Jeebus Burbano and Tom Shelton making nice for the camera
Jeebus Burbano, who was interviewed in the website San Diego Playwrights about a theatre piece she wrote with her life partner Tom Shelton called Silueta about a character named Ana and her life partner Carl. Ms Burbano disclosed in the interview that in their writing process, "I write Ana usually and Tom writes Carl." I have not yet seen the play so I am assuming it is some kind of dark Chekhovian drama set in pre-revolutionary Russia because the idea amuses me. And since I have been in a domestic partnership myself, I further surmise that the dialogue - written by Ms. Burbano and Mr. Shelton each for the characters of their respective genders - breaks off into exchanges like:
CARL: The winters are so cold here. If only we could return to Moscow! Ana enters, extremely pissed off.
ANA: Is that why you didn't go to the grocery store?
CARL: Do you mind? I'm lamenting my lost way of life as a Russian nobleman.
ANA: That's not going to be of much help when I need the tampons and Ben & Jerry's AmeriCone Dream that you promised to pick up.
CARL: Fine. Just let me finish writing - I mean saying - this speech, and I'll go to the goddamned store.
ANA: And get a bottle of Jack Daniels. Your mother is coming over and you know how she loves to drink.
CARL: ALL RIGHT!
Ana exits, but not before shooting Carl a withering look that tells him that this isn't over and if he expects any sex within the next six months, he'd better shape up. CARL: The winters are so cold here. If only we could return to Moscow!
I'm sure that Ms. Burbano and Mr. Shelton will do some editing before the play's premiere but I would advise them to leave these honest interactions intact. The best writing is always the most personal, and I think audience would like to see an honest representation of contemporary domestic life (even if it is set against the backdrop of pre-revolutionary Russia). Not many people know this, but the first draft of The Importance of Being Earnest had a scene in which Jack and Algernon bicker about where they should put the new paisley foot stool they just got from Renaissance Hardware, but Oscar Wilde cut it after lawyers convinced him it might hurt his court case against the Marquess of Queensberry. It's a shame; it would only have made a great play even greater.
The righteous Mr. Chip Beeker God, who I've been giving a free pass on these pages for too long. Alabama Public Service Commissioner-elect Chip Beeker announced that his office refused to comply with the EPA's new carbon pollution measures because God gave them coal. The article I learned this news from dismissed the argument with scientific mumbo jumbo that has nothing to do with Mr. Beeker's point, so I think we should meet him on his own terms. Okay; I'll give him that Jehovah created the universe, including coal, for the sake of this argument. He just has to tell me where in the Bible it says that God gave us any instructions to burn the stuff. Otherwise it seems to me that come Judgment Day when Mr. Beeker meets his maker, he's going to have to do some tap dancing to explain why we trashed so much divine coal; since for all we know God intended us to use it to make decorative paperweights with. Isn't it funny how mankind will find something pumped out by the Almighty (elephants, say), come up with some use for it on their own (slaughter them into near-extinction for piano keys and elephant foot trash baskets), and then justify it all by claiming that it was clearly what God wanted to do with it in the first place because it would be inconvenient to change things now. I just hope that if Mr. Beeker contracts lung cancer from breathing in all the crap we're pumping into the atmosphere, he'll do the holy thing and let the disease kill him off like God intended rather than seek medical attention. The Lord gave us lung cancer to thin out the herd of idiots like Chip Beeker. It would be blasphemous not to obey His divine will.
Jessica Lange displaying memorable nudity in “Frances.” If she has appeared in other films, I am not familiar with them. An acquaintance of mine recently smirked that "How interesting that Jessica Lange's German accent is still southern." I am a great admirer of the work of the two-time Oscar winner and three-time Emmy winner, primarily for her nudity in films like The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), Frances (1982) and Titus (1999). My buddy was demeaning her performance in the cable television show American Horror Story, in which Ms. Lange has never appeared nude so I tend to block her out. There is enough nudity from other actresses who appear in the show that I just might give it a look, and if I focus I may be able to check out Ms. Lange's work if nobody else is nude who shares a scene with her. But with no nudity being offered, I sincerely doubt that I'll be able to scrounge up enough interest to fix my eyes on the screen, much less judge the accuracy of Ms. Lange's dialect.In fact, I'm so obsessed with female nudity onscreen that some people have suggested I take a vacation to reboot. Maybe I'll visit the southern part of Germany. I hear that they have some hot chicks there.
Ja'Son Fogelson. I learned about a series of tragic personal losses over the past couple of days and posted on my Facebook Wall "I'm having a rough day. Now my upstairs neighbor told me that his father and his dog (who I knew well) had died within a week of each other. He ended the message with 'Hug you dog,' so I did." Mr. Fogelson felt it was appropriate to critique me in my mourning by commenting "I'm confused -- his father and his father's dog died within a week of each other? You knew his father, or you knew his dog? Please clarify -- or at least write better." It seems to me that if I was referring to his father's dog, I would have written "his father and his father's dog" if I meant as much (if both his parents had died and I'd written "his father and his mother," I guess Mr. Fogelson would have assumed I was referring to the father's mother); or placed the parenthetical after the mention of the father (who I did not know) rather than the dog (who I did know). But I can see that Mr. Fogelson's confusion is genuine because he doesn't seem to realize the best time to crawl up someone's ass might not be when they're announcing a string of deaths they've just suffered through. I hope this notice clarifies the issue for him.
The 2014 Jonny Christmas Extravaganza, which will debut on Friday, December 5th. I was disconcerted to realize that this year's edition will be the 25th time that I have crapped out a story about a young muse named Jonny M. saving Christmas for some nudnik, so in honor of that dubious milestone I rolled out a special logo to commemorate it. I was immediately beset with requests from the yentas who follow my every move on the Internet to have the logo put on tee-shirts and market it like I was the Washington Redskins or George Bush I's Operation Desert Storm (the only US military action I know of that offered souvenir sweatshirts and mugs). I'm not falling for it because I already have a stockroom full of Jonny® dildos (shaped from a cast of my own tragically misshapen genitalia) and Winston® lipstick dispensers (shaped from a cast of my beloved pug Winston's doggie wiener) which everybody asked for but nobody wants to actually buy. I'm not being hoodwinked again so anybody who wants a Jonny® 25th anniversary tee-shirt can download the logo and then go to Zazzle and make one. I'll even autograph it for you. It will give me a chance to use one of the 100,000 Winston® lipstick dispensers that are sitting in my warehouse.
Ja'Son Fogelson. I learned about a series of tragic personal losses over the past couple of days and posted on my Facebook Wall "I'm having a rough day. Now my upstairs neighbor told me that his father and his dog (who I knew well) had died within a week of each other. He ended the message with 'Hug you dog,' so I did." Mr. Fogelson felt it was appropriate to critique me in my mourning by commenting "I'm confused -- his father and his father's dog died within a week of each other? You knew his father, or you knew his dog? Please clarify -- or at least write better." It seems to me that if I was referring to his father's dog, I would have written "his father and his father's dog" if I meant as much (if both his parents had died and I'd written "his father and his mother," I guess Mr. Fogelson would have assumed I was referring to the father's mother); or placed the parenthetical after the mention of the father (who I did not know) rather than the dog (who I did know). But I can see that Mr. Fogelson's confusion is genuine because he doesn't seem to realize the best time to crawl up someone's ass might not be when they're announcing a string of deaths they've just suffered through. I hope this notice clarifies the issue for him. 
The 2014 Jonny Christmas Extravaganza, which will debut on Friday, December 5th. I was disconcerted to realize that this year's edition will be the 25th time that I have crapped out a story about a young muse named Jonny M. saving Christmas for some nudnik, so in honor of that dubious milestone I rolled out a