WORLD OF WOOF

Just because

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:09:27 GMT

Eh, I haven't posted anything in EONS, this one's making the rounds, and it tickles me. So here goes...

1. YOUR SPY NAME (middle name and current street name):
Leigh Totten (or Leigh Totten Pond, if I want to be laughed out of the spy business)

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME (grandfather/mother on your dad's side and your favourite candy):
Gene Twix (sounds like something you'd do to try and manipulate the sex of an unborn child)

3. YOUR RAP NAME (first initial of first name and first 3,4 or 5 letters of your last name):
G-Ell (Which in addition to being uber-lame, sounds strangely similar to Superman's Dad)

4. YOUR GAMER TAG (a favourite color, a favourite animal)
Blue Coyote (which is, coincidentally enough, the name of a pub I frequent and yet never really made the connection before)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, and city you were born in)
Leigh Medford (boring)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME (first three letters of your last name, last three letters of mother's maiden name, first three letters of your pet's name)
Elloodrus (I have nothing witty to add)

7. JEDI NAME (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards):
Hgiel Doowta (The "g", obviously, is silent)

8. PORN STAR NAME (first pet's name, the street you grew up on):
Rusty Nickerson (I'm pretty sure you can order a rusty nickerson at most good bars)

9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favourite colour and the automobile your dad drives)
The Blue Explorer (sounds like a depressed astronaut)

10. YOUR ACTION HERO NAME (first name of the main character in the last film you watched, last food you ate)
Max Pop (with Max Tart being a back-up porn name)

Norv still sux

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:07:41 GMT

Note to Norv Turner, the San Diego Charges, all their fans, and any supposed NFL pundit who claims the blown call yesterday was "unacceptable".

Your team did nothing to even CAUSE the fumble. Yes, the ref blew the call, but had it stood it would have merely made you the LUCKIEST TEAM ON EARTH, considering the ball completely slipped out of Jay Cutler's hand without a single Charger so much as breathing on him.

You lost the game. Not because of a blown call, but because you gave up 39 points to a mediocre offense, including a touchdown AND two-point conversion with 20 seconds to go. Quit whining that one referee error was "unacceptable". You're coaching performance, Norv, was worse. As was the play of your defense.

Shut up and face facts: it was a gift you didn't deserve and the football gods saw to it that you didn't get it.

Because its never too early

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:22:37 GMT

AUDITION NOTICE

second.
by Neal Utterback

A comedy of hope.

It's Christmas Eve in New York City, where a deadly blizzard threatens a decaying society, and where six lost souls cling desperately to the last vestiges of the American Dream. At the center of the storm, a mysterious man who may just be their last chance for redemption. Neal Utterback's "second." weaves three tales into one, setting in motion a comedic spiral where the only answers available are to questions of faith, and where belief may be all that matters.

Directed by Gordon Ellis
Produced by Kristen Hughes

Audition Dates: Sunday, September 21, 7PM & Monday, September 21, 7PM

Location: Abbott Theater, Joel's Way, 9 Spring Street, Waltham, MA 02454

Production Dates: November 7, 8, 14, 15, 20, 21 & 22 (evening), November 16 (matinee)

Auditions will consist of readings from the script. For further information please contact the director at gordon.ellis@yahoo.com

CAST OF CHARACTERS

JAKE – (male, 20's-50's) A thug with a brain. Under the right circumstances, he'd be considered a man of few words. These aren't the right circumstances. Instead he is a man of calculated patience who can and will be pushed to his breaking point. A noble soul in a backwards world, he's made peace with his role in the grand scheme, even if he's not happy about it.

DAVEY – (male, 20's-40's) Jake's partner in crime. Energetic, impetuous, and unfiltered. He's the kind of guy who's mouth is always working even when his brain isn't. He knows just enough to be dangerous, but doesn't have the steel to back it up. More trouble than he's worth in a world where trouble usually winds up dead.

VICK – (female, 20's-40's) A career-minded journalist with a taste for cynicism. She manages to balance an almost overwhelming self-confidence with a healthy dose of fear and anxiety. She'll stop at nothing to get the story, and to satisfy her own personal needs, but even in a world where she is queen, she knows she cannot survive alone.

LAUREN – (female, 20's-40's) Vick's partner. A successful surgeon who now finds herself at a crossroads. Having watched her mother make a slow decent into madness, Lauren is now desperately in search of answers to questions she never before dared ask. Emotionally exhausted but spiritually uplifted, she is awakening to a whole new world of possibilities.

T – (female, 20's) A high-end call-girl with a razor wit. T's stock and trade is sarcasm as a defense mechanism. A self-professed compulsive liar, she'll tell you whatever you want to hear, just so long as she doesn't have to listen to what you want to say. Sassy, brassy, and unafraid to put on a good show, at least until the going gets too real in her world of make believe.

JOHN – (male, 30's) A once successful scientist who now carries with him a dark secret, the burden of which threatens to crush him. Somewhat shy, he takes things at their face value, which only increases the degree of difficulty he faces in getting people to believe his story. A man who finds himself in a world he is no longer familiar with.

MAN – (male, 20's-30's) A character with one line of dialogue who is nonetheless on stage for the duration of the show and is at the heart of the story. To say more would be to say too much.

Indiana Jones And The Legend of Suck

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:34:01 GMT

Maybe I'm just cranky lately. Lord knows entering the downside of my 30's hasn't been the most joyous of experiences. I'm no more or less out of shape than I have been for the past five years or so, but I'm starting to feel it more. It just takes more effort to get my body up and running when I need it. And I can certainly point to a great deal of personal dissatisfaction with myself lately, in terms of my production (both at work and elsewhere) and attitude towards others. So in the end, it might be a simple case of just bad juju and in time it will pass. Which I hope is the reason. Because if not, then there must be something seriously wrong with me to explain why I have sat awake the last two nights going over in my head the many reasons why I hated the new Indiana Jones movie.

Lets get a few things straight before I dive into exactly WHY I disliked the film so much. (There will be spoilers. I'll let you know when so you can bail out accordingly.) I'm a pretty average moviegoer. I'm not a film student. Regardless of how many behind-the-scenes making-of documentaries or DVD extras I see, I'm still completely absorbed into the world of most movies I see without stopping to think too much about the how and why it was made. Sure, I know special effects when I see them, but I usually tune that thought out when I'm watching. I'm also not a writer, so while I certainly know bad dialogue and lame plot contrivances when I see them, I'm not really in tune with the do's-and-don'ts of screenplay writing. So all of what I'm about to say should be taken with the understanding that I didn't go into the experience with a critical eye hoping to expose the flaws of the latest summer blockbuster.

Quite the contrary, in fact. I loved "Raiders of the Lost Ark". I've probably seen it front-to-back about 50 times in my life. It was the first movie I remember watching repeatedly when we first got cable TV. Like most people I was disappointed in "Temple of Doom", mainly because I didn't much care for the supporting characters and found the film on a whole to be too dark and not as much pure fun. But I was back on board with "The Last Crusade" and generally consider the series to be some of the best pure escapism in the history of movies. That being said I'm also not some twisted fanboy who has dissected every frame and memorized every reference. I *like* the movies. But that's about it.

All of which is important to keep in mind, because again, I went into it hoping for the best. "Wow, they made another Indiana Jones movie? Cool. This should be fun."

The problem started when I saw the trailer a few weeks ago. Something just looked… off. It didn't feel right. Based on such a small sample I began to fear that they had overdone the CGI and turned what was meant to be a gritty, throwback stunt-show into the computerized soup that most action films are today. But I held out hope that it was just my imagination. I didn't read any reviews beforehand and went into the movie totally cold outside of that brief trailer. I went in expecting to be whisked away to my youth, and came out feeling betrayed. So for the sake of my sanity (and the hope of some sleep tonight), I will now vent about all the things in the film that drove me crazy. Spoilers to follow.

Now bear in mind, I have seen the film once. ONCE. And most of what I am about to spew bile about are things that bugged me during that first screening as they happened. It wasn't stuff that bugged me after careful consideration. I talked a friend's ear off for twenty minutes in the parking lot the moment it was over just so I could get SOME of it off my chest, but clearly that wasn't enough. All I've done for the last two days is keep rehashing in my mind the reasons I was so disappointed in hopes that I'd discover I was over-reacting. Not likely.

First off, the look. As I said, I'm not a film student. I generally only notice good cinematography when I'm *supposed* to, like when you get a breathtaking shot of a landscape or a clearly symbolic camera angle. Never in my life have I walked out of a movie pissed off about the way it was LIT. Until now. The entire movie was lit with this awful soft lighting that gave everybody and everything a gentle glow which completely goes against the rest of the series. It was maddening. Outside of one shot where there was a black shadow slashing across her face (in an obvious attempt at making her look sinister), I couldn't recall seeing a single shadow on Cate Blanchett's face the entire film. She was lit from every angle, which combined with the pale-white make-up job they gave her, made her look almost inhuman. In the jungle, in a cave, standing out in the open under a blazing sun, didn't matter. She was always perfectly awash in a magical blend of light to make her look… not lit. The rest of the movie was more of the same. I get that Harrison Ford is kind of old and that vanity probably played a big part in making him (and everybody else) look a little, I dunno, fuzzy? But Jeez Louise, it's Indiana Frickin' Jones! He's SUPPOSED to look haggard! It's part of the charm.

Add to that the fact that it was painfully obvious that they shot a great deal of the film on sound stages. Again, when there was "sunlight", it didn't feel like sunlight, it felt like giant lamps up in the sky pretending to be sunlight. Even in the times where they were actually on location, it appeared as though they augmented everything with so much artificial light that it diluted the power of the sun. Crazy. I kept thinking back to the fabulous chase seen in Raiders where they're tooling across this stretch of jungle/desert under a BLAZING SUN! No special lighting needed. Just the sun, motherfucker! And if that wasn't bad enough, they couldn't even fake the sun CORRECTLY. Not five minutes into the film we see Indy outside of a giant military warehouse where he's having a face-to-face conversation with Blanchett. I repeat: FACE – TO – FACE. Cut to Harrison: cheesy "sun" light coming in from off to his right. Cut to Blanchett: cheesy "sun" light coming in from off to HER right. WHAT?! How the bloody hell can the sun be over HER right shoulder and over HIS right shoulder when they're standing FACE TO FUCKING FACE!!! AAAAAAGGGGH!!! I've never lit so much as a puppet show and I saw how moronic that was.

So yes, I hated the lighting. Immensely. More than I probably should, but like so many things about this film, the more I watched, the more irritated I got. To wit…

CGI. Ugh. I had read that they did most of the "stunts" in the movie the old fashioned way – as stunts. CGI was only used to "enhance". I call shenanigans. In the first three films of the franchise, computer graphics and special effects were generally only used for things that weren't possible (guy's face melting, rock cavern collapsing), or to remove the trace of safety devices for the actual stunts. But anybody who believes that Shia Lebouf actually straddled two jeeps driving at full speed under ANY circumstances, is beyond retarded. I mean, there they were driving through the jungle over branches and rocks and Lord knows what else, and he's able to maintain his balance with one foot on two separate cars? COME ON! There's a difference between being plausible and being possible. Part of the joy of Raiders is knowing that SOMEBODY, whether it was Harrison Ford or a stuntman, was actually being dragged behind the back of that jeep. And that when Indy or some bad guy jumped from one moving vehicle to another, it was actually happening. Not so in "Skulls". I lost count of how many shots we got of Blanchett standing, I repeat STANDING in the back of a jeep traveling at excessive speeds over rough terrain where she looked like she was floating. For God's sake, at least PRETEND that it's a rough ride. Help us suspend our disbelief.

As for the rest of the CGI, okay, yes, I expect it for things like the big climactic ending with the alien powers and all that malarkey. That's what effects are for in a film like this. But were the jungle monkeys really necessary? Or the army of man-stealing red ants? Again, the beauty of the first three films lies in the fact that when there was a pit of snakes, or a cave filled with rats, or a man covered with tarantulas, they used – TA DA! - actual snakes, rats and tarantulas! The only saving grace of the monkeys was the fact that they distracted from the fact that seeing Shia Lebouf pull a Tarzan through the jungle was ridiculously contrived, even for a swash-buckling action film (don't even get me started on how he managed to get ahead of the speeding jeeps in doing so). The monkey in Raiders? You know, the one who dies from eating the bad date? He was real. He was cute. So why in the blue hell did we get subjected to such obvious fakes in this film? As for the ants, I concede it probably wasn't possible to do that bit with real ants (which begs the question: why do the bit?), and I was actually okay with watching them drag a rather large Russian man into their ant hill (thank heavens they made the opening big enough – strong foresight shown by the ants). But can somebody please explain to me how they were able to form a ladder in mid-air so that they could reach up after Cate Blanchett as she was hanging from a tree? I'm no ant expert, but I'm pretty sure they don't have the power to do THAT. You know, I should have walked out of the theater in the first ten seconds when I saw the CGI groundhog nearly get run over. For a moment I thought I had stumbled into "Caddyshack 3". I wouldn't have been surprised if they had replaced Indy's theme music with a new Kenny Loggins track. Just pathetic.

Here's the thing. I don't mind computer effects. Most (screw that, ALL) action films today use them. Technology has advanced to where they can do things simpler by using a computer to fake it, and for things like Iron Man and Spider Man and The Terminator, it works. But the Indiana Jones films are built around the concept of the pulp serial films from the 40's and 50's. They're a THROWBACK. You accept a great deal of ridiculousness in the plot because it's not about the plot, it's about the action. But when the action is all computer enhanced, what's the point? Where's the fun? Had this been any other film I wouldn't have minded the way it was made, but they had a legacy to live up to and they didn't.

It gets worse. Now again, I "get it". I know what Indiana Jones is about and I am always willing to toss aside certain things like physics and logic as long as they at least acknowledge somewhere along the line with a wink and a nod that the whole thing is a big goof. Let me in on the joke. The first three films are peppered with little moments where Indy pulls off some near-impossible stunt and then follows it up with a sheepish grin or under-his-breath one-liner that basically says, "even *I* can't believe that worked". Plus, PLUS, it was always INDY who got away with the stuff. He was the hero, so he got to strain credibility. Not in this mess of a film. An amphibious jeep goes over three, count 'em THREE waterfalls, and not only do all four people survive (which would have been acceptable in the Indy-verse), but they STAY IN THE FUCKING JEEP!!! We're not talking little dips. THREE – HUGE – WATERFALLS! IN A ROW! And not only does the jeep not flip over, not only does is somehow manage to go into the water nose-first, submerge, and immediately pop back-up, but all four people, including a withered old man who's clinging to a giant glass skull and therefore CAN'T HOLD ON TO THE JEEP, manage to stay seated. Until the third one of course, you know, because now that there's no more falls to go over, physics can kinda sorta start to apply. I remember the water fall scene from "Romancing The Stone". It was great. That was two people in a car with an enclosed roof and THEY didn't manage to stay in. And that film wasn't exactly a Discover Channel reality show. But not Indy and company. They didn't even look like they'd suffered anything more harrowing than a little water damage once they landed. Nor did they seem the slightest bit shocked at their remarkable good fortune. Unbelievable. Of course, considering that everybody and their mother was leaping from one moving jeep to the other during the chase scene that preceded the big waterfalls sequence, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I guess just hanging out with Indiana Jones makes you fearless and amazingly agile, even if you're old and deteriorated.

Well, at least the story wasn't so awful. Right?

WRONG, FUCKO!

They KIND OF followed the formula, but even then they didn't get the spirit correct. Take the opening scene for instance. In all of the other Indy movies, the opening sequence is used to jump start the movie by plunking Indy in the middle of an adventure-in-progress, so we can get one quick action scene into the first ten minutes of the film. Plus, it allowed for a quick cameo by the villain-du-jour and establish a relationship with Indy. Now this is nitpicking to be sure, but so be it. In "Skulls", they did a similar sequence, but the big glaring thing to me was that it wasn't an Indy adventure where the villain shows up. It was a sequence driven by the villain. When the film opens, Indy has already been kidnapped and is being dragged into something he has no clue about (at first). The joy of the other films is that he was out on his own adventure that the bad guy happened to spoil. It takes the wind out of the story when Indy is the reluctant participant. He wasn't robbed of something by an opportunistic enemy, which would have helped set up our desire to see bad-guy come-uppance later. He merely managed to escape a situation he never wanted to be in in the first place. It completely alters the flow of the film.

Now, having been 20 years since the last installment, there were some obvious gaps in time that had to be glazed over. Unfortunate, but understandable. But there are ways to make those gaps more palatable to an audience, and this film choked on them. Couple of quick examples. They introduce us to "Mac" (played by Ray Winstone), who is supposedly Indy's sidekick. Now, we've never seen or heard of Mac up until this film, so we're obviously not invested in him or in their relationship when we first meet him. That in mind, does it make ANY SENSE to have him turn on Indy within the first five minutes of the film? WHO CARES?! Just because you spout a line of dialogue saying you've been threw all sorts of shit together doesn't emotionally ties us to you, because we didn't see it! Had they pulled John Rhys-Davies out of mothballs and plucked his character in that part, there would have been some genuine hurt for us the audience when he turned. Which, I might add, would have led to a genuine feeling of redemption when he later turned back near the end. Winstone's character, who we don't know, turned against Indy, then back to his side, then against him AGAIN, and Indy STILL tried to save him in the end. Gee, it sure would have been nice to know what inspired such blind (and stupid) loyalty, outside of some throwaway anecdote.

I'm overlooking the overused "this is the son I never told you about" storyline that I think we all saw coming the moment Labouf was announced as being in the film, because it's just so cliché that it's actually acceptable for some twisted reason. What I can't overlook is the idiotic dialogue that Karen Allen had to spew surrounding it, namely the part where she talks about Indy "disappearing" on her sometimes after Raiders. Really? He disappeared? You couldn't find him? Hmm… did you try looking AT THE UNIVERSITY WHERE HE'S BEEN TEACHING FOR THE DURATION OF THE SERIES!!! Oy. Seems to me the guy hasn't been that hard to find, considering he still had his tenure.

Which reminds me, the motorcycle chase seen in the first half of the movie. How dumb were those Russians? They lose Indy and Mutt (and what a brilliant choice THAT name was) on the streets of the town where Indy lives and works. Cut to: Indy and Mutt… IN INDY'S APARTMENT!! Gee, lucky for them the bad guys who were chasing them weren't smart enough to look him up in the phonebook. No wonder Communism failed. Maybe it's me, but if I know somebody's trying hunt me down, the last place I go once I've evaded them is back home. But I'm kooky that way.

The less said about Cate Blanchett's character the better. The awful Boris & Natasha accent turned her every appearance into a cartoon, and undermined everything that happened surrounding the character. This was a classic case of a successful actor bringing too much to a role, just because they can. I think she's a wonderfully talented actress, but she needs to get over this "I'm a chameleon" thing and play it straight once in awhile.

Here's some other shit that was so dumb it made me want to scream at the screen when it happened.

Is it necessary for every action movie this decade to slip a kung-fu fight somewhere into the plot? How exactly did some Peruvian monkey man learn the finer points of Asian martial arts? Indiana Jones lives and dies by throwing haymakers. How exactly is he supposed to have outwitted the master of Peru-Fu?

The quicksand scene. They're in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. They beat a hasty retreat into the jungle, get about 100 feet away from the camp with bad guys in hot pursuit, and what do they do? Stop. And chat. Nah, no sense to keep running. And don't bother whispering, the meanies won't hear you even though they're just on the other side of that tree line. Just talk in your normal voices. Morons. Of course, once he realizes he's in quicksand, and the kid is off looking for something to serve as a rope, what is Indy's ingenious next step? Tell the old guy, who up to this point has been a mental vegetable, to go get help. BRILLIANT! That's just the guy I'd send wandering out into the jungle looking for "help" when I've got evil people searching for us: the unstable guy! The fact that he shows up five minutes later with – you guessed it – THE RUSSIANS – was one of the few logical things to actually occur in this film. And Indy has the nerve to act INDCREDULOUS about it! WHO THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT HIM TO FIND, THE RED CROSS? There's not exactly a U.S. Embassy around the corner, Dr. Jones, you're in the middle of nowhere.

Crimeny, they couldn't even get a good joke correct. Cut to: Indy strapped to a chair in previously mentioned jungle. His "old buddy" Mac is going through a bit of exposition when Indy tells him, "first thing I'm gonna do when they unstrap me… is break your nose". A funny line, made all the funnier when he does in fact follow through and punch Mac right in the noz once the clamps are off. Hell, Mac even says, "you broke my nose!". Cut to: the next time we see Mac, mere hours later (if that), not so much as a bandage! Never mind any discoloration or swelling. I mean, come ON, how easy a gag is that? You put a big white bandage over the bridge of Mac's nose, you darken his eyes a bit, and you've got a running gag at your disposal for the rest of the film. Nahhh, too much trouble. Let's forget the whole nose-breaking thing ever happened.

Or Shia's motorcycle. They went through great trouble to show them bring the bike with them to Peru, with Indy even rolling his eyes at the kid on the airplane trip down. Seems like they kind of went out of their way to show how much the motorcycle means to Mutt. So what's the payoff? Ummm… well, once they're kidnapped, Mutt makes some offhand comment about the bike still being at the tomb and… well, nothing. That's it. Never mentioned again. Even at the end of the film, when they're back at home. No sign of the bike. That's the kind of thing in the old films where they would have made sure we knew that he got his cycle back. They would have tied up that particular loose end. But not here. Lazy pricks.

The whip? Barely used. Indian's snappy comebacks? Pretty much non-existent. Surviving a nuclear explosion? Don't get me started. Indy's hat finding it's way into a church like a lost puppy? Let's not mention it. You know, I find it amazing to believe that Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford were actually involved in this fiasco, because it came across like a film that was made by a bunch of people who had read about the first three films but had never actually seen them. Truly horrifying. Walking out of the theater I was reminded of the way I felt when I saw "Naked Gun 33 1/3" in the theaters. On it's own, it might have been a funny film. I'll never know, because all I remember is that it was a completely different kind of comedy than the first two and as a result, had no business being called "Naked Gun". "Crystal Skulls" is the same way for me. Had it been the latest in the "Mummy" series with Brandon Fraser in place of Harrison Ford, I probably would have enjoyed it. But I expected more from a franchise so beloved. And this movie let me down. Big time.

Hopefully now that I've vented about it, I can get on with my life.

Hangin Tough

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:14:46 GMT

I haven't posted in a long while, in truth because it's impossible to type when you've got your fingers crossed like I have for the past month waiting for this day to come. But it's finally here.

NKOTB ARE GETTING BACK TOGETHER!!

Woh-oh woh-OH-oh, woh-oh-OH-OH! Woh-oh woh-OH-oh, THE RIGHT STUFF!

First Paula Abdul's comeback, now this! If Bobby and Whitney can get off that crack and pull their lives back together, all will be right with the world.

The Week In Review

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:15:11 GMT

I've been quiet this week, mostly due to there not being much going on in my little micro-corner of the world. But even nothing is something, so here goes…

* Friday's snow-out lead to a lame night where I watched a couple of movies ("Fargo" & "House of Games") before heading out into the mess to clean off/move my car at 1 am so the plow guy could get up my driveway (and yes, I was in bed when the doorbell rang, thanks for asking). Thankfully I killed the time with a little text message volley before heading BACK out at 1:45 to move my car back up the hill, only to find they did a sloppy enough plowing job that I needed to shovel a chunk near my door. NOT good times.

* I found myself completely dumbfounded by the fact that Roger Ebert voted "House of Games" his favorite film of 1987. I went into it expecting to be completely turned inside out by the twists and turns it was going to take (as I'm usually slow to see them coming) and ended up seeing the end almost from the beginning and felt that most of what happened along the way was way too contrived to ever be real. Odd.

* I checked out "How I Learned To Drive" in Arlington on Saturday afternoon and walked away with the same opinion of most who had already seen it, namely that it was a good production (very cool visually), but I wondered what the point of doing it was. It didn't have much audience appeal (the bluehairs around me were NOT impressed), and I don't even think it had much of a lesson to share since the story was so specific to the characters. Sometimes I think people like to be edgy just for the sake of being edgy.

* The closing two performances of "Dinner For Several" were solid, with full houses both Saturday and Sunday. The closing matinee was one of those insider trainwrecks where all sorts of things were going wrong on stage but most of it went unnoticed by the audience. It didn't really hurt the show and provided us with some good fodder for the cast party and future get-togethers.

* Not too surprised by the Oscars (other than my inability to stay awake). Most everything fell into line the way I expected, with the French girl's Best Actress win being the only real shocker. Even that didn't surprise THAT much since from what few clips of seen of it, she looks brilliant. I think the shock factor was more about the expectation rather than the worthiness.

* Monday we struck the set, or should I say, we dismantled the set in such a way as to make it re-useable should we head to festival with the show, which at this point is somewhat up in the air. Afterwards myself and a couple of castmates headed out for drinks and were bombarded with the worst collection of karaoke non-talent I've ever had the misfortune of hearing. Those of you who have karaoke'd with me in the past can attest that I've seen some bad karaoke, so that should tell you how awful these people were. We probably should have got up there ourselves, as we would have instantly tripled the talent level. Truth be told, we just wanted to drink.

* Saw "There Will Be Blood" on Tuesday and I'm still in awe of Daniel Day Lewis' performance four days later. I rail against him quite a bit because he strikes me as being really pretentious about the craft, but I gotta give it up for his Daniel Plainview. The utter brilliance of what he did can't be overstated. On the page there is nothing to suggest much of a character, at least not in the sense that there appeared an obvious need to reinvent yourself as an actor. And yet Lewis created this man who was so convincing, so specific, so fully formed, that I sat there looking at him thinking, "it's Daniel Day Lewis… I can tell it's Daniel Day Lewis… but nowhere in any of what he is doing do I see anybody but Daniel Plainview". I'm not sure I can properly state how good he was. It's one thing to recreate a famous person from history and nail all their mannerisms and speech patterns. It's another thing entirely to create one from scratch and have it FEEL as if it had been someone famous. Breathtaking.

* Had dinner with defcon_1 on Tuesday after the film, then again with him and our old friend Mouth (joined later by his fiancé) on Wednesday. It was nice to catch up, given that I haven't spent any appreciable time with either one in months. At the same time, it was kind of sobering to realize it only takes about the span of one beer to get "caught up". That's gotta say something pretty damning about the excitement level of my life these days, or at least my ability to articulate it. Maybe both.

* In and around all the dinner and hanging out, I've plowed through a couple of other films thanks to the On Demand free movies section of my cable box.

- Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" was, to my mind, mostly crap. Apparently it caused quite a stir back in the day for it's excessive violence, in particular a pretty nasty rape scene. I wasn't so much bothered by the rape itself (which I realize sounds sick, but bear with me), as much as I was in the way it meant NOTHING to the climax of the film and really didn't serve any purpose other than to get us to hate the bad guys that much more, a completely unnecessary step given the way the plot played out. For that matter I found the whole structure of the film to be a mess, as it spends the first hour-plus setting up all this tension between Dustin Hoffman and this gang of rural English thugs, then has the final confrontation all centered around another character entirely. Basically, you could have had the same siege-like ending without any of the build-up they used because the ending had it's own motivation (albeit a flimsy one). As it is, the fact that he ended up killing the men who had raped his wife was nothing more than a coincidence considering he didn't even know it had occurred. I wasn't offended by the violence, I was offended by how poorly it was used.

- On the flip side, caught a little indy film called "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints" in which the violence was necessary and chilling and totally belonged. Which isn't to say it was all that violent a film, but what there was was used effectively. What really blew me away about the movie though – which is apparently a memoir of this guy's life growing up in Queens in the early 80's – was how they absolutely NAILED the rhythms of speech and life in general of teenagers. Or people for that matter. Everybody was constantly talking over each other, not really listening unless they wanted to, and the characters all spoke in fragmented thoughts and ideas. There was this total sense of aimlessness and frustration that permeated the whole film that made me think I was watching a documentary at times. Reminded me of the movie "Kids", which I actually THOUGHT was a documentary when I first stumbled upon it. Why more movies don't choose this dialogue approach I'll never know. Too many scripts, film and stage, rely on the "you speak a complete thought, I'll speak a complete thought" tennis match, when in life that is RARELY the way conversation occurs. Anyway, highly recommended if you can ever find it.

- At long last I checked out "Annie Hall" last night, after years of avoiding it for reasons that don't really exist. Basically, in my intellectual head I have an aversion to Woody Allen because I find the repetition of his neurotic character in damn near every film he makes to be tiresome. That being said, every time I actually bother to sit down and watch one of his movies I end up enjoying it immensely, and "Annie Hall" was no different. I can see now why some people think it's one of the funniest movies ever, even if I didn't start laughing until about ten minutes in. But once I did, damn, there was some genius stuff going on in that film. I may need to force myself to watch more of his work. Or I may not.

* Outside of a trip to Theater III to see "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" on Saturday night, I have ZERO commitment this weekend, which is both frightening and liberating. Given the amount of money I've spent the last few weeks on beer & food alone, I'm probably best off just chillin' at home, especially if I want to have any cash going into my vacation next week. Either way, it feels VERY odd to not be committed to any theater projects. I'm not sure I can last the next couple of months waiting for festival rehearsals to start. Time will tell.

Bummer

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:44:54 GMT

Snow sucks.

Our show tonight has been cancelled thanks to the white crap currently floating down upon us. I am not happy.

Looks like its leftover chinese food and a movie for me tonight. Grrr.

Oscar time! (Wait... that picture is of Felix. DOH!)

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:41:05 GMT

Get enough theater people together and invariably the conversation will steer into the subject of film. Make it Oscar season and your odds are greatly increased. That's not to say theater people are any more likely to talk about movies than other folk, but we tend to be a more hyper-critical bunch given our collective understanding of acting from an inside perspective. Like a lot of my fellow thespians, I will often find myself in one of these Academy Award conversations uttering the following phrase: "I usually try and see all the movies which get nominated for Best Picture so I can make my own decision."

Really? "Usually"?

I'm not sure it qualifies as a blatant lie, but it is most certainly an untrue statement from the perspective that I hardly ever actually DO see all the Best Picture nominees, despite my desire to do so. Looking back over the last two decades when I was a pretty frequent moviegoer, I see that there exist only two years in which I've managed to eventually see all five nominees, and in neither case did I do the deed while the films were in the theater or before the ceremony had actually taken place. My point? I really should stop saying that I try to see them when I so clearly don't.

* * * * *

To date I've seen two of this year's nominees and enjoyed them both. "Juno" is for my money the best film I saw this year, although considering I've seen like five in the theater and maybe one or two more on video/cable, that ain't saying much. But still, I'd find it hard to believe I'd like anything more. I also really like "No Country For Old Men", but as I stated in an earlier post, I found myself missing a lot of important info when it was over and had it not been for some reviews I read after the fact, I might not have "got it". I'm curious to see "Michael Clayton" and "There Will Be Blood", but of course every time I try and plan to, something comes up. I'm on the fence about "Atonement", which falls in line with the fact that there's usually one film of the five every year that I'm only mildly interested in.

* * * * *

Because I'm that bored, here's a look back at the last 20 years of Best Picture nominees. Films I've seen are in bold. Best Picture winner is listed first in each year. My vote for Best (of those I had seen) gets an asterisk. Quickie thoughts on each year follow. Feel free to debate.

2006
The Departed
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
*Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

I thought The Departed was slightly overrated, as Nicholson was too over-the-top for me, and the whole bit with the cellphones seemed kinda sloppy (are cops really that dumb?). Little Miss Sunshine was just f'n brilliant. Would have liked to have seen Iwo Jima (especially since I found it's companion film Flags Of Our Fathers to be such a convoluted mess). Not really interested in the other two.

2005
Crash
*Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Good Night, And Good Luck
Munich

Phillip Seymour Hoffman was spectacular in Capote, but Brokeback was just such a gorgeous looking film with an interesting story. Kept meaning to see Crash and Munich, but never did. Gotta get my ass on NetFlix I guess.

2004
Million Dollar Baby
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
Ray
*Sideways

I liked Million Dollar Baby, but it seemed to try to hard to be "epic". Sideways was so much more than a comedy. I guess I should be happy it was even nominated.

2003
The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
Lost In Translation
Master And Commander
*Mystic River
Seabiscuit

Can't say as though any of this year's films blew me away. They were all exceptional, but trying to pick one above the others is tough. I go with Mystic River, but it's not really a convicted selection.

2002
Chicago
Gangs Of New York
The Hours
*The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
The Pianist

Wow, I don't think I even *wanted* to see any of the other four at the time. I actually own a video of The Hours but I haven't got around to watching it yet.

2001
A Beautiful Mind
Gosford Park
*In The Bedroom
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Moulin Rouge!

I tend to like smaller films, or at least, I tend to be more impressed when they're done well. In The Bedroom was so freakin' good, whereas Beautiful Mind was a little too polished for the story it was telling.

2000
Gladiator
Chocolat
*Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Eric Brockovich
Traffic

Loved Traffic, but Crouching Tiger blew my mind when I saw it. Not only because of the amazing fight choreography, but the story was epic and moving and so well told. How Gladiator won a Best Picture Oscar I'll never know.

1999
*American Beauty
The Cider House Rules
The Green Mile
The Insider
The Sixth Sense

I liked American Beauty so much I saw it twice in the theater, something I almost NEVER do. Sadly, I saw the Sixth Sense after knowing "the secret", so it was kinda ruined for me.

1998
Shakespeare In Love
Elizabeth
Life Is Beautiful
*Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line

My personal feeling is that Saving Private Ryan is one of the greatest films ever made, so it'd be hard for me to pick anything else in this year. I did like the other three quite a bit although Thin Red Line was kinda choppy.

1997
Titanic
As Good As It Gets
The Full Monty
Good Will Hunting
*L.A. Confidential

This would be the second of the two years I managed to see all five nominees, although I didn't get around to Monty until well after the fact. I LOVED Good Will Hunting at the time (still do), but I still think L.A. Confidential was a better overall film. Saw Titanic, liked the effects, drooled over Kate Winslet, thought it was too flippin' long.

1996
The English Patient
*Fargo
Jerry Maguire
Secrets And Lies
Shine

Fargo blew the rest away. Not my favorite year.

1995
*Braveheart
Apollo 13
Babe
The Postman
Sense And Sensibility

Okay, now THIS was a bad year for me, as I didn't see any of these in the theater and wasn't necessarily awestruck by either of the two I did eventually see.

1994
Forrest Gump
Four Weddings And A Funeral
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
*The Shawshank Redemption

Ahh, 1994. The first year I managed to see all four nominees. I only actually saw Gump in the theater though, and didn't see the rest for a couple of years. That being said, Shawshank is my hands down, all-time favorite film, so it has to win here.

1993
*Schindler's List
The Fugitive
In The Name Of The Father
The Piano
The Remains Of The Day

Schindler's List was brilliant (duh) and is the only movie I ever actually forced my parents to watch, even though I knew it would make them uncomfortable. Certain films people should be made to see. This is one of them.

1992
Unforgiven
The Crying Game
*A Few Good Men
Howard's End
Scent Of A Woman

I'm not sure I ever got what the big deal was about Unforgiven. Maybe I need to see it again. A Few Good Men was so much more interesting.

1991
The Silence Of The Lambs
Beauty And The Beast
Bugsy
*JFK
The Prince Of Tides

I'm slightly biased against Silence Of The Lambs because I was a big fan of Manhunter, and I thought Lambs tried to hard to make the jail cell creepy by making it dark and cold, whereas the cell in Manhunter was blinding white, making Lector just that much freakier to me. JFK was such a staggering film to watch, even if you didn't quite believe *all* of what was being thrown out there.

1990
Dances With Wolves
Awakenings
Ghost
The Godfather Part III
*Goodfellas

I'll be able to add this to my list of complete years soon, as I have Godfather III on tape and just haven't watched it yet. Meanwhile, Goodfellas is just off the hook, as the kids say.

1989
Driving Miss Daisy
*Born On The Fourth Of July
Dead Poet's Society
Field Of Dreams
My Left Foot

Really? Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture? Wow, I so don't remember that. Ah well, Born on the Fourth was phenomenal. Yes, I'm a big Oliver Stone fan, so what of it?

1988
*Rain Man
The Accidental Tourist
Dangerous Liaisons
Mississippi Burning
Working Girl

In retrospect I should have stopped at 1989. I *liked* Rain Man, but I didn't love it. My guess is when I finally get around to seeing Mississippi Burning I'll like it more. Of course I've been saying that for 19 years.

Anybody care to comment?

Savoring the moment

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:36:49 GMT

Performing and auditioning are two different beasts. From almost the beginning of my acting career, I've been completely at ease when performing. I don't get butterflies. I don't feel uneasy or nauseous. If anything, there are times when I find I am *too* calm before a show and have to find artificial ways to amp myself up rather than risk a low-energy performance. Auditions, on the other hand, have generally been the bane of my theater existence. For whatever reason, I find that from the moment I walk into an audition until the moment I leave, my stomach is in knots and I have a difficult time maintaining a steady, normal breathing pattern. Some nights are worse than others, usually dependent on how badly I want the role and how many people in attendance I am familiar with. My best audition ever was the night I walked into Curtain Call Theater only casually knowing the director (and her playwright husband) and only mildly interested in the show (coming as it did in the aftermath of a failed audition that I *desperately* wanted). I cracked one out of the park that night; relaxed and unconcerned and auditioning like I was performing. It was a rare night.

Last night? Last night was on the other end of the spectrum. I *really* like the piece, and while I'm not quite at the level of "desperate" in my desire to do it, it's still one that I'm fired up about. Couple that with the fact that I have known and respected the director for years and yet was auditioning for her for the first time. And add to *that* the fact that I have worked with and consider friends every member of the audition committee (one of whom reads this stupid blog)… *and* that I knew another five or six guys who were also auditioning, and well… you can pretty much guess at my level of angst. I think I went to the bathroom three times in the first half-hour I was there. My nerves were shot.

It's because of all of those things that I find it somewhat strange that I feel as good about my audition as I do. Not good in the "I'm confident that I'm gonna get cast" way, but good in the "I read the way I hoped to and my state of physical and emotional unease wasn't a hindrance" way. It's the first audition I can ever remember where I felt the usual uncomfortableness and yet I didn't feel that it hurt what I was doing.

It was almost surreal.

I could barely watch the first seven guys get up and do their monologues, shifting in my seat and rubbing my eyes and forehead ad nausea just so I wouldn't have to focus on them. And yet the moment I started to speak my monologue it all went away. I wasn't self-conscious, the knots came untied, my breathing was relaxed and slow. For whatever reason the four or so minutes that usually turn me inside out became just like another performance and I felt as at ease with what I was doing as I would had I been rehearsing the scene for months (as opposed to the ten minutes I gave it beforehand). Of course the moment I returned to my seat it all flooded back, and that's the way the rest of the night went: queasy discomfort during the other auditions and calm enjoyment during my own.

In a strange way, the whole thing ties back to that ride home from festival almost two years ago. Earlier in the evening I had won an award for Best Actor at the festival, and I remember that drive home for the incredible feeling of relief it brought me. For years I had felt that I was a solid (if not damn good) actor, but I had simultaneously been unsure if anybody else held that opinion. It's hard to put any weight in the compliments of friends or even strangers, because they're not likely to tell you that you weren't any good. If they didn't like your performance, they usually just won't mention it, which is how it should be. And while winning an award doesn't necessarily translate into something being the unequivocal "best", what I does (at least, I found) is confirm that it is good. Which is all I ever really needed to know.

The direct result is that I've been confident in my acting ever since. I have my good days and my bad days, my good shows and my bad shows. But what I don't ever do is imagine I'm making a fool of myself. In the two years that have passed since then, I haven't really had a "high stakes" audition until last night. As it is, I've only had a handful of auditions period, and with one exception I didn't particularly care if I got cast, so the self-imposed pressure to do well was light, if existent at all. And the one time I did care, the were so many mitigating circumstances going in that my actual audition didn't seem to carry the weight it ordinarily would. (Which is bullshit, I realize, but it effected my mentality at rate). Last night was the first time I can say that the effect of having that confidence made a noticeable difference. I got up there, I did my thing, making choices that I was perfectly willing to live or die by, and then I let it go.

I'm not sure what happens from here. My suspicion as I type this is that I'll be getting a consolation call sometime in the next 24 hours telling me "close, but no cigar". I've learned to trust that feeling because more often than not I'm right. But in the end it doesn't really matter, because while not getting cast would be a disappointment, the experience of auditioning was an important one for me. And in the end, that's all life is. Experiences.

Fetch, Woofy! Fetch!

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:51:43 GMT

Let's get random!

- Tooling up the highway on the way to work this morning, I'm doing about 75 when some yuppie in a Beamer comes screaming up behind me. I slide over to let him pass, and he goes whipping by me. Five minutes later I pass him as he's pulled over by a Statie. Now THAT'S a good way to start your morning.

- Strange how times and tastes change over the years. Last night I watched the movie "Marty", which won the Best Picture Oscar for 1955 *and* the Palme d'Or at Cannes (one of only two films in history to have won both). Other than really enjoying Ernest Borgnine's performance (which netted him Best Actor), I can't really say I found anything particularly "Best Picture" worthy about the film. It was cute, but oh so very simple. Was it just a weak year for films, or was there something groundbreaking about it that went over my head because I'm not a film technique historian? Curious.

- Live Band Karaoke was quite the good time. It was a little nerve-wracking because while they give you a lyric sheet, you still have to know WHEN to sing. With just a drummer and guitarist, you're obviously not getting the full orchestration and it makes it a tad difficult to know where you come in. But the two guys who ran it were quite good and very helpful when people were singing, jumping in when someone got lost. If I ever find myself in Walpole on Wednesday night again, I wouldn't hesitate to drop in. Of course, that begs the question, what the hell would I be doing in Walpole on a Wednesday night?

- Pitchers and catchers have officially reported. Patriots who?

- Since defcon_1 has banned me from participating in his little poll, here are my answers: 4,2,3,5,1,2,6,1,3,7. Makes sense to me.

- I have an audition on Monday. My odds of getting cast are slim (just from a numbers standpoint). Beyond that, I don't see anything else on the horizon I would audition for, which means - *gasp* - I may not be involved in a show for the next two months! I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this. March could wind up being a looooong month.

- It's kind-of/sort-of come to my attention lately that I'm the kind of person most people like to have around in a group setting, but don't really think of when it comes to one-on-one time. Which I suppose makes sense when I consider that I don't do much reaching out on my own. By my own choosing, I live a life that just free floats from one thing to another. What an odd feeling to realize, "you know, I haven't done anything to make myself essential to somebody else".

- I saw "No Country For Old Men" a couple weeks back and my opinions of it probably fall into line with a lot of casual moviegoers: I enjoyed it, thought it was filmed beautifully and really well acted, but I found the story kind of frustrating. Not so much for the ending itself (I don't require ribbons & bows on my movies), but more in the way the info was parceled out. I read some reviews after the fact and I think I can say I now "get it", but it was frustrating when I left the theater that night thinking, "I missed something".

- Robert Mitchum. Now there was a manly man. I swear my testosterone count spiked just watching one of his films the other day.

- I haven't bothered to read the actual article (and don't care to), but this Yahoo feature tease made me crack up. "Jada Pinkett Smith describes the moment she realized Will Smith was right for her." Hmmm. Let's see. He was young, handsome, successful, charming, and by all accounts a grounded, nice guy. Yeah, wonder what she ever saw in him.

- After a relatively boring week (three nights of nuthin'), I'm itching for the show tonight. I don't think I'm ever happier than that period when I get to the theater the night of a performance until I climb into my car to go home. Between my pre-show warm-up, the actual performance, and the post-show social time, I just get off on theater.

- In re-reading some of my older Journal posts this week I've come to this conclusion: DAMN, I'm narcissistic and needy!

- No, I have no idea why I titled this post the way I did.

Thank you! Try the veal!

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:50:26 GMT

I was funny on Saturday night.

I don't mean the show. Actually, I *was* funny in the show. It's a funny show after all. But that's sort of a given. I meant afterwards. At the restaurant. I was funny then. Kicking back, beer in hand, amazingly relaxed in a situation where I'm usually anything but. I should explain.

Generally, I don't like going to parties where I don't know more than at least half the crowd (give or take, depending on size). I'm awful at making small talk with strangers in large part because I don't like talking about myself in a general sense. Where I'm from, what I do for a living, that sort of thing. I'm also not much into politics or the weather or any other humdrum subject that usually comes up when people of different backgrounds congregate for lightweight conversation. I went to an X-Mas party a year ago where I ended up knowing three people, two of which were hosting and had no time to spend occupying my attention, and a third who had attached herself at the hip to one of the first two. I gutted it out for about two hours, almost all of which was spent sitting in a chair in the corner, people watching. Thankfully as an actor I can do a prolonged amount of people watching and find the time not completely wasted, as it's the best form of character research you can ever do, even when you don't have a character to research at the time. But after a while and a few aborted conversations to nowhere, it gets to be tiring. So I try to avoid placing myself in those situations.

The same basic principal applies to small groups of people within larger groups of people where I *do* know a bunch of them. I'm usually not the kind of guy who can "work the room" unless I know everybody in it. Over the last few years I've forced myself to give it a try during some of the large theater festivals I've attended. The banquet at Nationals a few years back was one such time. The results were mixed. I was slightly more at ease because I had the theater stuff to fall back on. It was a good conversation starter and it allowed for some interesting dialogue to take place. Never 100% comfortable, I was at least willing to give it a try.

But back to Saturday.

We of course had a large contingent of people who headed out for dinner after the show had finished, winding up at TGI Friday's for the second night in a row. I guess they remembered us from the night before because not only were they ready for us (admittedly, we called ahead), but they said, "the back room's all yours so do what you want with it". We did. Now those of you know me well are probably thinking to yourself, "ummm… dumbass, you're ALWAYS relaxed (and usually funny) when we're a large group taking over a restaurant", and you'd be right. Well, not the dumbass part. I'm more of a smartass, as I'm sure you'll agree. But that's not what I'm really referring to. What I'm referring to is the small group of friends of one of my castmates who had joined us in the big room and set up shot at a group of tables of their own. Now normally I would have stayed in my seat, commiserated with cast and crewmates, and not given this small subgroup a second thought. They're not MY friends, so what do I care. But I happened to notice one of my other castmates as he wondered over to say hello to this other party and I was struck by the thought, "you know, they *were* kind enough to come see the show… I should probably at least say 'thanks'". So I got up, strolled over, and plopped myself down at the head of their table.

I thanked them for coming, and they responded by telling me how much they liked the show. Again I thanked them, but insisted I hadn't come over just to have my ass kissed, at which point one guy piped up with, "oh good, because I thought you stunk". And just like that… I was in.

With the sarcasm card now on the table, the floodgates opened and I spent the better part of the next fifteen minutes exchanging barbs and stories with six complete strangers. Names became a popular subject (I was challenged to remember all of theirs). I learned that it's "LEE-ah" and not "LAY-ah", although Ugly Sweater Andy and I agreed that they look more like cinnamon rolls than hamburger buns and really, bringing up the Princess when you introduced yourself only muddied the issue when you pronounced it different anyway. Everyone agreed that the name Gordon Clapp was just all-around unfortunate, even if we couldn't remember where it came from (Law & Order, as it turns out – thank you, Colleen). The food eventually arrived and I moved back to my own table, vowing to return later and get all their names right (which I did).

Sliding back into my seat I was greeted with the comment, "I feel like I should give you a standing ovation after that performance". "Indeed", I told my compatriot, "I feel like I just did a fifteen minute stand-up routine". It immediately reminded me of my friend Topher's (second) wedding from a number of years ago where, having apparently grown tired of rehashing the same tired stories with friends from the high school days, I turned my attention to my friend's boss and his wife. After an hour-and-a-half of me just riffing on anything and everything I could think of, and getting laughs at every turn, the guy turned to his wife and said, "we should invite this guy to parties… he'd kill". Ahh, if only it was that simple.

I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand why I am the way I am. Why I can radiate confidence in certain situations and why I damn near swallow my own tongue in others. I'm also not sure it particularly matters. I tend to think that all my neurotic tendencies (or more importantly, my awareness of them) have made me a more effective actor over the years, so they're good to have, even if they don't always pop up at the most opportune times.

In the meantime it felt good to be funny on Saturday night.

The cool tool

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:05:35 GMT

So as a bit of a follow-up to yesterday's post, it has occurred to me that this is also just about the one year anniversary of my joining Facebook, which really seems to slam home the fact that February is my "climbing out of hibernation" month. Since I don't want to blow my streak, I'm thinking I need to join something new this year. What should it be, My Space or Scientology? Hmmm… decisions, decisions.

I've also gotta say, after a year at it, I think I've finally got a handle on Facebook to the degree that I can see it's usefulness. The first couple of months it was a waste of bandwidth that seemed to serve no real function for me. I had a couple of friends linked, and every now and then out of sheer boredom I'd post something on their wall or poke them. But really, it wasn't worth having at that point. Then about three months in a couple of other people linked to me and then my friend list kinda boomed, at which point I started getting inundated with all sorts of silly requests. I was bitten by werewolves, hounded by pirates, asked to rate people on any number of superficial categories, and just generally bombarded with various random applications. I found myself sending drinks to people on a daily basis, not because I had some important message I needed to convey, but because I had this sick desire to increase my various drink options. Looking back, it was all rather sad, but then again so is sitting at my desk in the late afternoon with nothing to do, so I guess for a time it served a purpose.

Over the last month or two the furor has died down, as most of us who participated in that mad frenzy of useless application tossing have mellowed. I've managed to delete most of the completely useless "tools" (I mean really… what use do I have for a virtual fish tank?) and streamlined my profile so that all that's left is stuff that serves an actual function, even if said function is for my general amusement. I've also discovered that there are in fact a few things that the damn thing is actually quite good for. Pimping shows is a hell of a lot more effective when you can simply create an event, send it out to everyone, and then not worry about it. I always hated putting email pimps together because I don't really update my email address book all that often and invariably I'd have to deal with a handful of bouncebacks, followed by responses by people telling me whether or not they planned on making it. Much like Evite, with the Facebook Event they can just click "yes", "no" or "maybe" and perhaps leave a comment without filling up my email inbox. Probably not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's something.

The other cool side-effect is that I'm starting to get in touch with people who I haven't heard from since high school (junior high, really). I don't imagine I'm going to suddenly become all buddy-buddy with people who I haven't seen since the days when pimples were my biggest concern, but it's interesting to hear what they're up to and how their lives have turned out. As a "connecting tool", I hafta say, it's pretty cool.

Is it safe?

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:31:07 GMT

By the end of this week, I will have officially had this Live Journal account for two years. It's had it's ups and downs over that time, my periods of inactivity usually coinciding with those stretches in my life where I've felt particularly unmotivated or borderline depressed. I recently spent some time looking back on all the entries I've made and came to the conclusion that while each post is telling in it's own way, the ones about my friends, my fears and my acting are the ones that make the most interesting reading. This is not surprising given they are probably the only three subjects upon which I can be considered an expert. If nothing else I've proven I know jack all about football.

Another somewhat disturbing thing I noticed was that in both years I went into a period of inactivity in the months directly leading into and out of the holiday season. I find it disturbing only because it represents what is clearly a pattern, although to be fair its not a particularly surprising one. I'm not a big fan of "the holidays" for any number of reasons, not the least of which is I don't have much in the way of family in the area to share them with. I'm also not a fan of the cold, and winter weather seems to have the same effect on me as it does on most people. Namely – it brings me down. I tend not to write much when I'm down, at least not when I'm down for a prolonged stretch. Looking back I see quite a few posts on here that, if looked at as stand alone entries, would paint a picture of a guy who was in a deep depression. But ironically, it's in those posts that I generally was as far from depressed as could be. When I'm truly feeling down and out of it, I don't generate the desire to share anything. When I'm feeling upbeat or at least comfortable in life, I tend to get introspective, and sometimes introspective can read as "miserable". At least that's how I see it. Others may disagree.

Which brings me to today. While not significant in any earth shattering way, today is at the very least the first day in some time that I've decided to actually DO something about my recent and relative anti-social behavior. I've dropped some emails to people I haven't spoken to often enough since Thanksgiving rolled around. I've reached out to a few others on Facebook for whatever reason. Hell, I'm posting this, which is my first non-show pimp entry since back in November. I've had isolated days these past few months where I've felt energized and ready to "bust out" as it were, but the feeling hasn't sustained. That's more or less changed over the last week or two. Gearing up for opening night of "Dinner For Several" has been a big part of that, as has the end of the football season (despite it's heart-crushing outcome. If I were honest with myself I'd admit that I care just a wee bit too much about the fortunes of those forty-nine guys in shoulder pads down Foxboro way. Thank goodness for me I'm not honest with myself.) Spring, while not necessarily close, is on the horizon. I've got a trip to Ft. Myers and spring training to look forward to, and before too long we'll most likely be plowing back into Complete Works for the third (and one would assume, final) time as we attempt to take it to Festival. All of which are more than enough reasons to help me crack this cocoon of isolation I've been living in.

There is of course something else, but I'm not really ready to share that just yet.

Dinner For Several

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:36:52 GMT

It's a bit off the beaten path for most of you, but for those willing to travel a few extra miles for some good laughs, my latest theatrical extravaganza goes up this weekend down in Walpole. It's another fabulous script from local playwright John Shanahan, who also wrote "One Before 40" which I did a couple years back. It's the perfect show for those of you who can't get enough of watching me be completely ineffectual around women!

The Walpole Footlighters present:
DINNER FOR SEVERAL
by John Shanahan

All Carter Sullivan wanted to do was make a quiet dinner for his date. So how did he end up cooking for her, her roommate, his ex-girlfriend, his roommate, and his roommate's friend? A funny look at love and relationships and the foolish things we do for them.

Starring Jim Gross, Colleen Lavery, Gordon Ellis, Toni Ruscio, Robin Gabrielli, Shannon Lillian Hogan, and Christine Grudinskas

Directed by Stacey Shanahan

Production dates:
February 8, 9, 15, 16, 22 & 23 @ 8PM
February 17 & 24 @ 2PM

Tickets and directions can be found here: http://www.footlighters.com/

Hope to see you there!

Gordie

Pimpin!

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:40:40 GMT

I know what you're thinking… "Why, it's been WEEKS since Gordie sent me an email shamelessly begging for people to come see his latest show. I wonder what he's up to now?"

WELL WONDER NO MORE!!!

That's right! I'm back and begger than ever (?), and just in time to ease the impending holiday strain with Jack Neary's charming and funny, holiday comedy, "First Night". Sadly, you won't get to see me in a giant purple Teletubby outfit this time, but what you will get to see is perhaps my greatest acting challenge yet, as I attempt to convince you – the audience – that I am somehow not secretly in love with the beautiful and talented Jennifer McCartney-Williams! Why if I can pull that off… I'LL DESERVE AN ACADEMY AWARD!!

Per usual, details can be found at http://www.acmetheater.com/index.asp. The show opens next Friday, November 16th, and runs for four – count 'em FOUR weekends! That includes Thanksgiving weekend! What could be a better escape from those annoying relatives than a trip to the theater to see none other than yours truly?!?!

CAN I GET AN AMEN?!

Happy Holidays!

Gordie

The un-update

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:17:10 GMT

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, and in truth I haven't really had much to say. Life has been very good lately. The new place is settling in and is a TREMENDOUS upgrade over the Postage Stamp, but I imagine there's only so many stories you folks can read about my new (*used) recliner before going mad. Work is, as it always is, enough of a daily distraction to keep me from feeling completely useless, but is not particularly stressful lately either. "First Night" is moving along, although the compressed rehearsal schedule has got me feeling a little uneasy about my ability to "get there". Despite my feelings that the character and I are very similar, it's written in such a way that there's a lot more I need to figure out than I had initially expected. Which is a good thing, except that I'm spending so much energy on getting the lines down right now that I'm now nervous about my acting, something I usually take for granted. But it's not condition critical or anything. Just kinda there.

The Sox World Series run took a lot out of me, between the excessively late nights and just the overall emotional pull. I'm far too invested in the local sports teams, a fact which nearly crippled my childhood and has lead to me needing to constantly remind myself that it's "only a game" over the years. For the most part I've got a handle on it, but things like the baseball playoffs generally are a test of my will. I was also pretty much a zombie this past Sunday waiting for the Pats-Colts game, the anticipation threatening to paralyze me. Those are the moments when living alone are very dangerous, because it's so easy to just kill the day doing nothing but watching TV because there's no one around to say, "hey loser… put some clothes on and interact with the world, would ya!"

Been sort of chewing over something in my mind for the last couple of weeks which may or may not eventually become something noteworthy, but for the time being I'm keeping it to myself. I made a somewhat cryptic reference to it on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, which of course prompted a couple of people to try and pry it out of me. To date I've remained steadfast in my secrecy. Sometimes it's fun just to have something that's yours and yours alone.

More sports nerdery

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:37:44 GMT

While basking in the glow of the Sox magnificent triumph over the Indians and the Patriots absolutely RIDICULOUS blowout of the Dolphins, I spent the morning pondering a few things which quite frankly, are blowing my mind.

* Thru seven games, Tom Brady has thrown 27 touchdown passes to 2 interceptions. In three post-season starts, Josh Beckett has 26 strikouts to 1 walk. Eerie.

* Tom Brady is currently on pace to not only break, but OBLITERATE the NFL single-season records for completion percentage (Brady: 73.8, record: 70.6), passing touchdowns (Brady 61, record: 49), and passer rating (Brady: 137.9, record: 121.1).

* Brady has been an absolute model of consistentcy over his career. In six seasons as a full-time starter (with one of those seasons being only 14 starts), he has put up almost identical numbers each season, regardless of the team's fortunes or the quality of talent he had surrounding him. Consider the following:

His his single-season completion percentage has been within FOUR percentage points each season (low of 60.2, high of 63.9). Even allowing for a drop-off, he will most likely finish 2007 in the vicinity of SIX percentage points higher than his career BEST (or about 7 1/2 higher than his career agerage).

His touchdown totals (in the five seasons in which he started a full 16 games) were never more than a difference of 5 (low 23, high 28). Barring something unforseen, he will eclipse his career high in week 8 – HALF A SEASON – and finish with a total that is roughly DOUBLE his career average.

His passer rating has never fluctuated more than 7 points (low 85.7, high 92.6). He should finish this year about 25 points higher than his previous best.

Also, in six seasons he has thrown 12 interceptions 3 times and 14 interceptions 3 times. At his current pace he'll throw 5, and in reality probably won't throw more than 8 or 9.

Which is just incredibly scary when you think that coming into the season he was already considered a can't-miss Hall-of-Famer. Yikes.

* All you really need to know about the emotional roller coaster that every Red Sox fan rides can be seen in the following:

Red Sox playoff series since 1999

2003 vs Oakland – went the distance (won)
2003 vs New York – went the distance (lost)
2004 vs Anaheim – sweep (won)
2004 vs New York – went the distance (won)
2004 vs St. Louis – sweep (won)
2005 vs Chicago – sweep (lost)
2007 vs Anaheim – sweep (won)
2007 vs Cleveland – went the distance (won)

Think about that: of the last 8 playoff series the Sox have played, four ended in clean sweeps, four went the full compliment of games. There were none of those emotionally easy series where one team dominates but the other team saves face with a win or two. Everything was either the ultimate high (sweep and win), the ultimate low (sweep and lose), or the ultimate heart-attack (winner-take-all final game).

The frightening follow-up is that ever since Aaron Bleeping Boone hit the walk-off homer to end the 2003 ALCS, the Sox have done the following in the playoffs:

won 3 games
lost 3 games
won 8 games
lost 3 games
won 4 games
lost 3 games
won 3 games

Yup. That's what it's like being a Red Sox fan. Up and down, but never in the middle.

This is me on my pulpit

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:37:09 GMT

I have completely lost faith in the idea that humanity will not eventually consume itself due to a moronic adherence to bureaucracy coupled with an overwhelming lack of common sense or restraint. And I blame this lack of faith on Ellen Degeneres.

By now you've all heard the story. She adopted a dog from some animal shelter, took it home where it failed to play nicely with her cats (despite apparent training), and eventually gave it to a friend with a couple of small daughters. Some time later, the animal shelter, upon hearing this, went to the house with the two young girls and reclaimed the dog, citing that Degeneres violated her adoption contract by not notifying them when she gave the dog away. The little girls cried, Ellen went on national TV and did the same, some of her fans sent death threats to the animal shelter, and within 48 hours the entire sordid saga had become "news".

Four things about this story trouble me deeply (five if you count the amount of time and energy I've wasted contemplating and now blogging about it).

1) Degeneres not being smart enough to read the fuckin' contract she signed when she adopted the dog.

2) The fact that the shelter just went and yanked the dog away from what was by all accounts a loving environment merely because someone didn't follow protocol.

3) That Degeneres abused her fame by using her TV show as a platform to throw the agency under a bus, leading to ill-informed idiots like me to make snap judgments without having all the facts.

4) The complete tools who sent DEATH THREATS to an ANIMAL SHELTER because they "made my favorite TV host cry".

Yup. We're heading in the shitter, folks.

Look, on the one hand I can sympathize with each party here (well, not the death threat people… they're just stupid). Maybe reading every little nuance of the adoption contract wasn't something a lot of people do, since the way contracts read in this day and age you can't understand the point of half of it anyway. But once she was INFORMED that she was wrong in how she handled it, she should have taken on the responsibility of solving the problem without playing on the sympathy of a national TV audience. I don't doubt that she was truly bothered by the way things went down, but reasonable or not, she WAS in the wrong. Own up to your mistake and fix it. Don't cry about it just because you happen to have a platform where you can get away with airing your side of the story without being rebutted.

As for the agency, I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't just knock on the door of this unsuspecting family unannounced, rip the puppy from a crying girl's arms, and march off like Stormtroopers. But then again, I work in this country, and I've experienced first-hand how completely CLUELESS a lot of corporations and organizations conduct business, so I can't rule the idea out that they were in fact totally soulless in their operation. At the very least they should have realized they were dealing with a celebrity with GOBS of money and handled the situation better. They probably could have weaseled a nice donation out of the deal without all the negative press if they'd just shown a little common sense and said, "you know what, the dog's not in danger, this is probably for the best".

The entire event is best described as a "misunderstanding". Yes, some rules were broken, but the intent on both sides was to give a little dog a nice and loving home. This isn't one of those issues were people are going to be divided because they can't agree on what the best end-place for the dog is, like some twisted divorce settlement. It's a simple case of the bigger dick theory at work, where everybody's clinging to their little patch of power because to give it up and admit defeat isn't manly, and despite what the tears may lead you to believe, everybody involved wants to feel manly. Sadly, it's the wrong kind of manly. The money-grubbing, power-hungry, "I'm the boss" kind of manly that leads to things like slavery, rape, and oh, I dunno… WAR! It's not the good kind of manly that means accepting blame, standing up for what is right (as opposed to "what you want") and a willingness to settle things calmly and rationally. My dad may not have taught me much, but he at least taught me that.

In the end, I just feel bad for the dog.

Football nerd alert!

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:10:30 GMT

Patrick Crayton of the Dallas Cowboys is a moron. After losing to the Patriots by a 48-27 score on Sunday, Crayton told the media on Tuesday:

"Offensively, they are the real deal. I'm not going to lie about that. Defensively, I can tell you no, they're not. They're not (that good) at all. The only time they stopped us is when we had penalties. If that's stopping us, it is what it is. Defensively, they are not the real deal."

Because I'm obsessive about shit like this, I now present you the following:

Dallas Cowboys offense vs. New England Patriots defense, drive by drive

1ST DRIVE: 3 plays, 0 net yards, 0 penalties – PUNT

2ND DRIVE: 3 plays, -12 net yards, 0 penalties – PUNT

3RD DRIVE: 3 plays, 4 net yards, 0 penalties – PUNT

4TH DRIVE: 11 plays, 64 net yards, 1 off. penalties (-10 yds), 1 def pen (15 yds) – FIELD GOAL

5TH DRIVE: 11 plays, 84 net yards, 3 off. penalties (-20 yds), 0 def pen – TOUCHDOWN

6TH DRIVE: 7 plays, 74 net yards, 0 penalties – TOUCHDOWN

7TH DRIVE: 3 plays, -8 net yards, 1 off. penalty (-10 yards) – PUNT

8TH DRIVE: 6 plays, 18 net yards, 2 off. penalties (-13 yards) – PUNT

9TH DRIVE: 4 plays, 18 net yards, 0 penalties – FIELD GOAL

10th DRIVE: 1 play, 1 net yard, 0 penalties – INTERCEPTION

Crayton was quoted as saying "The only time they stopped us is when we had penalties". Yet on their first three drives of the game the Cowboys failed to make a first down and were forced to punt. In none of those three drives was either team penalized. On their next three drives, in which they were penalized 4 times for 30 yards (while the Pats gave back 15 yards on a penalty of their own), they actually moved the ball and scored two touchdowns and a field goal. Following that were the ONLY TWO DRIVES during the entire game (out of 10, mind you) where the Cowboys were "stopped" in which they actually accrued penalty yardage. They were then essentially stopped on their next drive (getting only one first down) but managed a field goal because a long kickoff return gave them the ball at the Pats *23*. Their last "drive" was all of 1 play, which was picked off.

The final tally: 10 drives, 6 of which were definitive "stops" by the Patriots, only 2 of which had Dallas penalty yardage as part of the equation. The Pats also shut Dallas down inside the red zone on two more occasions, forcing field goals, again without the benefit of a penalty yardage advantage.

Athletes shouldn't talk. Seriously.

And the beat goes on

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:06:47 GMT

In theory, my life is back to normal as of this week. I'm all moved into the new apartment, I'm back at work, and TunaSpeare is over. But it begs the question, what exactly is "normal"?

Looking at it closely, my day-to-day state of mind is about as settled as it's going to be. Being on vacation is always disorienting, so being back in the office is at the very lease a grounding point. I can check my email, surf my standard websites to feel somewhat updated on the world, and get on a rhythmic feeding schedule. I guess that qualifies as "normal".

Then there's the new place (heretofore dubbed "The WoofCave"). Being there is still kinda odd, but I'm settled in enough that it's at the very least feeling permanent. Ever since about mid-June when I began the all-out search for a new place to call home, I've felt very unsettled. For that matter ever since I moved into the Postage Stamp back in August of '04 I've felt kinda transient. So having a solid location where I can hang my hat, set up shop, and just generally unpack all the shit that is my life and dig in, is comforting. I no longer feel like a hermit.

So what of life beyond all that? Rehearsals for my next project, "First Night", have (slowly) begun, but that in and of itself is "normal", at least for me. NOT being involved in a show is when things feel strange. Looking at my schedule I see that the next thirty-five days provide no less than the following:

8 standard rehearsals for "First Night"
1 all-day tech rehearsal for "First Night"
3 dress rehearsals for "First Night"
2 performances of "First Night"
2 potential auditions for the February show slots
2 nights of auditions for Acme New Works
1 Acme "special event"
4 shows I'm required to see as part of my EMACT responsibilities
4 shows I want to see because good friends are prominently involved
2 Halloween parties
1 wedding for a co-worker
2 days of warehouse inventory at work
1 Pats-Colts game that is "Must See TV"

Somewhere in that mess I'll manage to squeeze in a few "dinner with friends" and other assorted last-minute get-togethers, all while trying to follow the Red Sox race to the World Series. And people wonder why I don't date.

As someone once said, "I've got my country's five hundredth anniversary to plan, my wife to murder, Gilder to frame for it… I'M SWAMPED!"

Woof sticks and stones

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:34:09 GMT

Time for some junk thoughts.

* I couldn't be happier about the Yankees blowout loss last night. Wang looked abominable, A-Rod pulled an 0-fer (albeit with a couple of walks), and Joba The Hut and his Al Hrabrosky imitation were nowhere to be seen. Unlike a lot of moron Red Sox fans who feel the playoffs aren't the playoffs if the Sox don't face the Yankees in the ALCS, I am wholeheartedly rooting for a Sox-Tribe series. I'm sick of the Yankees. Sick, sick, SICK of them. May they get swept in embarrassing fashion.

* Dilemma for the weekend: where to sleep. I currently have two residences, each with a bed. Half my clothes are at one place, half at the other. I have just enough dishes at the new place to survive. All of my books and DVD's are at the new place, while the old place still has cable and my computer. There is a TV and a DVD player at each. I don't really have time over the next couple of days to drag any more stuff to the new place, so I'm completely torn on where I should sleep for the next two nights until Monday rolls around and I can finally finish the move. Odd.

* Please note that I received my complimentary flu shot at work today, which means I will now commence to having a head cold for the remainder of the winter. I just won't have the flu.

* As much as I'd like to see the Cubbies FINALLY get off the schnide, and as much as I'd like Chippy to be able to enjoy a title run for his hometown team, I gotta tell ya, I don't find anything likeable about the Cubs this year. Lou Pinella is the same asshole he's always been, Carlos Zambrano comes across like a hotheaded dick, and none of their players are any fun. Meanwhile, I find myself completely taken in by the Rockies. I'm kinda hopin' for a Sox-Rocks World Series. Sorry, Chip.

* Two playoff stats that I was completely dumbfounded when I heard them: no one in major league history has ever hit for the cycle in a post-season game. Josh Beckett is one of only four pitches to throw 3 or more shutouts in post-season play (and the only one since the early 1960's) and he's done it in 6 career post-season starts. Wow. Just… wow.

* This alternating shows thing has been much stranger than I thought it would be. I walked into the theater last night and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw that the Tuna set was up and ready. My thought: "Shit… I almost forgot we were still doing that show". (Relax, Tito, I spent my lunch break looking over my lines.)

* Got into an interesting debate with my director during Wednesday's read through. She thinks I was putting too much of myself into the character, which doesn't fit in her mind because she has this warped view of me as some uber-confident dude. Hard as I tried to get her to see the truth – namely that I *AM* the character – she couldn't do it. Should be an interesting process finding a happy medium.

* This is how good the Patriots are this season: I'm disappointed that they're playing a relatively crappy team this week because it's not going to prove anything when they totally demolish the Browns. In year's past, I was always nervous for them before a big game and would prefer to see them whup some pansy. Now? BRING ON THE COLTS!!!

* I did a double take the other day when I saw an ad for a movie (Gone Baby Gone) because it actually STARRED Casey Affleck in a leading role. Then I saw the title and went, "wait… where have I heard that before" and quickly remembered that it was the title of big brother Ben's directorial debut. In the immortal words of Rip Torn on the Larry Sanders Show, "Nepotism is never a good thing. Look at Keifer Sutherland."

A sports junkies' dream!

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:04:37 GMT

What a weird and exciting sports weekend we just witnessed. Some thoughts…

* How bizarre was the end to that Orioles-Yankees game on Friday, the result of which was the Red Sox clinching the division crown after having won their own game earlier in the evening? A ninth-inning, two-out, bases-clearing triple off Marino Rivera to TIE the game, then a suicide squeeze bunt to win the game in the tenth. And all of that with a stadium full of Sox fans watching on the big screen long after the Sox-Twins game had ended. Totally surreal.

* Two images from the Sox champagne celebration that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to shake: the over-the-shoulder shot of Big Papi spraying champagne all over Paps which, due to the angle, totally looked like he was jerking off in Paps' face; and the later shot of Paps wandering around the mound with a Bud Light box on his head.

* On the one hand I'm positively giddy about the Mets' historic meltdown, because like most good Bostonians I hate anything New York, and because it pushes the 78' Sox off the record books for the biggest late season collapse. On the other hand I'm bummed that they lost on Sunday because I really like Tom Glavine and hate that he was the one to suffer the brunt of it, and because the scenario that was laid out had the Mets won, along with Philly and Colorado winning and San Diego losing (which all happened), was PHEEEEE-NOMENAL. A Mets-Phillies games on Monday to determine the East Division winner, followed by the LOSER playing in San Diego on Tuesday, with the winner of THAT game playing the Rockies at home on Wednesday. THREE one-game playoffs in a row?! GAH! It doesn't GET any better than that! As it is I'll have to settle for tonight's Padres-Rockies game, which is in itself a treat. You play a 162 game schedule, bust your ass, and then you have to play ONE MORE in which if you lost, you're done without even being able to say you made the post-season? GOD, I love baseball!

* If Jimmy Rollins doesn't win the NL MVP it will be criminal. A week ago the race was completely open and I thought it was gonna end up being Prince Fielder just because his numbers were so monstrous, but what Rollins did this weekend was just short of amazing. In win-or-die time, the Mets gave up 7 runs in the top of the first inning, while over in Philly, Rollins opens the game for his team with a single, a steal of second, a steal of third, then scores on a sac fly. That's an MVP right there. A guy who will single-handedly manufacture a run if he has to in order to get his team going. On top of that he had a triple later to give him 20+ doubles, triples, homers and steals in the same season. The truly amazing thing about that feat? It's happened only FOUR TIMES in ML history, and 2 of those 4 were this season (along with Curtis Granderson in Detroit). Mind boggling.

* I'm pretty sure Dustin Pedroia is the AL Rookie of the Year after his nearest competition, Tampa OF Delmon Young, revealed his true colors down the stretch by failing to play with any hustle and being BENCHED by his manager as a result. Remember folks, this is the same jackass who THREW HIS BAT at a minor league umpire a year or so ago. He may be talented, but he's a tool as a human being, and he shouldn't win any awards, especially over a guy like Pedroia who has a thimble full of talent but plays like his ass is on fire.

* Your National League playoff teams for 2007: Phillies, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Rockies. Wait… WHAT?! Who the hell saw THAT coming? I'm legit stoked for the baseball playoffs for the first time in ages because (at least in the NL) it's a bunch of fresh faces and I'm really curious to see who's gonna step up and become post-season legends. My money's on Matt Holliday and the Rockies, but we'll see.

* Honestly, I'm not all that thrilled about another potential Sox-Yankees series, and I imagine the rest of the country feels the same way. It's played out. Here's hoping the Indians can dispatch of NY so we don't have to deal with another week of rehashing bad blood from the last 90 years.

* This just in: the Boston College Eagles are the #7 ranked team in the country. Seriously. And we have a quarterback who is consistently being tossed into the Heisman Trophy discussion. Suddenly it's 1984 all over again. Yikes.

* The Colts have calmly marched their way out to another 4-0 start, and on the heels of winning the Super Bowl you'd think they've be the overwhelming pick as best team in the league. And yet, there sit our beloved Pats at 3-0 going into tonight's game and THEY'RE the ones getting most of the press and sitting atop all the Power Rankings. If I was a Colts fan (or player) I'd be ticked about this. Shows a total lack of respect for the champs. AND YET… this is exactly what happened in years past when the Pats were winning Super Bowls but Indy was blowing everybody away with their high-octane offense on their way to 13-0 starts. Shoe's on the other foot it would appear. See Colts fans, now you know how WE felt when our team was winning when it counts but your team was the trendy fave. Sucks don't it?

* I love reading Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column on Sports Illustrated's website, but he said some things this week which just made me gag. To wit: comparing the Vikings fans cheering of Favre breaking Marino's TD record on their home field to that of Sox fans cheering A-Rod had he hit homer #500 in Fenway was ASSININE. A-Rod is nothing like Favre. A more apt comparison would be if we cheered Jeter's 3000th hit should it happen at Fenway. THAT might happen, for as much as he has killed us over the years, Sox fans have a great deal of respect for Jeter. He's a class act and always has been. Just like Favre. They play the game the right way. A-Rod is a punk. Gifted as he may be, he's a greedy and selfish guy who bailed on the Seattle fans to take an obscene amount of money from a DIVISION RIVAL in Texas even though there was no appeal to playing for the Rangers (outside of the cash), then whined his way out of town and into New York because the Rangers sucked. He pulls bush league move like slapping at the ball and shouting at opponents to make them think a teammate is calling them off the ball. He apparently cheats on his wife. And despite the fact the he is FAR AND AWAY the highest paid player in the game, he may opt out of his contract to try and get even MORE money this off-season.. Oh yeah, and he sucks in the playoffs when it matters most. Comparing him to Favre is such an insult to Favre he should consider filling a slander lawsuit against King.

San Diego at #10 in your Power Rankings, Peter? Number ten?!?! Are you KIDDING me?! What's with this quote: "10. San Diego (1-3). Sorry. I don't buy the Chargers-are-dead stuff. They're too good." When in your world do wins and losses start actually counting for something? Sure, maybe they have the talent to be better than their record indicates, but that's only part of the equation. Right now they stink. They just lost to KANSAS CITY, who has looked AWFUL this year, AT HOME, by allowing Larry Johnson to run all over them even though he hasn't been able to get out of his own way all season. So much for the Bolts vaunted defensive front. Ditto for the Bears who you've got at #13. The Detroit Lions are 3-1 right now and somehow you've got them only one slot higher than Chicago and two BELOW the Chargers. Sooner or later you actually have to WIN a game to be considered good, Peter. I don't care how good they look on scouting reports. It's why they actually play the games (and yet another example of why college football needs a playoff system).

* Everyone's so shocked that Duante Culpepper and Joey Harrington are starting to look decent in Oakland and Atlanta this year after they both flamed out in Miami last season. Gee, could it be that maybe the Dolphins just sucked last year and quarterback play wasn't entirely the problem? The fact that the Fins are 0-4 this year might be a clue.

* Outside of New England, the AFC East is a combined 2-10 right, and the only reason they have two wins is because they played each other. Ouch.

* I have no clue how my fantasy team looks after yesterdays results, and I don't particularly care. I'm pretty much throwing in the towel on this season because I shot myself in the foot at the draft. I didn't like too many players going in, and then I didn't follow my instincts when I got there. With the third overall pick I was debating between Frank Gore, Larry Johnson and Shaun Alexander, even though I had reason to doubt all three and didn't really WANT any of them, all because they were the consensus 3, 4 & 5 guys with all the "experts". Meanwhile the guy I WANTED to take in that slot was Willie Parker, who I had last year and loved, but since it seemed like a reach, I didn't do it. Now here we sit with Parker #4 in rushing and Gore doing just enough to keep me from dumping him, but little more. Then I went and drafted Drew Brees and Marques Colston from New Orleans even when in my heart I knew they'd suffer a drop after last year's magical season (although I didn't think it would be the total gag-job it has become), because I jokingly didn't want to pin my QB hopes on Jon Kitna, even though in truth I kinda wanted Kitna. I'm not sure what caused me to flake out this year and turn into some brain-dead non-fan who only goes by what the "fantasy gurus" suggest, but I'll consider this year a major lesson learned.

* Pats-Bengals tonight, and a Rockies-Padres one game play-in. YES!!

It ain't much, but it's mine.

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:23:19 GMT

So after a much delay and wringing of hands in anticipation, I finally got the key to my new place last night. Armed with a tape measure and a notebook, I ventured inside to take some notes so that I might be able to figure out where the hell I was going to put everything BEFORE I actually started moving. I'm one of those people who likes to have a plan. And while I remain very excited about the new place and the improvements it's going to provide over the Postage Stamp, I couldn't help but notice a few things during my time last night that either slipped my attention or just didn't sink in previously. Some were good, some were not-so-good.

For openers, there is quite a steep incline to the driveway. Where I park my car is pretty much flat, but leading up to that point looks like it's going to be a bitch comes icy winter days. Couple that with the fact that the parking area is fairly narrow (given that I need to leave room on the other side for the upstairs folks), and I'm going to have to ratchet up my small-space navigation skills.

Another thing that struck me was how low the ceilings are. It's a pseudo-basement apartment, so this isn't so shocking, but walking around last night I was surprised at how low it suddenly felt. I'm gonna have to pray that whoever moves into the room above me is not a heavy walker. Also… no jumping jacks for me.

On the positive side, the shower actually has sliding glass doors, which means I can finally do away with the nasty shower curtain concept. While I'm relatively clean compared to most single men, I must confess that the shower curtain has always been my downfall. Keeping them clean is an endless task that I don't particularly care to work on, which means every year I end up just buying a new one when the old one has lost the mildew war. That trend can finally stop.

Once again I'm not going to be getting much in the way of airflow, as the only windows that open are the front three. I have a couple of small basement style windows (over the sink, on the second outside wall, in the bathroom), but they're all sealed shut. I will be able to open the door for some cross breeze, but that's about it. That being said, it was in the mid 80's outside last night when I got there, and the moment I stepped inside I could feel the temperature drop to probably the mid-upper 60's. That baby keeps COOL! I'll try no to think about what that means in terms of heating it come winter.

I have WAY more space in the kitchen than I'll ever need. I have no desire for a kitchen table set, as for now I'm just gonna throw up my banquet table, but there's room if I ever changed my mind.

Oh, and lest we forget the main reason I fell in love with the place, one of the first things I did upon entering last night was walk over to the laundry room, open the door, and give the washing machine a big old hug. I swear I heard it say, "keep your quarters for yourself and give me dirty laundry!", but I may have been hallucinating.

All in all, I'm happy. There's room for all my shit and room for me to move around. Now all I have to do is get all my shit into it.

Ugh.

There are those who call me... Woof.

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:08:54 GMT

When I was a kid, I hated my name. It was uncommon, which when you're a small child trying to fit in, makes you uncool. Plus, the name itself was considered somewhat of a geek name, like Eugene or Waldo. No truly hip or famous people had those names, at least not in the minds of adolescent boys. Looking back over history there have only been a handful of famous Gordons, none of whom were ever particularly trendy. Gordon Lightfoot has a nice voice and wrote some decent folk songs, but his name was always sort of a joke. Gordie Howe was a great hockey player, but his day was done long before I became of age, plus it lead to the rather annoying taunts of "Gordie… HOWE did you do it?!" While Boston Bruin Gord Kluzak was a tough S.O.B., I always hated the shortened "Gord", so I never really made a connection there. G. Gordon Liddy was famous for being a crook and a moron, so he was no help. Gordon Jump, while a cast member of my favorite TV show, was a balding fat guy who ALSO happened to play a child molester on a particularly scarring episode of "Different Strokes". When Alf came along and revealed his "real" name to be Gordon Chumway, well… lets just say that elementary school kids aren't going to let you get by without some razzing when you share the name of a fuzzy puppet with a big nose. About the only cool Gordon in history is Gordon Sumner, and I think we can all agree that he made the right move in changing his name to Sting.

As the years have gone by, I've grown to like my name and it's uniqueness. I'm NEVER mistaken for someone else by name, and with the exception of one stretch where I worked with a fellow Gordon, I've pretty much never had to worry about being in a place where there was more than one of us around. Another direct result is that I've never had to be one of those people whose constantly referred to by their last name, which explains why to this day why I cringe when someone calls me "Ellis". I have a first name… USE IT.

Now, while I admit that my name is not necessarily popular, it isn't SO out of left field as not to be heard of before. As it happens, Gordon is fairly common surname, as well as brand of Vodka, so it receives it's fare share of attention. It is for those reasons that I've never really had any great difficulty over the years with people *spelling* my name. It spells like it sounds. No problem.

That is until I started working at my current job. For unknown reasons that I will forever be baffled by, in the five-plus years I have served at my place of employment I have had my name butchered in every conceivable way. Despite the fact that the correct spelling is listed on all correspondence I send out (memos, fax cover sheets, email tags), and is IN MY EMAIL ADDRESS, I have routinely had people hack up my name in their correspondence to me. The most popular?

Gordan

Now while this is clearly incorrect, it's at least understandable, as given the nature of regional dialects "GorDON" can often sound like "GorDAN", retarded as it may look. It is, I assume, for that same phonetic reason that I have likewise had my name appear at least once in the follow forms:

Gorden
Gordun
Gordin

Truth be told I've been secretly waiting for that first "Gordyn" so I can complete the vowel puzzle with a use of the mysterious "and sometimes Y" formula. No such luck to this point.

This week presented a new twist, as I received an email directed to "Cordon", which I guess makes me one half of a French chicken-cheese-and-ham dish. Lovely.

But the fun doesn't stop there. Oh no. For you see, in addition to having a FIRST name that is also a regular surname, my LAST name can also be found used as a first name. Former Red Sox outfielder Ellis Burks and current Patriot cornerback Ellis Hobbs are two prime examples. As a result, I have on plenty of occasions these past five years had things addressed to me as, you guessed it…

Ellis Gordon

As you might imagine, I'm not particularly fond of this practice, given how I've previously discussed my disdain at being called "Ellis" by itself. Sadly, I've resigned myself to this error as it seems to be occurring more frequently these days, regardless of how many times I end my emails to the offenders with a simple, "Thanks, Gordon". I'm sure this continued misuse of my name can be attributed to some degree to the overall dumbing down of our society and the general laziness that causes people not to take the added second or two to figure out who they are in fact addressing. I will also admit that since a great many people I deal with are themselves from lands far off and wondrous, their respective grasp on all things Anglo may not be particularly strong. I imagine if your name is something like Markelle or Xiong, you're used to having your name butchered to the point that you aren't particularly sensitive about doing it to others.

So I persevere. I'll continue to cringe whenever my seemingly simple name is mangled, but I'll get over it. At the very least it gives me reason to accept and embrace the fact that I somehow acquired a nickname which is that of a noise a dog might make.

Woof indeed, Gordon. Woof indeed.

The devil in me

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:45:47 GMT

By nature of the fact that I sit in the solitary confines of my office for 95% of my work day, I don't interact with my fellow employees all that often. I also tend to be rather reserved in my behavior while at work, at least in comparison to the talkative smartass most of my theater friends know me as. But on occasion I'll slip into Woof-mode and say something to a co-worker that catches them off guard because they're not familiar/used to my sense of humor. A few recent examples.

* * * * *

[An exchange with a fellow male employee as we stood side-by-side in the men's room washing our hands.]

Him: So what do you think about the Sox lately—

Me: Don't talk to me!

Him: [taken aback] I'm sorry?

Me: We're in the men's room. No talking!

Him: [confused] Uhhh…

[We exit the room. Once outside in the hall…]

Me: Sorry about that. You were saying?

* * * * *

[A conversation with a co-worker who has a habit of engaging me (and others) in random conversation without allowing for my half of the dialogue to have any bearing on his own thoughts.]

Him: …which is why I told the guy to get lost. There's no way we were gonna eat that charge after the way they handled the situation.

Me: I know. I had the same problem with my crack dealer the other day.

Him: Right. Where do these company's get off… wait, what?

* * * * *

[And finally a snippet of dialogue with a co-worker who is getting married in November.]

Her: Did you get your invitation?

Me: Yup. Came in the mail yesterday.

Her: Good. Can you try and return the response card as soon as possible, we're a little behind sched—

Me: Did it this morning.

Her: Oh good. Were you planning on bringing a guest?

Me: Yeah.

Her: [somewhat surprised, as she knows I'm single] Oh. [pause] Is it… someone who works here?

Me: No. But there's plenty of escort services out there. I shouldn't have a problem getting someone.

[Looooong pause as she stares at me in horror mulling over the thought of me bringing a hooker to her wedding.]

Me: Sorry. I'm kidding. No guest. Relax.

* * * * *

Sometimes you just have to keep people on their toes, no?