they were out there).

BTW I could swear I saw one elephant snark to another. Three of them were lined up to come out onto the main floor; one of them ducked their head to the other in a way that said to me “hey, pal, get a load of THIS crowd, wanna go crazy with me and watch everyone run in terror? We’ll totally be put down but what a way to go, and hey, we’ll be on the news!” to which the other one just did their best ‘harumph’ at and ignored them. I still maintain that one of the elephants when walking past me winked at me. Just me. No one else. Really. Why don’t you believe me? :)


3. There is not much at the circus to hold my interest: the clowns are too broad and are shouting, straining their voices too much to be funny/heard; the ‘magic tricks’ creep me out (anything having to do with knives, flaming pokers, steel plates, etc slicing people up upsets me); the high wire and aerial tumbling acts frighten me and while I love the animals, my bleeding heart liberal mind can’t get around the fact that these creatures are being subjugated into doing the bidding of others, something they didn’t choose to do. Add to that the very plastic feel and the over consumption of it all, I don’t know that I’d go back.

4. The Roadies were almost more interesting to me to watch than the main acts.. although in concert with the performers, the Roadies completed a sort of ballet --- actions (walking to a spot to put a chair or bench down while something is happening elsewhere in the better lit area) and reactions (taking said chair away, or helping a performer down a rope ladder from a tiny staging area on the ceiling) were somehow compelling to me. Although that the Roadies seemed completely indifferent to acts around them left me feeling both confident that they had seen it all before and there was no real danger and worried that they were getting to complacent and Something Bad would happen because they weren’t paying attention.

5. There are people who are still willing to get up on all sorts of manners of ropes, wires, cages and moving contraptions and walk, run, ride bikes, do flips and generally endanger their lives for the entertainment of others. There are still lots of people who find this entertaining. What’s wrong with me that I don’t?

Half the fun of a circus (from what I can remember in my one or two childhood experiences going to them) seems to me to be not only the sideshow attractions and the games but also the smell of a circus, the gritty odor of live animals mixed with cotton candy and popcorn.

I think it’s part of the same fun that’s lost on me with big theme parks. To me, ‘riding the rides’ (as my Texas friend Karen said in the 80s when we were working for the Bible camp) means walking through the dirt fairground and the fairway and seeing the town you live in from the top of the ferris wheel.

In any event, it was nice to spend some time with friends and over and above everything else, that alone made the circus worthwhile. J

WE PEDAL UPHILL OPENS TODAY AT THE CINEMA VILLAGE IN NYC

For the New York Times review of WE PEDAL UPHILL go to http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/movies/20peda.html?scp=2&sq=We%20Pedal%20UPhill&st=cse

For tickets to the Cinema Village's showings (now through Thursday March 26th only), go to:


http://www.readyticket.net/webticket/htmlshowtimes/27/.\ShowTimes39892.html





And for a trailer of the movie, go to: http://www.wepedaluphill.com/

Curiously Good

I have to admit that the soap One Life to Live has turned into "must see TV" over the past few weeks.

[Spoiler Alert: If you're not up-to-date on your stories, do not read any further!]

What with the show celebrating it's 40th anniversary with a trio of bizarre storylines revisiting their best stories from years past (time travel, a visit to Heaven and a Lord going over a waterfall) and folding it all into and building right into the story of Tess locking up her sister Natalie in the basement (again, another nod to a story back in the 90s where Vicki did the same thing to Dorian) and amnesiac/back from the dead Marty being held by Todd, her former rapist (the two of them have had a ying/yang relationship for over 15 years and they just keep going further and further into their extremely complicated relationship).


Even better, the other day Marty stumbled upon Todd's laptop and Googled (OK “Llannet”ed) her rape and read about the trial which she has no memory of... she also learned that she used to cry 'wolf' a lot in yet another nod to history – the infamous and groundbreaking Names Project flag and coming out story for one of the shows regulars – a teenage boy – years before Another World did it.


It was stunning to see the show use actual photos from the day.. you know, just like in real life. Plus, when she saw the pictures, she of course didn’t recognize Todd because (soap staple alert!) the actor who played Todd in those days quit the soap and they replaced him with another actor. Now most of the time the character simply looks different and no one notices but in this case they explained it away with the character getting plastic surgery.. which now of course works in their favor – Marty has seen the face of her rapist but she doesn’t know it’s the same guy who she’s falling in love with.. brilliant!


Oh the Marty/Todd “romance” story is squirmy to be sure but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.. in fact, I like that they’re taking their time and letting it build so that when it comes to a head (and oh, will it ever) it will be sensational daytime drama.


Speaking of Dorian she’s always been protective of her daughters, and now she’s protective of the next generation: she's got her hands full with her niece, the teenage (and very pregnant) Starr (Todd’s daughter by the way) and Starr’s best friend, Langston whose parents died last year leaving her an orphan – or so she thought until recently as well as Cole (did I mention that he’s the son of Marty who’s being kept hidden by Todd- who hasn’t by the way told her that she has a son across town who thinks she’s dead?) and Markko, Langston’s boyfriend who is finally getting a personality after months on the show…


Meanwhile on the other side of town Rex struggles to stay alive while Adrianna the bitch (much more interesting than Adrianna the nice cute surprise daughter) has returned barring Rex's true love (well, this year anyway) Gigi from seeing Rex in his comatose state.


If all of this is lost on you because you don't watch soaps.. it's OK. I was off the stuff for a good year and a half and it's because of the anniversary shows that I started to peak in again wondering what they were up to. And now, I'm hooked.


AMC is still a mess and GH is getting better (but God please get rid of the mobsters that ate Port Charles) but at least one of the three ABC shows is proving that it doesn't take a genius to honor and build on a soap opera's greatest strength: it's own history.

Heroic

Here's the thing: I love television but believe it or not, there are others that love it more. OK so maybe they obsess about it more. For these people, nothing is ever right, everything is deriviative of something better (even things that they didn't like in the first place) and to complain and declare that they will 'never watch the show again' is common (sometimes week after week this declaration is made). Such is the plight of Heroes.

When Heroes began a couple years ago I was into several serialized shows, Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Lost, etc and I didn't want to add another one to the list. Moreover, it didn't look, despite my comic book loving background, like something that I'd be interested in spending time on. I ended up watching a couple episodes when there was a big fuss over the show but I felt that the stories were overly complicated and the characters not so compelling so I didn't return. I saw the fervor that overcame the masses about the show and even got a shiver up my back at the tag line, "save the cheerleader, save the world", but still, just couldn't get into the show.

Last season I tried again only with even less success as the masses complained that the stories moved too slowly. I didn't really see any difference between the one or two episodes that I saw in the second season with the three or four that I saw first season and everything was sort of as incomprehensible as ever (and this is coming from someone who can pretty much run down the entire 70 year history of the characters of DC Comics, most of the history of Pine Valley, Llanview and Port Charles and knows where to find the best burger and the best pizza among hundreds of choices in New York City - Roccos or Fat Sal's for the former, Nicks for the latter btw).

So last night I was home relaxing after an intense day at work and a very grumbly subway ride. My roommate and I have finally decided to have tvs in our own room and simplify the living room which is at the moment clogged with a large couch, a large table, two large bookcases, a trunk and a large entertainment center. Something has got to go and so the entertainment center is being dismantled as I write this and the traffic jam that is our living room is about to feel a lot calmer. This means that my tv, workspace and bed are all in the same room but that's not much different than it was when I was growing up (although the room is about half the size) and so I flipped on the set to whatever was on and what was on was.. the season premiere of Heroes, the third season.

First though the countdown show was a little ridiculous. Although it claimed to be live it obviously wasn't because uhm it's not pitch dark in LA at 5pm PST (8pm EST)... anyway, it was a 60 minute promotion for the season and a wee bit of back story of the characters. As a promo piece it was fairly good and knowing extremely little about the show, I have no idea what they left out.

At 9 the two hour premiere got underway. Now, so often I too am just crabby about my television but I have to admit that I found the show to be charming, fast paced, filled with good looking people even if some of them aren't the brightest bulbs on the planet - for example, one guy opens a safe when his dead father has told him it would bring about the end of the world and another guy injects himself with a drug that will give him super powers even though he whipped it up in oh about ten minutes. On the other hand, this is the type of thing that actually goes on in comic books so if the show is following the comic book tradition, hubris and arrogance are common and are usually followed up eventually by all sorts of conflicts which is, after all, what propels the story.

I'm sure that there are lapses in logic and dropped stories as the fans on Television Without Pity.com are having a field day whining about.. but I say, geez, just enjoy the show. For what it is, it's pretty good and while I couldn't care less about the comic books, the online tie-in stuff and the Sprint sponsorship, for a show with people who have 'abilities beyond mortal Men', well, it's pretty decent. I know I've complained about Reaper and Gossip Girl being vapid and shallow so how can I give Heroes a pass? I don't know. It's like Art or Porn.. you can't define it but you know quality when you see it and I think Heroes has it. Will it be a show that I'll race home to watch every Monday night? Unlikely. But I'll probably DVR it and watch a bunch of episodes all at once.


Ok the one caveat I have is the gore.. knifings and injections and lobotomies and so forth. Bleck. I had to stop watching ER because NBC insisted on showing closeups of every bloody operation and frankly I just don't want (or need) to see it. Yes, yes it's very lovely that your special effects department is top notch, but enough already.


Finally, the ads. It stands to reason that the biggest action flicks (James Bond) and sci fi flicks (Eagle Eye) would be promoted during the show but I had to laugh at AXA Equitable churning out their "800 pound gorilla in the room" campaign several times throughout the show. Isn't the 800 pound gorilla in the room the fact that this is basically gambling (as evidenced by the "your money 'could' set you up for retirement" tag line they deliver).

Anyway, that's enough tv talk for today.

Annual Fall Preview part 1 of .. oh I don't know

It's Monday, I lost two and a half hours of my life last night that I'll never get back watching the 60th Emmys which were awful other than a singular moment that made watching it almost worth the effort. Naturally being appreciative of anything intelligent and slightly subversive, I'm talking about Tommy Smothers' comment something about 'truth is what we get you to believe". Fantastic. Anyway, you can read my commentary about the night at Roland's Extra Criticum where I am a columnist. http://www.extracriticum.com/ I'll probably post more reviews/views now that the TV season is returning after the disasterous 2007/8 season.



Like global warming, the writer's strike seems to take the blame for every problem that network television is having - from an anemic fall lineup to lost viewership to even more game and reality shows. In a business that relies on viewers to supply advertising dollars, why you'd program things that people don't want to watch is beyond me. I guess they feel that viewership is going to be down no matter what they do, so why not save some money and do everything on the cheap. The problem is: doing it on the cheap with junky game shows and junky reality shows is one of the reasons why viewers are flocking to the internet in the first place: because there's stuff to watch there/here. I wish I knew some network/advertising types whom I could nudge and say "if you fill up my screen with more advertising than actual show, I'm going to turn the tv on even less than I already do". but sadly, I do not.



What's also sad is that after thumbing through the Entertainment Weekly fall preview guide, I can't believe that there's very little I'm looking forward to seeing. There have been years when I genuinely fretted over nights where I would have to choose to watch this show or that show. Granted, that is why DVR's were invented but as of yet I don't see anything that I want to add.



The other day I went through my DVR and erased Jericho from the list. Goodbye you sad yet fun little show. I will miss you and you're very hot cast members. I will miss the strange pacing and yet oddly well written show. I will look forward no more to wondering if Skeet Ulrich is ill, just doesn't eat a lot or the studio pestered him to have that gaunt "I'm a homeless meth addict" look.



I will also miss Moonlight, the vampire show, Journeyman, the time traveler show and Reaper, the show about the guy who is the devils bounty hunter. OK so I know that Reaper is still on but I've given up, my patience with the dimwit characters came to an end as I struggled to watch the last handful of episodes (I ended up skipping a couple of them and it turned out that I missed nothing).



I'm fascinated by Pushing Daisies if only to see how long they can sustain such a charming show before it falls into itself with too many gimmicks and oversaturates itself with cuteness. I wish that American tv could take a cue from British television and figure out how many hours it takes to tell a story rather than assigning 21 hours for several seasons on end to a concept that would barely make a good movie. PD has a lot of potential (more than just a two hour movie) but I don't know that I can see it reaching 100 episodes much less 50 or even 25. Nine hours of it last season was perfect and the writers strike (see? that again) was a blessing for this show. I wish the networks had the courage to say "ok only ten hours this season". Leave your audience wanting more. It's the first rule in showmanship. Ah well. No one has ever accused the suits at the networks of knowing how to put on a good show.



Well, this is more than I intended to write this afternoon but more on the upcoming season as it unravels...

There's a reason some movies don't do well. Some movies are up against big blockbusters and simply get lost in the shuffle. Some movies have the misfortune of having a scandal attached to the project that turns people off. And some movies are just plain bad.


SWING VOTE didn't do well in the theatres this weekend not because it's a political "comedy" but because it's simply a craptastic movie. Actually, adding "tastic" might indicate that it was even spectacularly bad and that's not true... because SWING VOTE is so poorly done that it's not even REALLY bad.. just blandly mediocre.. and that's a crying shame.


I knew the movie was one I couldn't wait to avoid when I saw the trailer in the theatre. Looked too contrived but not ridiculous enough to be taken on as satire. I can only imagine in some board room in Los Angeles the idea sounded good: let's let the Presidential vote come down to one man and then see what would happen. If the filmmakers had really jumped with both feet into the premise and taken it to it's extremes, this would have had a chance at being funny. But, instead, they chose to give it 'heart' which means that things can't get too ridiculous because it has to remain "real" and yet how do you do that when you're talking about an implausible premise done so dully. Ironically the movie's 'heart' is all about fighting apathy but I watched the movie in shocked silence wondering how so many top notch actors (Costner, Grammar, Tucci - who I hope got paid a lot for the only principal to even remotely shine - and Nathan Lane - who comes off toothless when it was he I counted on for some real political jabs) got schnookered into appearing in such a dog. I think "apathy" (also known as a paycheck) was responsible.


The story revolves around a small town in New Mexico where Kevin Costner's main character "Bud" lives. In the era of product placement, I instantly thought of Budweiser and I was rewarded later on in the movie with cases of the beer brand strewn about Bud's bedroom as if to associate itself with the dullard who works as a cog in a egg factory, curses (but only in G rated ways) and drinks and falls down. Ha ha that's funny. Except that it's not. Why Hollywood is fascinated with losers especially middle aged ones, is beyond me. We're also supposed to, I think, think it's 'cute' that his 12 year old daughter (admirably played by newcomer Madeline Carroll) takes care of him, hauling him out of bed after passing out in a drunked stupor.


I'm not sure why I should find this cute although later on in the movie we find out that the mother abandoned Bud and their daughter due to a drug problem giving Mare Winningham a remarkable five minutes in what was the only moment of interest in this muddle mess. I guess the message is: sure Bud is a mess, but look, the kid could have ended up with her drug addled, delusional mother so in comparison, he's not so bad. OK. Whatever. Unfortunately there is an entire other movie embedded in that scene, one in an infinitely better movie. I wish I could have seen it.


Anyway, Carroll plays a girl, Molly, who is still idealistic about America and our right and priveledge to vote. She gives a good show and tell speech for her disinterested class (mirroring I suppose the audience) and rages throughout the rest of the movie trying to get Bud and others to get excited about voting and then later about the plight put forth by letter writers who have sent Bud buckets of snail mail (how quaint). She's passionate about her idealism in a world full of liars and thieves and ladder climbers. I feel sorry for the kid but can't help but think that this cynical movie where it turns out that even the Secret Service man assigned to protect Bud gets passionate about Molly's gosh gee whiz ideals. Why cynical? Because the very values that it espouses- getting involved and participating in the process - seem foreign to the very movie that's been made. Everything about the script is cheap and lazy. Bud is suddenly the 'swing voter' because of an eye rolling contrivance that includes Bud getting drunk, hitting his head on a sign and passing out, Molly voting instead of him at the exact moment a cleaning woman unplugging the voting machine, exact matching of electoral votes nationwide and so on. Because those same suits in that same board room sat around and said "how can we fix this story so that Bud is the crucial vote?" and then they spend a half hour telling us. And frankly it's just plain dull. It'd have been better to have shown the political candidates spin their campaigns of lies and then simply show it all coming down to Bud and do away with all the exposition. It does not do the characters any favors.


Naturally the candidates go to New Mexico to personally persuade Bud to vote for them and go to what should have been outlandish methods to secure that vote. Swipes at both parties ensue and neither of them are particularly funny - tired chiches abound - oh look the Republicans are rich and war obsessed and the Democrats are Cheeto eating dimwits and both parties would sell their souls to get their way. I guess in criticizing both parties the film can't be accused of bias but it certainly doesn't go far enough and not only is it not funny, it reaffirms the idea that politics is dull and for the morally bankrupt.


I have to say though that there is a little bit of a highlight.. the Democratic nominee played by Anthony Hopkins does a PSA convincing Bud that he's "Pro Life" and so therefore, Anti Abortion which, naturally is generally against what most Democrats believe. To drive his point home, Hopkins appears on a playground full of school children and as he discusses how abortion is bad, each child in turn explodes in a puff of smoke that is jarring and hilarius. If the rest of the movie had been half as good as that moment, this would be a different review.


The problem though with even this scene is that it assumes that you know that Hopkins is pro abortion simply because he's a Democrat and OF COURSE all Democrats are pro abortion... and there are assumptions made about Republicans. Again, without a proper set up about what each candidate believes in, the jokes are meaningless and flat. Not to mention lazy.


I spoke above about product placement and I have to write just a bit more... because I've rarely been as aware of the product placement as I was in SWING VOTE. There were Pepsi cans all throughout the movie and also at the end of the movie as the two Presidential nominees come together for a debate, the "final debate" logo looks exactly like said Pepsi can.


There are also the inclusion of real life political commentators which further blur the line (is there even a line anymore) between news and entertainment. Here would have been a great opportunity to skewer the tv pundits and it was wasted. They're just there to add verisimilitude and sell the movie (one imagines Bill Maher,Ariana Huffington or Mary Hart promoting the movie because of their cameos). Feh.


It's sad that in such a over saturated political climate, such a cynical time in our history that a movie that seeks to restore idealism simply comes across as a badly written commercial for products and news programs. Somewhere the character of Molly is shaking her head and realizing that the battle is lost at last. The vote has been counted and we, the audience that paid $12 to go see this dog, are the ones who have lost.

Japanese food for a non Japanese food eater

I've been to some pretty incredible restaurants here in New York - some I've gone to on dates and some I've been taken to by friends and naturally still others that I've been to with the BF.
There's always a new place to go for anyone of any income bracket even if you do have to do a little homework which sometimes includes trial and error.


Fortunately I have another place to add to my personal repertoire of places that I can afford, have great great food and offer a warm ambience. I am talking about New York's Gyu Kaku www.gyu-kaku.com, one of two locations in Manhattan and only one of three locations outside of Southern California (the other one is in Hawaii).


First, a disclaimer. I hate Japanese food. Hate it. I tried it once in San Francisco in the late 80s and then once again in Chicago when I lived there in the early 90s and found the food both times to be rubbery and tasteless. So when going out on dates, my standard line has been 'anywhere but Thai and Japanese'


Gyu Kaku is a restaurant where you can cook your own dinner. The restaurant offers an array of high quality meats that are prepared such, that if you wanted to, or so our dinner companions told us, could be eaten raw. I don't think the BF and I are that adventurous... not yet though. We went with two friends of his, both of whom we know professionally in the theatre but had never spent much personal time with. They offered to show us one of their favorite restaurants, and to have one of their favorite experiences..


The place is down on Cooper Union, down by NYU and the restaurant is dark, spacious and quiet. Each booth comes equipped with a little grill set into the table where you cook your own meat (we had duck, chicken and two types of steak) and veggies (we had the corn on a half cob and zucchini) and along with a drink (I had a wonderfully smooth dry sake) and an appetizer (a seemingly bottomless bowl of miso soup), the whole thing came to about $35 per person including a very generous tip (our servers were incredibly attentive and knowledgeable).


Plus the ambience encouraged conversation - no loud overbearing music and the way the place is laid out, you feel as though you are in your own private restaurant (even though, really you are as close to other patrons as you normally would be in any restaurant- how they achieve this not so minor miracle is also a mystery but no less appreciated).


After experiencing how wonderful Japanese food can be, I may have to venture forth to a Thai restaurant to once and for all conquer that long standing 'foe'!


Afterwards the BF and I and our two friends topped off the night with frozen yougurt at Atlas (73 2nd Avenue around 4th or 5th Street), a self termed 'super vegan' eatery serving super healthy food along with a wide array of soft serve yougurt and tofu yougurt which can be mixed and combined with any number of nuts, candy or fruit. Yum. I had chocolate yougurt mixed with blueberries. MMMmm


On a warm New York night nothing's better than a healthy meal with new friends at as yet untried restaurant, a cool dessert at another place I'd never been topped off by goodnight hugs to our new pals and, well, a nice sauntering walk home with the BF. Heaven!