This Can't Be Broccoli

As anybody can tell you who has seen me do any sort of physical activity-- Skinny don't mean healthy. I can dry heave after going for a brisk jog...to my kitchen for some ice cream. So I decided it was time to get in shape, preferably before I turn thirty and my metabolism turns off thereby fulfilling the curse that a witch put on me at my baptism. You'll be able to eat pizza everyday for thirty years and then you'll gain eight hundred pounds and they'll have to get a crane to lift you out of your house. The problem is, I hate the idea of going to the gym.  Now, I've never actually been to a gym before, but just the thought of going makes me want to hide under a table and kick at anybody who tries to make me come out. I figured I could avoid the gym by using technology to help me get in shape.  After all, it's the age of "There's an app" for that, right?  So shouldn't I just be able to use one of the hundreds of fitness app...

I'm going to talk about something that I probably shouldn't talk about. Then again, none of this is really a secret, it's just that, when playing a game with people, it's usually not a good idea to let them know what tricks you have up your sleeve. I should let you know right now that I'm talking about theater, the arts, etc. Now, I don't think theater is purely a game.  I also think it can be a collaborative community of souls and a soul-sucking career--and probably a little of all three. The title of this post is "Title Envy" and I'm going to talk about titles, because there's a trend--actually, a routine--in regional theater these days, and it goes like this: You find out what's hot in New York. You start with Broadway, and then after you move onto off-Broadway. You pick and attain the rights for as many Broadway hits as you can. You don't get the rights for Broadway flops, but if a show got mixed reviews, it's still...

I always had this very specific idea of what would happen if I became famous. I believed--truly believed--that if I ever became famous, everybody who dislikes me or didn't believe in me or even all-out hated me would--wait for it-- Change Their Mind No, seriously, this is what I believed. In the core of my soul. This only made me want to be famous even more than I already did want to be famous, which was a lot--a whooooooole heck of a lot. Because how awesome would that be?  To suddenly have--I don't even know what you'd call it?--a clean slate? To have everybody who has a problem with you suddenly have to say-- "Nope, I was wrong about him.  Kevin's awesome.  Otherwise he wouldn't be famous.  Wow, I feel like a jerk for not realizing it before he was a star." Then someone I knew got famous--well, sort of famous. And so I watched his life--via Facebook, you know, the way we all do--and I really expected to see all his former frenemies...

Someone sent me a link to a status somebody they knew had put out about how being gay was wrong, because they wanted me to comment on it.  To, essentially, get into an argument about it. Stuff like this happens to me from time-to-time.  It probably happens to other people more. People ask me my "opinion" about gay-related things.  Sometimes they just ask me my opinion about being gay, the way you would ask someone their opinion about being tall or being Italian. And, for some really odd reason--I don't know, maybe in the hopes of expanding consciousness--I would engage in all this.  I'd respond, discuss, talk, listen, create a dialogue--and feel really good--if not exhausted--about it. Well, no more. I no longer have an interest in talking about being gay. I refuse, actually, I refuse to talk about it. Emma Thompson said this year that she was sick of having conversations about roles for women in film--rehashing all the tired old rhetoric, and I totally...

At the beginning last Fall, when the award-worthy movies start being unveiled, it looked like it was going to be a monumental year for African-American actors. The Butler was a huge hit, 12 Years a Slave  was going to be a shoo-in for Best Picture, Lead Actor, and Supporting Actress, and more amazing performances were coming from Idris Elba and Michael B. Jordan.  At one point, it looked like there might actually be four African-American actors in the Best Actor race--something that had never happened in Oscar history. So what happened? Well, if you base your analysis on the Golden Globes, you could either assume that most of those performances didn't live up to the hype, or you could assume that the Hollywood Foreign Press is a little bit...white-washed. After all, Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Michael B. Jordan, and Octavia Spencer were all passed over for nominations.   12 Years a Slave  took the award for Best Drama, but none of its actors were awarded ...

Before I begin this post, I want to impart the following information to anybody reading this: I am a Democrat.  I am as Democrat as they come.  I'm a tree-hugging, pro-choice, pro-gay, bleeding heart liberal. And this is going to be about Chris Christie and the George Washington Bridge scandal. Now, I should probably tell you that I'm not going to rehash the details of the scandal.  For that, you can go to CNN or MSNBC or pretty much anywhere but Fox News where they're still talking about Obamacare and how it's going to make the Devil rise up out of Hell and make love to Janet Reno in front of the whole world--or something. I'm going to write as honestly about politics as I possibly can.  Now, these are just my opinions, but because they're mine, they're only somewhat based on facts and they're 100% right. This whole scandal is to make sure Chris Christie doesn't run for President. Now, do I think he's guilty of being involve with the s...

There's two kinds of humor, or rather--senses of humor. I learned this recently when I found an extremely inappropriate joke funny while it seemed to appall everyone else around me. Some people like regular humor, and I like theater humor. Theater humor being wildly offensive and grossly distasteful.  That's the stuff that's guaranteed to make me laugh.  The sort of thing the class clown yells at the teacher from the back of the class, or a joke told about somebody who's only been dead for five minutes, or pretty much any joke told at a roast. Virtually nothing makes me laugh out loud (despite what all of my Internet conversations say), but that kinda stuff does. For awhile, I didn't think of it as a separate kind of humor.  I would laugh at a joke, and if other people didn't, I would assume they didn't have a sense of humor at all.  Now I realize they probably did, and I'm just depraved and need mental help--or it's just that I do theater....