A guest post from a non-monkey giving non-awards. By Gordon Leary (Bookwriter/Lyricist)
Everybody's favorite monkey asked me to fill in for him this week while he is busy driving his way across the country. And I'm happy to be back! Since it's a Tony-less Tony Awards week on Crazytown, I thought I'd take this opportunity to give my own awards for the 2011-2012 season. Just like the Oscars have the Golden Globes, the Tonys now have the Gordon Globes!
I've been lucky enough to see more shows this season than I've ever seen before (I went 24 for 40.) I know it's not a complete list, but they're my own damn awards so I'll give them to who I want.
And now, the winners of the 1st Annual Gordon Globe Awards are...
A blog-alogue on the new season of RuPaul's Drag Race. By Tony Asaro (Gonorrhea Pearlman) & Gordon Leary (Ruth Canal)
The time has come for you to watch the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. Don't fuck it up. Ru is back and better than ever, upping the production values and re-upping the camp value. The first episode aired last Monday and they brought on the RuPocalypse. Sickening, no? The girls had their traditional first episode photo-shoot with Mike Ruiz (this time getting squirted by toxic chemicals from the Pit Crews' hoses) and then they had to gather as much crap from Drag Queen zombies as they could to fashion their best Post-Apocalyptic Couture.
As two of the biggest fans around, we thought we'd share our thoughts on the season to come (and by share our thoughts, I mean copy and paste the Facebook chat we just had, plus GIFs.) We are living for it so far! Chime in in the comments. And catch the second episode tonight at 9:00 on Logo!
Left to Right: Willam, Kenya Michaels, LaShauwn Beyond, Chad Michaels, Phi Phi O'Hara, Sharon Needles, The Princess, Alisa Summers, Latrice Royale, Milan, Madame LaQueer, Jiggly Caliente, Dida Ritz.
After so many false starts, so many scandals, so much make-up, and so many years making Ryan Seacrest rich you have finally become the princess you were destined to be.
I remember the first time we saw you. We knew you only as "Paris Hilton's brunette friend who's replacing Nicole Richie while they fight" but in our hearts we knew you were meant for more. We've seen you grow up before our very eyes (sometimes a little more than we wanted) but, as your momager Kris always said, you turned lemons into lemonade.
I've heard it said that you wanted your wedding to emulate the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Princess Katherine. You know what I say? Screw 'em! Who needs hundreds of years of tradition tied up in a lavish affair? You've got millions of dollars and a television show and the ass that Pippa wishes she could have - you're the new royalty. American royalty. Sure, William and Kate use their royal stature to do good deeds and spread good will. But you use yours to do what all Americans do best - make that money, honey.
So who cares that the Libyan rebels have taken Tripoli? The Dow Jones can fall all it wants! Unemployed? Good! You'll just have more time to watch the E! wedding special. Because you, Kim, have shown us all what it means to love and to live.
Do you, America, take this woman to be your awfully painted princess bride?
So when I heard about a T.V. show called "Hot in Cleveland" with former sitcom "stars" - Valerie Bertinelli (One Day at a Time), Jane Leeves (Frasier) and Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) - my eyes couldn't help but roll involuntarily. Yes, I know, Betty White is the absolute perfect human being, but still. They were just going to make fun of the town with mostly unfunny jokes and it would be cancelled after half a season.
Then it was successful. Then it was renewed for a second season. Then it got all sorts of Emmy buzz (and a nomination for Ms. White, even.)
Now that I'm blogging on Mondays, I keep thinking of things that would help me to start my week off right. Sure, there's plenty to talk about in Musical Theater/re land, but if I'm just getting to work and need something more than coffee to help me get going then there are only two words for me:
EN.
VOGUE.
So, to help you start the week off right, here is En Vogue's entire collection of music videos. Now just let Cindy, Terry, Dawn and Maxine sing for you. What else could you need?
First, on Wednesday, my favorite artist Lucian Freud passed away at 88. Until the latter part of my teens (and my first brush with the Dreamcoat, of all things) I thought I was destined to be a painter. No other artist captured my heart like Freud - yes yes he was the grandson of the famous doctor - and no other artist has influenced the way that I view the relationship between artist and subject. His style changed over the course of his long career, but he is best known for his portraits. They were thick and colorful and sometimes almost cruel but never felt anything but truthful. Here's a famous self-portrait:
A portrait by Lucian Freud was not a work of art because of beauty or idealism. It was a work of art because of its truthfulness - and that truth could only be seen by Lucian Freud himself. He said it best:
There is a distinction between fact and truth. Truth has an element of revelation about it. If something is true, it does more than strike one as merely being so.
And I think that's the way that we all should be creating art. To find the truth. And that's my highbrow high horse for the week.
Friday brought news of the passing of Tom Aldredge. I think everyone my age who reads this blog can't hear his name without automatically saying "Once upon a time..." I didn't know all that much about him beyond that until I started watching Damages on DVD a few weeks ago. First of all, omigodyouguys you have to watch Damages immediately if you haven't already like get on Netflix instant and start and you won't be able to stop.
Second of all, he had quite an amazing career. He worked consistently for over 40 years as a character actor in every kind of media - from Sondheim to Williams, from silly soap operas to critically acclaimed tv dramas, from "What About Bob?" to "Cold Mountain." And he was married for close to 50 years to costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge (who I already eulogized a few months ago.)
Facebook went crazy at about 12:30 on Saturday when everyone learned that Amy Winehouse had died. People were posting her videos and writing things about how sad they were while other people were pissed off that there were people mourning the death of a drug addict who made a name for herself by waving the flag of addiction. No one was shocked by her death, of course. Whether or not you want to mourn it, you can't deny that Back to Black left an impression on us all. For me, she gave a voice to a kind of pain that everyone experiences and few speak about so candidly. Yeah, I've always got Fiona Apple to wallow with. But Amy Winehouse almost seemed to find joy in the pain that love brought her. And it let those of us who listened to her music live that rebellion and reckless abandon vicariously. I count myself as a mourner here. I wish we could have heard more from her.
Now let's all just hope that bad things really do happen in threes and there won't be any more big eugoogalies for a while...
Now that I've been a Crazytown contributor for six whole months, I thought I'd do some research into other amazing blogs and see what I can bring back to C-town. I surveyed friends and the internetz for the best blogs on the web and I found some interesting, interesting things. There were amazing celebrity blogs, crazy crazy crazy people blogs, lots of Justin Bieber, blogs that make you feel smart, blogs that make you laugh, and blogs by my friends.
This is possibly the greatest and scariest thing ever. It hearkens back to my old favorite blog, Black People Love Us, but instead of just making fun of "non-racist" racism it surveys public posts on Facebook for the phrase "Not racist but" and posts the somehow both ridiculous and terrifying results.
I had the pleasure of spending a year listening to the wonderful songs of Michael Kooman and Chris Dimond in the Dramatist Guild Fellows program. Once a month I'd get to hear sharp, clean and precise lyrics (which are the VERY best kind, in my opinion) set to rich and melodic music (that always seemed innately singable.) They tackle unorthodox subjects (suicide contests??) with the very best kind of classic musical theatre chops around. They've been all over YouTube for years...
But now we all get to listen to them anytime we want! As you already heard from Ms. Kirsten Guenther, Chris & Michael have released their first CD, Out of Our Heads - featuring their songs of the stand-alone variety. You get the hilarious (Christopher Sieber singing "To Excess"), the powerful (Natalie Weiss on "Out of My Head") and the lush (Anderson Davis on "Lost in the Waves.") And, best of all, you get a pretty much perfect song sung by a pretty much perfect singer when you get to Phoebe Strole's rendition of "Beautiful Mistake." You can sample them all here or buy them here, here or here!
And if you like the stuff on CD - just wait till you hear it live! Buy your tickets here to attend the CD release concert at Birdland next Monday, July 18 at 7:00. They've got brand-new diva Patina Miller, all-time diva Julia Murney and a bunch of other-degrees-of-diva performers to make you love Chris & Michael even more.
How Barbara Cook led me to rediscover one of the great lost treasures in American popular music.
By Gordon Leary (Bookwriter-Lyricist)
So, like everyone else, I was excited (though obviously expecting it) when it was announced that Follies will be returning to Broadway. I listened to the cast album. I reminisced about the amazingness of the Encores! production (OMGVickyClark.) I almost bought the 1985 concert version but then realized I needed to pay my rent so instead I just looked it up on YouTube to prove that Barbara Cook's rendition of "Losing My Mind" is OBVIOUSLY definitive.
It is. See for yourself:
Am I right or am I right?
But then, in the list on the side, I see a video called "Liza Minelli - Losing My Mind." I think, "Oh sure, why not?" Clicking on it, I realize this is the old Pet Shop Boys version of the song. Now, Liza being with a "z" and all, there are tons of these videos. The best was the live performance on Arsenio Hall with ridiculous Jessie Spano-style moves (it's no Sprain, of course.)
But it was triggering a memory. Where else had I seen Liza with that Miranda Priestley-meets-Boy George haircut? I scoured the bowels of the YouTube and finally remembered. How could I have forgotten? The crotch-length hems, the smokey eyes, the doors to nowhere... Now if you're Kevin Michael Murphy, this is probably old news. But for those of you who have never had the pleasure, may I present, for your gaysideration, Liza Minnelli's 1989 forgotten classic, "Don't Drop Bombs."
So much talent, so many shows to write for them...
By Gordon Leary (Bookwriter/Lyricist)
Do you remember the first time you heard Jennifer Holliday sing? Or Billy Porter? Or Shayna Steele? Well, after reading this, you'll be able to remember the first time you heard Mykal Kilgore sing.
