After what Giorgio Moroder did to disco... Austria strikes again on a different level, and I don't know how Annti is gonna take it.

Going into redneck hillbilly rock... oh, preciousses... this has gone BIG here, always on the radio.

'If you stand with one foot in yesterday, and the other in tomorrow,

you're gonna piss on today.'

Queer as Folk, season two, episode six, and useful thought for the day.

It resonated.

Yes have been watching some of the series of late from a jaded eye. I think it will prove sociologically valuable as a view of a certain subculture of a certain time... and god or whomever help me, but I can certainly identify with much of it. And not always in a positive way.

Season one ended with a horrific shock, and was chilling. It doesn't help to watch the news, and see all the reporting on the Trayvon Martin killing, and learning about assinine laws that allow anyone to just gun someone down... because they are black, because they are gay... let's not forget the guys who dragged a gay black man behind their car on a chain till he looked like friggin road kill, here... the rethugs ramped it up so that people can kill and get off scott free, it's a license to hunt what people don't like. Always 'the other'.

Which, by the way... does NH have a stand your ground law... or not? First they were on the maps, then they weren't... which is it?

It would be interesting to know in case I wanted to ever visit... because if it is the case, no way I'm up for being victim.

The other theme in season two involves being hiv positive. And a scene where the major character michael wants to sleep with his hiv positive friend, and sees all the meds for the first time, and gets cold feet. (He was looking for condoms in the wc).

And it reminded me of when my beloved friend Mark visited us the last time... in Vienna. And the hotel staff sort of freaked, because all his pills were on the night stand, and got very errrm... suspicious. Adding the fact that Mark was six months before dying and emaciated. It broke my heart. I told them he had cancer. Brave, right? They were scared to death back then... Hell, I was at the beginning. If anyone were from New York or San Francisto or Miami? I didn't want to be even near them, if they fit the category of possibly gay. And all we had back then were persistent journalists in the alternative press who did remarkably good reporting. No one today who is young would believe the fear and stress and death and destruction an entire generation endured. It was very intensive.

Or let alone sleep with anyone considered iffy, and boy, it sure didn't work that way for a lot of people.

Although the series reflects the post-outbreak era.... it was always in the background, and made a lot of us who somehow survived it become very cynical. With good reason. So the series is good, but I for one take it in small doses, and see new things with every viewing... am only on the third time around.

As above... socioliogically interesting and holds up for that alone. But that sentence sort of hit me, and sounds like good advice.

Just another vid...

Hubert von Goisern has been around for over a decade and a half. I just listened to something I really loved when it came out. His music isn't typical of what austrian pop music is.. he was more into cross-breeding traditional music with modern trends, and has always been interesting. This has hardly any text, but is so romantic and melancholy, it gets under the skin. Loosely translated: Can't you hear it?

Can't you hear it, the time going by?

Just yesterday, we talked totally differently.

The young have grown old, and the old have died (away)

And yesterday's become today, and today will soon be tomorrow.

Can't you hear it? Can't you hear it?

It takes yodeling back to what it was originally. And it isn't kitsch. So Lawrence Welk won't roll over in his grave the way he is over the one below. I hope you enjoy it.

Here's an interesting mix.... local folk meets rock, and protest in the lyrics

The occupy movement meets Tirol.

The text: Where is the place, where the devil bears its' children?
where is the place where eveything comes together?
Where is the fire, hey, where is lightning striking now?
Where is the cabin, which barn is burning down... (straw on fire)
Everyone knows that money doesn't grow in the fields.
And you can't eat it, but it burns very well. (in this case double meaning... burn=spend)
But we're burning up the wheat and the beets and the corn, (wasting it)
And if we keep going on, it will be too late. (colloquialism, your hat will burn).

There's more about people stealing money, and they should go to the devil. It's really difficult dialect.

Art imitates life. The artist is Hubert von Goisern. nearly forgot to prop him.

Well new year's begun, all right.....

I listened to our New Year's Day concert... it was above average with some rarities in it.

And got to thinking about Strauss, and taking my cousins to see 'Die Fledermaus' in Vienna, which I tried to explain beforehand. It's operetta, the forerunner of musicals. And it is viciously funny, and a satire on the hypocrisy of the upper middle class in Vienna around the 1890's or so. And couples acting sanctimoniously upright.... but fooling around on the side... or trying to.

Although they don't understand German, I figured there'd be enough sight gags to amuse them, and of course, there's that wonderful music. And when you have part the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra playing... well, it really doesn't get any better or more Austrian than that, hey.

Whatever, all the subterfuge and deceit gets revealed in the third act. Which is a doozy... as we used to say. And a big part of that is a still very drunk and confused jailor named Frosch...(frog). It's a huuuge role, even though it seemed to be written as an afterthought, and for a comedian... it's red meat, Preciousses, and a very few do it so well, tja... to flip out over. Fortunately, the production we saw had one of the most talented and funny ones I've ever seen. And from the minute he came on, my cousins were doubled over laughing, because the body language was unlike any Frosch I'd seen before. People near us had heard us talking, so instead of watching the stage, they were watching us to see how they would react... and I'd whisper one of his zingers in english to them, and they were off.

Later they told me they'd gone to see an english version of it somewhere in the Northeast, and said, 'NOW we know what we were laughing about.' So guess it impressed them. It was a beautiful production.

Sometimes, some opera houses perform it on New Year's Eve, and have guest stars for the party scene, and it goes on for hours. But just alone, it's remarkable.

Since they played one of the comprimised overtures in the concert this morning, I thought I'd go looking for something, as a remembrance, and that piece really is part of New Year's in Austria. I couldn't find anything of the production we saw, which was highly praised. Found no Frosch worth posting.

But the Met seemingly had a stunning production, and found a culmination scene of the third act, where the truth starts to unravel. Great voices, but what else would you expect of the Met, hey. Dialogue in English, and subtitles for the music. What isn't in there is that everyone ends up happy, and blames it all on the champagne.. The party scene had songs and a philosophy that you would hear any local person quote some time or another. Most importantly, 'happy is he who forgets what can't be changed.' Think about it a minute. Or the host, the russian Prince Orlovsky, who is decadent, and often sung by women in drag. 'I bore myself and invite my guests to amuse myself, and what bores me isn't allowed. With my guests, it's chacun a son gout... sorry, my keyboard doesn't have the french accents... 'to each his own', in other words. Agnes Baltsa did it in a moustache.

Tja.... Saturdays's news wasn't worth commenting on, but

I spent a great deal of time this morning seeing how 'Lambchop' has been doing.

Am speaking of Chris Hayes, editor at the magazine 'The Nation' and an economic whiz, and I believe he is a good friend and protogé of Rachel Maddow... she's graced the beginnings of his own show. The 'Lambchop' thing happened one of the first times he was on Rachel's show, and he was nervous and said, 'Hey, Mad!' Then excused himself. And she said, 'It's ok, Lambchop.' The rest is history.

He did some guest hosting when she was on vacation, got good ratings... so now he has his own show. Only early mornings on weekends for now....

But am very much liking what I see. He's still nervous and a bit giddy, and there are glitches in his production team... like not smoothly putting up a clip when he needs them, but it's endearing, somewhow to watch something coming together.

The show is called UP... and I still don't know why, but hey, why not?

It is a much-needed counter-balance to MSNBC'S insidious Morning Joe, where pompous bloviating and self-aggrandisement are the order of the day.

UP is immensely 'watchable'. And informative. It's sort of an informal round-table discussion with the sort of people I would love to join in and have discussions with. Geeky and charming. And Hayes has the audacity to have on conservatives... real ones... who make the discussion lively by injecting actual ideas rather than 'talking points'. I guess they are the disaffected middle who have been disowned by the right-wing. That in itself is refreshing. Everyone is polite, no one cross-talks or interrupts, and there is a lot of back and forth where people can concede that the others have a point and aren't basically wrong.

It used to be called polite discussion... way back in the mists of time before everything polarised.

It's a breath of fresh air, hey....

There is a lot of emphasis on economics, because that is what Chris Hayes really knows best, and I hear you yawn.. But it isn't like that at all. Everything is explained in layman's terms, and it is all easy to follow. And actually entertaining.

It's like being in college, or young, and in on a clique, and they throw ideas around... And there are interviews. He had one on yesterday who wants to ban Planned Parenthood... and was way too polite. That woman was a horror. The only thing missing was a string of pearls at four a.m. as she was in San Francisco and was on the 7 a.m. segment eastern time. He was way too polite. Only faux pas so far. He could have really gone at her, although he did have the facts to refute her allegations.

He just didn't state them strongly enough.

That was the only jarring note this past month. Yeah, I watched a month's worth.

So... if you're up early on a weekend, I'd recommend watching that other than the pompous idjits on the weekends who think they run the world.

Am interested in how the show will develop.

When I pulled up my browser?

Top search of the moment on German Yahoo was depression, and I don't think it was about the financial crisis. I didn't wanna look. I'm sure my dearest friend would agree. She just lost her long-time pet companion, Boy, a beautiful, beautiful black cat.

It's gonna half kill her.

And am so sorry for that.

Best news of the day?

No one was drunkenly singing in the courtyard. They gotta work tomorra...

Tja.

There is a site I have been wanting to recomend for a while now...

Steve Hayes, who does 'Tired Old Queen At The Movies'... and the first time I ran across him, he really put me off with his schtick. But he has grown on me, because he really knows what he is talking about. He recommends DVDs that are vintage, and tells you the good stuff he knows about what was behind it all.

I've come to like him. And he never recommends a bomb. I can't find his homepage on short notice, but here's a sample. Be warned, the girl is 'over the top' but knows her stuff.

We did cheat that summer...

Steve, Margot and Chris C and I would sneak out on weekends to see the UNH summer theater productions in English. I don't know if they are always so good, but they had a production of 'A Midsummer's Night Dream' that was so exceptional, and so funny... we went to see it the next night and fell apart laughing.

And we saw 'The Man From La Mancha', which was visually impressive, but easily the weakest of the lot.

And a hilarious version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'

And disturbingly... 'The Boys in the Band'. Which I hated. Because it was self-hating. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf magnified to what the author thought was 'GROUND-BREAKING'. If there were anything devised to make gay people self-loathing, I can't think of one. Voyeurism and disgust combined. It was the sour note in a perfect summer.

One where we laughed and which we thoroughly enjoyed. But going to the theater... yeah, we cheated. But it was fun....

Hmmm.. Dietrich

Annti was trying to have me guess which old actress she was watching on the tee-vee in NOLA, and I really couldn't guess. Turns out it was 'La Dietrich', the 'divine' Marlene. Gay icon. But not for me. I admired the woman for her courage and pure guts. So I told her the little I do know from this side of the frog pond. I never liked most of her films. But 'The Blue Angel' would rank in one of the top 100 films I have ever seen. Saw it in college during a summer programme that the German government happily paid for. They gave me a grant.... no ties, no obligations, and I ended up being the best in my level, which led a teacher from Munich to encourage me to go there the summer before my jr. year abroad programme, and gave me addresses, and the rest was history.

It was run by the Goethe Institute, and there only two summer schools like that in America. They promote the German language and culture world-wide. One was in my state, the other in San Francisco. I've never experienced anything so intensive, and yet so challenging and pleasureable. In eight weeks.... I did two semesters of what would have been intermediate German. Sound dull? Hardly. It was so exciting. Up till then, I'd been working 80 hour weeks just to pay tuition, commuted the one hour drive just to get to my classes and another hour back, and was fairly overwhelmed, but determined.

So having a leave of absence, and just concentrate on what I wanted to learn? Heaven.

The whole programme was geared to teaching from the level beginners to people working on their graduate programmes. We had our own dorm, our own dining room and the thing was... you had to promise not to speak any english for the entire summer. Everyone helped everyone else. It's incredibly successful.

We had a very structured day. Four hours of class in the morning, a ton of homework, but... since the Uni was not far from the beach, we'd all go out and do it there for the afternoon. Learning and swimming in the ocean, who could complain, hey? I'd gotten my first novella, and got the best advice ever. It was so difficult, and I was looking up every other word. One of my teachers flopped down beside me, and said 'You're doing it wrong. Words will keep coming up and will begin to make sense, and if you only get the gist, leave it. Use the dictionary only when you really get stuck.' Truer words never said, hey. In two weeks I'd finished my first novella, and knew all the fine points of the story. It was like learning to read all over again.

And we were still having fun. Half the staff were from Germany and Austria, the other from my university. And one of the running jokes was... the Germans didn't wear jock straps under their bathing suits. And I think it was a girl named Carol who famously said... 'If you run around like THAT.. they'll either think you are gay... or European.' I fell apart.

Our classmates were people from all over the country. In the evening there were language drills for an hour after dinner. Gruelling, especially for the newbies. But it paid off. There was so much fun, and silliness going on. People would tape signs everywhere to help the newbies. On the stairs... 'Die Treppe, Die Treppen.' My favourite was inside the stalls of the WC... 'Achtung! Fertig! Los!' (Ready? Set? GO!") First time I saw it I fell apart laughing, and couldn't ...go.

After the drills, we got the fun part. For the first four weeks, we saw a German classic silent film, wonderful stuff. When the four weeks were up, the people who had never spoken a word of German before, the newbies, had to get up and perform skits, and it was AMAZING. The silent ones had flash dialogue cards on them, and the beginners had a fiendish delight in yelling them out loud. 'DOCH!' was a favourite. Which sort of means, yes, or 'on the contrary... it has lots of meanings. But is so much fun to use as a contradictary exclamation.

Hard to explain.

Which brings us to the second half of the summer. After week four... we got films with SOUND. And they began with the earliest.... and that is where I saw ''The Blue Angel' for the first time. It was a hammer. As we say. It's incredibly tragic. Staid professor falls for a show-girl who takes him for a ride, and he gets fired, and ends up in the show as an impotent rooster, and goes crazy. Doesn't sound like much, but it was very impressive. The film version of Buddenbrooks also flattened me, a Thomas Mann book that is so rich, it defies description. But the film was sort of like the Cliff Notes version.

So... The Blue Angel. It made Marlene Dietrich a star... world-wide. There was a lot more to the woman, and I admire what she did with her life. But never got into the whole gay adoration thing. I admired her tenaciousness, courage, and never giving up her integrity.

What I forgot to tell Annti. It was the summer of my life. Incredible friendship, bonding, and parties that nearly brought down the roof, and they were hosted by staff on the weekends. It was the closest I got to real 'education', and not 'edumacation'. And I sucked it up.

It wasn't long after when I was back to the real grind when the film Blazing Saddles came out. One of the craziest movies ever made, Mel Brooks. Madeleine Kahn had her first big role. As a saloon entertainer. And she has a big number. 'I'm Tired'. It was the most raucous parody of Dietrich in the Blue Angel, it friggin' floored me, and I still have to laugh till I wanna pee my pants. It helps if you've seen the real version. I DRAGGED Peter to see it later in Graz. He laughed himself silly, but was a bit shocked. The Producers left him spitless. I loved shocking him like that. But this is about Dietrich and Kahn.

May they both rest in peace. And just so's you know... Madeleine Kahn was a trained opera singer.

This is for my cousins.....

Follies opened in New Yawk. Great reviews, clouded by the memory of what was a gigantic sucess at the time forty years ago, with the gorgeous Alexis Smith, Yvonne De Carlo, Elaine Stritch, and so many incredible people, it boggles the mind, and I kick myself to this day for not having seen it in Bawston.


Except it wasn't a hit at the time and didn't run long. It was incredibly expensive, for one thing, and ahead of it's time. It's about a group of people who had been in a Ziegfeld sort of Follies, the theater they played in is about to be torn down to be made into a parking lot, and Weisman (Ziegfeld) gathers his troupers for a last reunion. So you have the reunion sort of thing, which everyone always dreads, whether it was just high school, or whatever. And a lot of reminiscing. And it is very dark. People still holding torches, people on the verge of nervous breakdowns, and to top it all off, they have a second cast of the people when they were young. There is a fantastic number where the women are looking in the mirror trying to remember who they were, and the younger versions 'mirror' them... innovative, and breathtaking, have seen clips. It's dark, funny, and near-perfect. And by the way, Follies wasn't meant to be the show, but a play on words... as in folie... french for delusion. One of the enduring hits was 'Losing My Mind'.


The music is pastiche, from vaudeville to more modern. Bernadette Peters (a godess if there ever was one) is headlining. And again... that music is classic.


So if you're planning to go to the City... I wouldn't miss it if I were you. And it can be acid as well. Here's a nice sample of what Elaine Stritch did with her signature number Broadway Baby. I love that song, so Jolson. She's 80 now, but killed them at 40.




Another of my favourites is 'Could I Leave You?'. It's so bitter, but we've all been there. I picked the one I liked best. It's quiet at the beginning, but Donna Murphy owned it by the end. I had a few moments like that with Peter.

It's always struck me that when Sondheim composes a waltz.... the text is invariably so negative it jars you. Think of the pie song in Sweeney Todd... it was a waltz. And believe me, every song in the show is stellar. And still sorry I missed it.



So if you have something to do there.... maybe plan a real night out, and have dinner at your favourite restaurant, and see something incredible. It took fourty years to put this together again, and it will be the best anyone will do in a long time.

Serkan Kaya

That is the name of a guy, and assume it is turkish. He happens to be the best Elisabeth assassin of any I've seen, and unfortunately, I never saw him live... the others were good, but this guy... he is... amazing. You can tell how he just lives the role, and has a terrific time doing it.

I once attended a Styriarte concert that had to do with Turkish music and how it was destroyed by Europeans because they don't have 'the ear' to discern it. It was funny, and instructive, and very interesting. In their music, every note has twelve variations. I could 'hear' how he uses that to tremendous effect, which makes him the best Luigi Luccheni EVAH. He's lascivious, he's the needle pricking the balloon in the 'fairy tale' myth. After a fairly romantic first act, he opens the second.

I tried to always get seats near where he would appear for my cousins, in the hope that he'd throw them a souvenir card. He starts with trying to sell devotional souvenirs. Sisi (elisabeth) in the chapel, at Christmas, and so on. Didn't happen. The text is sarcastic, mean, but true enough. The text is sort of, 'You think you know what she was like and made her an icon, but neither text-book nor history will tell you what she was like. You've cemented her memory into some sort of shrine.' She's been 'in' for over one hundred years, and what remains? KITSCH. And later, 'Let me tell you something, (in that nyah nyah sort of tone) 'she was a dirty egoist...' (brilliant how he bent those notes)... she fought against (queen mother ) Sophie only to prove she was the stronger one.... One only hears what one wants to hear of dream and reality, and all that remains, It's kitsch, just kitsch... kitsch.

Serkan rules.

And if you are interested in women who emancipated themselves way before there was any idea of that.. I would recommend the biography by Brigitte Hamman. It revolutionised and debunked the Sisi myths spawned by the local film industry with the insidious Romy Schneider films. Our version of the Disney princess films...

What left me spitless....

Yes just one clip more. Go to about 6:50 on this to see what I mean. The beginning is a beautiful ballad, but go to the 6:50 mark... just click on the red line at the bottom of the clip. This scene was changed dramatically in the second run, because it was probably too dangerous. And you really can't see in the video how AWESOME it is in both versions. It's 'just' a jump ahead in time, and explaining how things are changing, a dynasty and world dying out. And that beam where Death is singing is about 20 feet above the stage. In the version we saw, the entire ruddy stage started to rise. With everyone on it. And Luigi Luccheni, Elisabeth's anarchist assassin was explaining who died in the meanwhile, like Maximillian being executed in Mexico, and other rulers of that world, mostly done with lighting effects. The thing is, the stage separated, and everyone was dancing on them, and the parts tilted downward, and it looked like falling dominoes. The first time I saw that, my mouth went dry and I was afraid to look, yet couldn't take my eyes off the stage. Then the stage went back together, and folded up in half, where the actors fell into the fold, and ZOOMED down into the grave, way beneath the stage level, to the 'grave'. That happens in the dvd as well, but not exactly as the first version was.

The show is a triangle... Elisabeth's love for Death, and Luigi Luccheni blowing up the myths of what had become a 'fairy tale'. Very effective.

In the newer version, it's a ship and is still way the fug up above the stage, and becomes a ship... with Franz Josef tanking the empire, and the dead going into the grave behind him. Makes sense, but the first was really awe-inspiring.

The camera angles were very disappointing on the dvd. Seeing it in real, well it knocked MY socks off....

For Annti: I translated what that ballad before hand is. It's pretty.

I especially like the line 'belief is not enough'. How true.

Franz Josef begs his wife to come back to him. And she says,

'They say that love can heal all wounds... Belief is strong, but sometimes belief is self-deception. We wanted miracles, but they never came to be. It's finally time for us to admit to ourselves.....

We're like to boats passing in the night. Each has it's own destination, and it's own freight. We meet each other on the sea, and parting hurts us so much, but what remains doesn't lie in our power to change.

Franz Josef': 'You want everything, but sometimes is a little very much.'

Elisabeth: 'Your dream is much to small.'

FJ: 'To be close to another in the dark, is that such a poor goal to aspire to?'

Elisabeth: 'I will not be your shadow.'

Both: If only you could see through my eyes, you wouldn't misunderstand me.

The rest is repetition of what is before. And ends with him saying I love you, Understand me, I need you, I love you... etc. etc.

What can not be, will never be.

Good memories this a.m.

Elisabeth, the musical is on YouTube. The picture is small, but it was fun to see the comments below the segments. I'm only posting the clip below because the director, Harry Kupfer was so brilliant. The relevant scene is the first one of the segment. In less than three minutes he depicts the rise of antisemitism and that evolving into what became the Nazi movement. There is much racism in the text, and echoes of things you hear today in the US... how socialists and communists are dirt who will be crushed. What it had to do with the Empress Elisabeth? She loved the poet Heinrich Heine, who was defamed because he was Jewish. The second song is her writing poetry, trying to call up his ghost, but only her deceased father answers and tries to get her back to taking part in life again, but she is too bitter. The third is one of my favorite songs, Rudolph pleading with his mother to intervene with the Emperor on his behalf. It's called 'If I were your mirror'. He has been rejected by her, and in the end, she rejects him, saying 'I won't ask anything of him for myself, and I won't intercede for you.'

But as above, the first thing is the one that took my breath away, it was so brilliant in the staging. 'Hate and Violence'. Despite my explaining it every time, my cousin L was always amazed at the dead silence in the theater every time she saw it. The first time, she wanted to applaud, and I grabbed her arm and hissed 'Don't you dare!' in her ear. That number held up a mirror to local society that made them uncomfortable and ashamed. And yes, it was brilliantly staged.

So you can take a look.

An afterthought to below...

Recent Horrowoord movies and series always had things I didn't understand in them. Well-to-do people sending their kids to 'Princess Parties'. And I thought, what the hell is THAT, for Chrissakes? I never made the connection till I saw the boards on the Disney stuff this weekend.

It isn't enough for some people to buy in to the whole Disneyfication of 'one day your prince will come' shit, they encourage their little girls by having Princess Parties?

THAT is .... just sick. I thought it was just something to make a little girl feel special, but if you feed them with the so-called princess movies.... you are going to create one neurotic grown woman who is going to have expectations believing 'if you dream it, it comes true'...

And just reinforces my contention that those films are poison for children.

That grown adults who are probably disappointed reinforce that expectation in their children is twisted, and damaging, and counter to everything they should be doing. Teaching their little girls that they can acheive anything they want. And they should be kept away from those films.

Gaaaawwwwd... Princess parties. Can we say 'barf'. I'd have them up on criminal influence, if there were such a thing, and Disney banned and closed down for ruining generations of children.

Weekend catch-up

Since what I normally watch on weekends is currently repeats of what I've already seen, my YouTube list had recommendations on one channel, and something caught my eye: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

I thought I'd look in for a few minutes. And realised, I didn't remember over 80 percent of the film! Turns out there wasn't that much to remember. But the richness of the artwork, painted frame for frame made it worth watching. I think I'd last seen it when I was fifteen.

The comment boards beneath the segments were eye-opening. I got a kick out of someone saying they'd seen it when they were six and now were so glad to watch again at 14 years old. What could I say? I liked seeing it when I was eight and was still sort of interested at age 61? I must say, Disney indocrination has spanned literally many generations.

Another disturbing trend concerns how many people are fascinated with what they call 'the princess films'. So unhealthy, 'waiting for prince charming', so unrealistic, so damaging in the long run. I later caught 'The Little Mermaid' for the first time, and that has to be the worst messaging of the lot. Only with the patriarchal blessing can Arielle unite with her (dull) prince... and assumingly propagate. (All the princes are dull, btw.)

The more comments I read, the more I wondered how many women's lives these films ruined. Engendering expectations which will never be fulfilled. I can understand why some people think they are pure poison, and I really don't think they are suitable viewing for children. Unless parents take them aside and give them a bit of a reality check.

As an adult, if you overlook the brain-washing, the films are clever, and yes, entertaining, and creative. And the old stuff is beautiful as far as the art work goes. But they really aren't for children.

My second choice was the 1940 'Pinocchio', which I didn't particularly like as a child, having read the unexpurgated version beforehand. (Yes Preciousess, even back in the Fifties, the libraries only had sanitised versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales, I only learned how brutal they really were when I was a young adult.) I'd never seen it since, and found I remembered some of it, but a lot had been forgotten as well. The film focuses on three episodes of what was a long and harrowing but funny journey in the novel. And Jiminy Cricket was bosh. In the novel, the cricket was sort of a conscience in the first episodes, but Pinocchio crushes it to death. Yeah, dark stuff. The film had more than it's share of creepy stuff, seen from an adult perspective. Stromboli as gypsy is a confirmation that all gypsies cheat and steal, and won't stop at violence. Not very pc. More on that below. More disconcerting was the Pleasure Island sequence, which has some disturbing sub-text revealing a thinly veiled pedophile component. It made me uncomfortable. On the surface, the message was 'go to school, be good, and you will be rewarded. Or not, and become a jackass.' Which is fine and good, but it made misbehaving look like too much fun, and everything kept being forgiven, so where's the sense in it all, I wondered.

Later I picked out some things I had never gotten around to seeing, later films. Beginning with the so-called Disney Renaissance. I had never seen 'The Lion King'. I just knew all the raves, and how it was sort of a new classic. Am sorry to report that it left me FULLY cold, and would never want to see the stage version. The only thing that didn't bore me about it was Scar, and that was only due to the voice... and that character was so gay and so bad.... well, it made me smile. So what was the lesson regarding him? Gays are fratricidal murderers who usurp power and ruin the kingdom. Great lesson there, n'est-ce pas? No, I can't say I really liked anything about it, which will be anathema to fans who think it was the best invention since chocolate ice cream.

I've already seen Beauty and the Beast on dvd, and on stage, so I really didn't care to go there. Nice music scoring, but again, the prince is dumb, and Belle is sort of insipid. So I picked 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', and could have seen it in Berlin, where it had its' world premiere, but after the former, I just wasn't tempted to be subjected to a three-hour evening of treacle.

The film was obviously way more geared to it being produced as a musical afterward, and it shows. The score is opulent, the lyrics more geared to an adult audience, and it was moving at times. In this one, the gypsies steal to live, but are 'noble', because they are fighting tyranny.

I don't know if this was an attempt to counter the evil depiction of gypsies in Pinochhio, but I expect it was the case, and it fails in the end, actually. And has a precedent. Little people in England were up in arms about the depiction of a duplicitous midget manicurist in David Copperfield and felt defamed. And the Jewish population were livid when it came to Fagin in Oliver Twist, 'that avaricious old Jew'... In his last novel many years later, he tried to assuage that anger with two characters in 'Our Mutual Friend'. In the form of a tiny doll-maker with a drunken father who regards him as her child, and worse yet, Riah, a teacher soooo good, and sooo above reproach, well both became caricatures, not rounded out figures. Failed miserably, although the main characters were pure genious. So in the case of 'Hunchback', it was also too much of a good thing.

But Hunchback really is the best of the so-called 'Renaisance movies'. The only one I'd want to see again just for the music alone. And the incredible sexual tension among the main four characters. It is really NOT for children. And sort of over the edge for what Disney usually finds appropriate, although they always managed to slip in a wink or two to the parents accompanying their brood to see their product.

The only two films I'd recommend for kids is 101 Dalmations, the animated version... and from the 'forgotten era', 1973's 'Robin Hood. Disney should re-release that this year for sure... because the messaging so fits today's realities. A lot of commentors were of the same opinion. And interestingly, one commentor maintains that Robin Hood is the only Disney film with no character representation in their theme parks. Hmmmm. If it is true, that says a lot. Of course it's all 'tax the poor', but it's very funny. And as one commentator said, 'We need a Friar Tuck... before he got arrested.' Sir Peter Ustinov as the infantile King John, and Terry Thomas' delightful Sir Hiss (he's a snake) make for fun villains, because they are basically dumb, and Miss Cluck doing a medieval football touch-down is one of the funniest numbers in anything the studio made. Oh those rhinos! (I was working at the time, and the kids just loved it.) I loved the comment from a 15 year old who had never seen it before, was crazy about it, and added, 'you can't beat Old Disney films.' Gawwd, the shock. Roger Miller's music really fit that film as well.

And oh yes, 'Lady and the Tramp' is still lovely, although the up-town-and-wrong-side-of-the-tracks theme still grates a lot. But at least it isn't a princess movie. And Tramp is smart and fun.

For stoners, I would add 'The Little Mermaid' to the obvious Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland as must-see. (No, didn't go back there, have seen them too often.) When I was working, the evening shows of the latter two were packed with young adults so high you could get off on just breathing. And they were crazy for them. The Little Mermaid is optically so nuts, I was sort of out of it stone cold sober. Or maybe od-ing on the visuals. But yeah, the message was shit.

Let's see, favourite characters? Yes, I have them. The mice and the evil cat Lucifer in Cinderella, and the film was more about them than anything else. Malifecent in Sleeping Beauty, which was the only thing that saved that otherwise boring film. As one person put it, 'Boy, she's pretty out there just because she wasn't invited to a party....' And, of course, Cruella de Ville. If they're going to be bad, they should be really bad. And that criminal justice guy in Hunchback.... ooooo, talk about twisted and sexually fucked up. Best villain evah.

Aladin and Tarzan rightly belong in the 'forgotten' category, by the way. That genie in the former cost me my last nerve. So does Pocahontas. I made it through two of seven segments, and was throwing up a little in my mouf. So I stopped.

One last thing, now that I've bored you out of your tits. Gerhard Brunner was right. I loved his radio show. He'd analyse music, and musicals, bring you up to date on what was new in New York and London, and was very savvy. One evening he discussed the Disney strategy in scoring their films. It was his contention that they purposely used music styles that were a generation older than what was current, and for the older ones, that seems to really hold up. The thinking was, if the adults have to take the kiddies to see their product, the music should be what they related to. And I believe they held to that recipe for decades, after my lengthy sojourn into that world of Disney animation.

The oldest are the best, I guess. Twisted, weird, but they rarely topped themselves after.

So after two days of getting rectangular eyes, and a catch-up of lots I hadn't seen.. I will just go to bed and hope that the new cavities in my brain heal up after so much treacle.

Hmmm gaming online

My dvd element was never alive... I think Peter killed it trying to watch porn on it or something, so I can't look at a lot of the neat stuff I collected or play my absolute FAVORITE, Baldur's Gate. It took me five years to get through the entire collection. Yeah, I'm slow like that. But there were five editions to get through, you see, and I loved it because it wasn't just killing monsters or anything... there was a hell of a lot to do. It's probably outdated now, but was innovative for the time. And time goes fast in the programming world.

So I was tired of my simple mah-jong game to pass time, although I like it enough. And my cribbage game went the way of the past as it was locked in Lazarus... So I went looking for something to play on-line that was free, and not too huge as far as Gigabites go. And chose something called 'Last Chaos'.

Good 3-D graphics, but no sound. But after spending an afternoon getting my bearings as to what you are supposed to DO... no real tutorials or guides, nah... they wanna get you involved with other people, you see. So you can sign up with expert players to help tutor you, if you wish. Nahhhh... I thought 'you either figure it out or you don't and delete it.'

So I chose a knight and named him Sir Arrogant Numbskull... having re-watched Bleak House recently, and figured that would keep unwanted requests to join a group, because I thought I could form a group with the computer figures.... but am seemingly wrong, so I have a rogue knight... and still got 'invited' out to play.

As pure neophyte, I really don't think Sir Arrogant N would be of much help to anyone. Except as cannon fodder.

Won't bore anyone, but some of the technical advances surprised me... Like seeing other players' avatars galloping past me on horseback.

And that is how the people who run it make money. You can win gold coins all over the place and buy upgrades on your armor and weapons.... but if you want the GOOD stuff... you have to go to their REAL shop and buy it with real money. Thus the horses, ponies, people with doggies, it's surreal, sort of.

Now there is now way I will pay out good money for that, but I can understand the principle of it. Sir Arrogant is just gonna haveta get used to running, and getting blisters on his feet till they harden up.

There are over three million people who are regisgtered players on it mostly in Europe, and you can chat live as well, if you wish, which I didn't. So you 'talk' to figures who give you quests to fulfill, which ups the experience level, and you just keep on going on, I guess. There's a mystery as to who the character is, because Sir A has amnesia, and no one has helped. Yet.... Very odd indeed.

Whatever, as long as it's in the freebie range, it's something to pass an afternoon with and fairly amusing.

Where did my life go? he asks...

And yeah, I'm a Broadway musical queen....

I love 'em. So of course I have a link to 'Broadway.com' and get glimpses of what is going on behind the scenes, and what is being developed for next season, and so on.

And yesterday, I was dumbfounded. There is going to be a full revival production of Steven Sondheim's 'Follies'. Now that is real news. And sent me right back to the early Seventies with a vengeance --- in my head.

When I was so young, and SO green, and so closeted it was criminal. And I had a girlfriend. (Faint all you want, you can read the rest later.) I wasn't even young, I was so naive, someone should have shot me or shaken me into facing facts.

My girlfriend was beautiful. When I was sixteen, I had my first job, saw her, and fell in love. Tall, auburn hair, incredible green eyes... something I have had an attraction to ever since... and just lovely.

Since 'da movies' sort of ruined me for life as far as what'cha DO when you fall 'in-lurv', I had my 'agenda', and we talked and talked and became friends, and I was saving up all the extra money I could to have 'the date to end all dates'. It had to be 'romantic'. I didn't have a car, never got a license to this day, so I had to do something.... She was funny, intelligent, and I loved making her eyes sparkle with amusement. Smitten, I was.

So I asked her out. To go to Bawston for the day. We were both film fanatics, but I wanted to top it. So we went to Bawston. On a Greyhound bus, please don't ask.

Once there, we took our first walk about the inner part of the city, and of course, looked for a restaurant near the theater district. And we saw this fucked-up neon sign and both read it as 'Dink's'. Except it was Dini's. We laughed so hard we were hurting, and said, 'oh, we have GOT to go there!'

So we did, and it was awesome... Fifties style leatherette booths with an aquarium in the side of each one with tropical fish. And the food was delicious, a fish fry. And I had tickets for the try-outs for 'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown' at the Schubert, front orchestra seats. And we had a wonderful time.

Well, being successful, we did it a couple of times later, seeing premieres of movies, and what not, and exploring the city. And we were young and naive, and yes, there was some closer contact.... except I got more and more uncomfortable with it.

Which brings us to Follies. It was trying out in Bawston on the way to New Yawk. Now legendary stage and screen goddesses, a HUGE production.

So I was planning to surprise her with it. Planning to get tickets. At the time, I was starting to check out a magazine called 'After Dark'. Entertainment news with a huge gay slant to it. Except I didn't realise it at the time. And they said it was a train wreck, so I thought, 'well, no use wasting money on THAT...'

It turned out to be legendary, and my girlfriend dumped me for an older guy three weeks later. Because I remained a 'gentleman'. I was devastated.

Sondheim himself has said it is nearly impossible to stage a full production of that show since. It takes place in a ruined theater where the Ziegfield Follies were held, and there is a reunion of the beautiful women who were headliners, and their mates. You have to have a cast of still beautiful older women, and a full cast of their younger selves.

And it is really sad, as most of his work is. It is full of traditional Broadway razzamataz numbers, some of them classic. I love the number 'Broadway Baby', for instance. The turn of the coin was 'Going Out of My Mind'. It must have been really something, and SO STUPID that I didn't go anyways.

It was also about relationships, what might-have-beens, and the general public at the time wasn't buying it, but the music lived on.

And it ends with a nervous breakdown. Not what Broadway was reckoning with, but it's become classic, and near-impossible to stage. But they have Bernadette Peters as headliner, so I don't think that can go wrong..... she's a goddess.

What became of my girlfriend? She went into banking. And she'd hardly get a toe-hold, and the bank would get swallowed up, and she'd have to start all over again. Yes, we remained in contact, if sproradic, and diffuse.

And on my one visit home... I had one full day ONLY for her... and yeah, she knew about Peter. She came over for lunch at my parent's house. And they were so FREAKED, because they had no idea what was going on. And I cooked like a god. And we spent the rest of the day tooling around in her super-car, and visited her home, and a super-mall, and were comfortable with one another, and laughed so much. In the middle of it, her mother called me at my parent's house and said, 'I am SO sorry it didn't work out for you both, you were wonderful.' She was so lovely... but I would have caused them heartache beyond measure, and she knew that. Still, it was nice to hear.

I was in Venice a few months later and found a glass egg in Venice, when I still had money. It was the color of her eyes, so I sent it to her. I think it was appropriate.

We've lost touch since. It was complicated. I met her husband, and he was very nice, she has three grown sons. And the last thing she said was 'Kiss me.' So I did. In front of her husband, so it was chaste.

It only makes me understand the concept of the show and appreciate it more.

We all have our salad days, we all have things that would have driven us crazy, but bottom line? We do what we do.

I hope the people making this revival are successful.

I have heard this on cd, but never seen it performed...and it is funny

Sometime back in biblical times, Steven Sondheim composed something for a theater festival or something at Yale and it was performed in a swimming pool, and was Aristophanes' play, 'The Frogs'. I believe that Meryl Streep was a student and was in the production at the time. (And it's a good thing my brother never reads this, because he would run for the barf bags... he never recovered from Kramer vs. Kramer...) I love the lyrics and hilarity of it, and since theater audiences have become ruder by the decade, one should take the advice to heart.

Prime time Emmys? Really? Well maybe, but

I'm about to lay down a post that will sound so misogynistic, will have to apologise in advance, but it is how I perceive sound.

My site finally had yesterday's result show of 'So You Think You Can Dance' on. Have said below what I like about it, and it was eliminating two people, to get the remaining top ten. more on that in a minute.

The show is nominated for five prime-time Emmys in the dance category, which is fine, and Kat Deely was nominated as moderator.ess. Her voice is so irritating, I fast forward. Emmy? I don't THINK so... There are some women... I don't know what it is. They open their moufs, and I want to turn off the sound. There are also some men whose voices so irritate me, I want to throttle them, but usually drunk ones with rasping voices and damaged vocal cords, and they carry for a BLOCK.

But the worst is Mary Murphy on the judges panel, a former ballroom champeen with a face lift that has left her with a fixed smile that is scary, and is just a Tennessee 'bundle of enthusiasm'. And she squeals, and 'ya-hoos' till you'd think she was calling the pigs home, but it's all a facade. Her act is 'good-ole-country' girl and the epitome of the infantilisation of women in 'Murka, if you ask me... BECAUSE... if something really impresses her, she is well capable of modulating her voice, and giving very constructive criticism and being almost likeable.

Kat Deely is so superfluous, she grates on my nerves. And is often inappropriate.

In my student days, I would listen to AFN on the radio. Later, when I got to Graz, I didn't have a radio strong enough to pull it in, so I missed about ten years. Too many mountains between here and there. And one day, about ten years later, I did get a radio that could pick it up in the night-time. And I was floored. The TONE had changed. I explained it do Peter, and said, 'What do they think they are DOING? Everything sounds like Uncle Dudley's Story Hour. They're just dumbing them down....'

If you watch US series, what happens when mid-twenty somethings tell friends they get engaged? Scream like a fourteen year old and fanning fingers in front of their faces. Who the fuck DOES that? (Well, what should I know, maybe they do...) It's infantile behaviour. And people emulate it because 'that's what you Do...'

It isn't pretty, or worth emulating, if you ask me, and I never find anything funny about it.

As to Kat---well she's a six foot tall blonde Brit who is nasal and lets off suggestive adolescent stuff in her intros, wears heels so she can tower over everyone on the stage, and basically has nothing else to offer to the show other than looking like an over-thin Valkyrie popsicle with an annoying voice. Emmy? I think NOT.

As to the show... The elimination decisions have been fair so far. I've said I like the concept. Now that there are only ten people left, they are going to make them change partners to see how versatile they are, and make them do two routines per show, one with former winners. As I've said, I love dance, and they really put the contestants through a very strong repertoire of styles, challenge them. And mostly, it's a joy to watch. And the choreography is fantastic.

But I could really do without Kat and Mary when she is 'performing' and not being herself.

Jon Stewart

can slay me sometimes....

It's only excerpts, butcha get the idea...

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