Homodox

Yet Another Reason to Bail On Facebook

Michael got friended last week by a student he had in the 1980s.  Yes, those people from the Class of 1987 that Michael taught are turning 40.  It may be the new 30, but it's still up there.  In any case, this guy was from Michael's first exchange trip to France.  

In the list of many other friends was a colleague of Michael's we knew--a guidance counselor from that high school.  We knew her because for years we all had season tickets to the American Repertory Theatre and we saw each other on subscription nights.  However, this gave me pause.  Do I want to live in a world where I would friend my high school guidance counselor?  No, and thankfully, I'm pretty sure Mrs. Whitmarsh is pushing daisies.  Still and all, I think that boy needs serious therapy.

And that's what's wrong with Facebook for anyone over 21.  It's all about the past and not about the present.

Applause Addicts

In the 1980s there was a touring show called Legends starring Mary Martin and Carol Channing.  Who could resist?  So I saw in Boston--it never made it to Broadway.  They and the show were dreadful.  There was an act in some edition of Forbidden Broadway that made fun of Mary Martin and her inability to sing in later years.  It was deadly and to the point.  Why did she do it?  She had this incredible thirty year career--three Tonys and Emmy, etc.  She co-produced the Sound of Music (her husband Richard Halliday got the credit), but she got the money.  Why did she come back?  In an interview I saw, she decided she had a gift and she needed to continue sharing it.  Of course, that was bullshit.

Like opera singers who give perpetual "final farewell" tours, or Frank Sinatra, who un-retired more than once, why do performers never retire?  The only guess I can come up with is that when you've been the recipient of that sort of public adulation, it's like heroin and you can't give it up.  No matter how sucky you sound.

Which brings us to Liza Minnelli at the Tonys last night.  Like Julie Andrews, Mary Martin, and Ethel Merman before her, what was she thinking?  And more importantly what was her agent thinking?  She couldn't sustain any note longer than two beats.  And that wobble.  She was selling that song like gangbusters, but only because she couldn't sing it anymore.  Hey, New York, New York was 33 years ago now.  Liza must have enough money to retire and live well.  But, those applause addicts just keep coming back for more and there's enough deaf blue-hairs in the world to pay ticket prices.  

It's So Gay

It doesn't get much gayer than the Tony Awards.  Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris.  [why didn't he sing Not While I'm Around with Angela Lansbury??]  And Elton John, Liza Minnelli, and Dolly Parton were all there and singing.  I mean was that gay or what???

But the gayest thing is knowing that Arthur Laurents cast and directed the revival of West Side Story and seeing those Jets and Sharks.  I so wanted Bernardo and Riff to dump Anita and Gabriella and kiss while dancing the mambo.  I mean that's gay.

2009 Tony Awards

I can make two updates to recent blog postings.  Geoffrey Rush indeed became the nineteenth actor to win the Triple Crown of acting: the 2009 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play (Exit the King) to go with his Oscar for Shine (1997) and his Emmy for Life and Death of Peter Sellers  (2004).  And Angela Lansbury becomes the third woman to win Tonys in both the musical and drama categories.

Blogging Acorns

Maybe because June is Father's Day month, two of my favorite bloggers are touting novels written by their fathers.  Alex Massie the son of Allan [whose most famous book is still probably Nicholas and Alexandra] and Matthew Yglesias the son of Rafael [whose most famous book is probably Fearless].

Dominance

Roger Federer just won the French Open.  He completed the career grand slam, the first man since Andre Agassi and only the sixth to do so (Rod Laver, Don Budge, Fred Perry, and Roy Emerson).  He also won his 14th slam event and is now tied with Pete Sampras for the most slam wins in history.  And when he wins #15, as I'm sure he will, he'll have all four and be entitled to be called the best of all time.

However, consider this:  Since 2005 there has been 18 slam events (Australia, French, Wimbledon, and U.S.).  Of those, Roger Federer has won 10 of those. Rafael Nadal won six of them.  In five of those six events, the runner up was Roger.  Dominance is being first or second in 15 out of 18 slam events, an amazing 83.3%.  No one in any team sport does that.  Not even Tiger has been so dominant in terms of numbers at the height of big winning surges.  

The Myth of Good Health

Somewhere out there in the world, there are healthy people.  There are also people who are unhealthy, who if they change some behaviors will be healthy.  Then there are those of us who will never be healthy no matter what we do.  I've come to realize that if I had been born 100 years before I was, I'd be one of those children who never reached adulthood.  I'm also certain that nature abhors being outdone by modern medicine and my continued ill health is just the result of staying too long at this party.  My parents had they lived in the 19th century, would have had six to eight children, of which maybe half would have reached adulthood.  Instead they had three and we're all still here.

I quit smoking five months ago and I wish I could say I feel better.  That's what everyone asks: do you feel better?  Quite frankly, no.  I was in poor health then and I'm in poor health now.  I realize the cigarettes didn't help, but they really didn't hinder me either.  Part of this had to do with the current state of health care delivery in the U.S.  I'm covered in HMO-land by a series of doctors some of whom are incompetent and most of whom don't give a shit about their patients.  

It took me literally years to figure out (on my own) that I was lactose intolerant.  No doctor figured it out--just me.  And I loved dairy.  I exercised, took vitamins, ate well, got eight hours of sleep and was miserably sick anyway.   I did not know that as an adult you can develop allergies or intolerances that you previously didn't have.

It also took me literally decades to figure out I had sleep apnea.  I'm thin and each time I brought my exhaustion up with my primary care physician, he said--can't be that.  Overweight people get that.  I had to overrule him and get my own sleep test.  Now, a year and a half later, I'm well rested for the first time in my adult life.  

These two things I had to do without the help of the medical community.  It also put me in the position of not knowing what was really wrong for a long time.  I smoked because I lacked the energy to do anything.  No amount of caffeine helped.  Now I know I was sleep deprived.  Now I can actually take allergy medicine for my spring allergies because I can afford to feel a bit tired.

Still, there so many things wrong that I know I have to just accept being in poor health.  My joints have ached since I was 30 and I'm now in daily acute pain.  I still suffer from sinus and throat somethings that cause me to have a runny nose daily.  I can't eat anything without choking at least once during the meal.  I have enjoyed eating since the 1970s.  I do it only because I have to.  Good health?  Not me.  I've learned to endure, but I've also learned I'll never feel good again.

Presidential Dating

So let me get this straight.  When the democratic president gets a blowjob in the Oval Office, it requires impeachment.  When the democratic president takes his wife on a date, it's spending too much money.  What is it called when republicans want sex?  Oh yeah.  Prostitution.

Light a Candle

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.  We, as a society, have forgotten this.  Left curses the right; right curses the left.  We all have positions and no one listens to anyone else.

So, how do we deal with Barack Obama who insists on lighting candles?  In his recent speech to the Muslim World, he offers a way forward for the entire world.  However, people on both sides (or say, conservatives in the U.S. who don't care about the world beyond their own power), are criticizing either the entire speech or least aspects of the speech.  There's no such thing anymore as an "A for effort."  I think it's OK not to like his policies, but you have to give him credit that he is tackling problems in the way he sees best.  He's listening to all and he's explaining, in sometimes complicated and nuanced ways, what he intends.  At least he has a vision.  

Know Your Topic Before Speaking

Two great charts via Andrew Sullivan.  One on abortion and the other on socialism.  The point(s) being that when we discuss late term abortions (that is after 21 weeks), it is 1.1% of all abortions.  And when the government got General Motors stock it now holds exactly .21% of all business assets in the U.S.  Don't let people steer you wrong about these things.

Dealer's Choice

So, is it better to be thought of as a suicide or man who had a specific sexual predilection?  Either way, David Carradine doesn't care anymore.

Double Threats: The Women

The men had ten in this category.  The women are much more special:

Actresses Who Have a Tony in both the Musical and Drama Categories: 

Glenn Close (Sunset Boulevard, The Real Thing, Death and the Maiden)

Audra McDonald (Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime, A Raisin the Sun) 

Wrong Debris?

This begs the question of how much debris is floating in the Southern Atlantic and how much oil?

Me Siento Hermosa

Which is the Spanish title for the song "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story.  I'm enjoying the new Broadway cast recording (yes, I still buy CDs).  This time the lyrics and dialogue that the Sharks either sing or speak is in Spanish.  Well, not all, but much.  America is still in English, which makes sense given the purpose of the song in the show.  However, the parts of the Quintet, A Boy Like This, etc. are in Spanish now.  I've got to say, it really sounds great.

Free On Craigslist

If you want some weirdness in your life, just advertise some item on the free stuff section of Craigslist.  If I'm giving away an old fridge for free, don't reply and say "call me."  No.  You call me sweetiepoops.  Of the two dozen responses that flooded my email box in the first two hours, half asked if the fridge worked!  No--I'm giving away a broken and useless fridge for free!  I might have mentioned that in the ad.  

All in all, I should have taken the thing to the sidewalk on trash day.  I thought this was doing the right thing.  Now I'll have a frigging bidding war going on for this thing.  All I want is the space back in my basement.

A Rose By Any Other Name . . .

Great Minds

I posted this about death two days ago.  Yesterday a commenter and Andrew Sullivan wrote this:

I have always thought that death is the great elephant in every room, and that no one really wants to confront it, talk about it, deal with it. . .we pretend it doesn't exist until it happens. . . and this means that people engage in incredible folly--fighting over trivial things, sweeping real problems and real issues in relationships under the rug, misplaced ambition, putting up with miserable lives because they think they will live forever--maybe if death, this all-encompassing, all-important topic were confronted on a daily basis, if a frank and open discussion of it were part of our quotidian routine, then maybe just maybe some of this folly would end. . .
For me, this was confronted rather graphically before I turned thirty. Expecting not to live past 40 concentrates the mind and soul. I forget those lessons all the time, of course. But you never forget entirely. You remember the place where plague cannot get you. And you seek it, and God's astonishing, universal, unconditional love, for the rest of your life.

Not only did the Suzanne Somers' nuttery hit me, but the fact that as a genealogist I was working on a heir finder case.  I couldn't figure out why someone aged 89, with no children and no siblings would not have a will.  Did she think that she would live forever?  Did she want to avoid thinking of her own death?  The result, which she doesn't have to deal with, is the mess of her estate.  Rather selfish, I think.  

Double Threats

In honor of the upcoming Tony Awards:

Actors Who Have a Tony in both the Musical and Drama Categories: 

1. Rex Harrison (Anne of the Thousand Days, My Fair Lady)
2. Robert Morse (How to Succeed in Business, Tru)
3. Zero Mostel (Forum, Fiddler on the Roof, Rhinoceros)
4. Christopher Plummer (Cyrano, Barrymore)
5. Jonathan Pryce (Comedians, Miss Saigon, )
6. Boyd Gaines (She Loves Me, Contact,  Gypsy, Heidi Chronicles)
7. Matthew Broderick (Brighton Beach Memoirs, How to Succeed in Business)
8. John Lithgow (Sweet Smell of Success, The Changing Room)
9. Harvey Fierstein (Hairspray, Torch Song Trilogy)
10. David Wayne (Finian's Rainbow, Teahouse of the August Moon) 

 

Right Clue, Wrong Deduction

Ross Douthat write this in today's N.Y. Times:

Complaints about the Supreme Court’s power are almost as old as the Constitution, but they have more merit now than ever. According to calculations by the Harvard law professor Jed Shugerman, the Court has gone from overturning roughly one state law every two years in the pre-Civil War era, to roughly four a year in the later 1800’s, to over 10 a year in the last half-century. So too with federal law: Prior to 1954, the Court had struck down just 77 federal statutes in a century-and-a-half of jurisprudence; in the 50-odd years since, it’s overturned more than 80. Under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court invalidated federal statutes at an unprecedented rate — and by the barest of majorities, in many cases. In one eight-year period, the University of Michigan’s Evan Caminker has noted, the Court invalidated 16 Congressional statutes by a 5-to-4 vote, something that had happened just 25 times in the previous two centuries.

What Douthat fails to understand is the underlying cause.  It's not that the Supreme Court has ramped up its power in overturning statutes.  It's that the legislative bodies both at the state and federal levels have abdicated their responsibilities in writing good statutes.  They want to be re-elected (something the court doesn't worry about) and therefore write laws to please their core constituencies rather than do the hard work of governing and implementing good policies.  Legislators can write anything they want and not care about its constitutionality since they know the Supreme Court will eventually fix it.  So Douthat is on to something, but has gone down the wrong trail.  

Go To Your Room

If you belong to either political party and have a modicum of decency, you must be appalled at both of them.  I mean, the leaders of both parties behave so badly.  You just want to shout--you're grounded--no TV, no games, and no friends for a month.  Of Sundays.

Norm Coleman (R) can't let go of his senate seat.  Well, why not?  Gore (D) took his case to the Supreme Court in 2000.

Republicans immediately are after Sotomayor.  Not because she isn't a capable and brilliant jurist, but because it is a democrat president doing the nominating.  And that's a 20 year long back and forth since the democrats scuttled Robert Bork.  It's never about the nominee--it's just a giant judicial pissing contest.

When a democrat president goes away for the weekend, the republicans say the taxpayers are being taken!!  Gasp.  So, when the democrat president is getting a blow job in the Oval Office, that's impeachable, but when he loves his wife and takes her on a date, that's too expensive.  Good to know.  

Deficits don't matter if you're in power, only when you're not.

When are we [that would us, the voters] ever going to realize that these people need to be collectively thrown out of office?