Twenty-Three Po-sit-ions in a One Night Stand

So researchers have apparently found 237 reasons for people to have sex.

Below the high/lowlights courtesy of AOL. The screen caps speak for themselves.

And thanks to the egalitarian, finger on the pulse of America census taking that AOL loves with their stories, they allow us to vote on top and bottom (heh...heh...heh) reasons for sex.

Frankly I'm surprised the "It was an initiation" and "To give someone a disease" options aren't on the list. Likewise..."horny." I wonder if "to shut them up", "to get a ride home," "a free meal," or "I needed a place to sleep" popped up at all.

Kulinary Kudzu

Behold, the patty pan squash...my botanical bete noire, the bane of my gardening existence. Sure, the zucchini gets a bad rap for its sheer bounty, but nothing I've ever seen compares to this particular squash for its unwelcome exuberance. The squashes seem to go from unripe to overlarge and inedible in a matter of hours. With most veggies I can accurately gauge how long it will be until they're ripe enough. Not these bastards. What one morning is a cute wee squash has become by the next tough and the size of a discus. And even though its been throwing out squashes for weeks now, the patch is still thick with blossoms and embryonic squashes. The large ones, though relatively worthless for dining make great vessels for flower arrangements. I made about 10 this morning for the dining room. But I know that there are more out there in the patch, sucking up the sun, engorging as I try to forget them. I want to napalm the whole damned lot.

Um...Did I Hear this right?

So I was catching up on the news on telly this evening and there was an ad for this RLS med, Miraplex. I didn't really pay attention until the list of side effects (b/c honestly...those are the best parts...ok...excepting Botox's "Express Yourself" ads.) I'm only halfway paying attention until I hear "Or if you feel increased gambling, sexual or other urges." Curious ...those are not the usual side effects. Later, I'm flipping networks and come across the Requip ad--and it's almost exactly the same side effects. Excepting Requip might also make you sweaty. So there you are...stuck in traffic, simply trying to steady your legs, sweating, horny and fighting the urge to play nickle slots.

Where can I get a scrip?

Cinema Paradisi-(Annoyed Grunt)

Went to see The Simpsons yesterday with Zoe and Eric. It was good--much funnier than the show has been for years. And yes, you get to see Bart's dangle. I was surprised when we weren't immediately raptured out of the theatre...aren't animated penises one of the signs of the end times?

There was a series of dreeeeeadful previews: Rush Hour and Alvin and the Chipmunks stood out as profoundly bad. Sadly, no preview of Who's Your Caddy.

~*~

No box office news yet for LiLo's I Know Who Killed Me. (Who knew her career wrote its own screenplay?) This Movie Consensus from Rotten Tomatoes seems to sum it all up:

Distasteful and ludicrously plotted, I Know Who Killed Me is a career nadir for all involved.

Burn, Baby, Burn...

This week is proving to be an orgy of insane news. From AOL News.

Man Burns Down Trailer in Online Feud

ELM MOTT, Texas (July 26) - A Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a "nerd" over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson.

As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states' borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business.

When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy's trailer down.

This week, Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze.

[Snip]

The feud started when Anderson, who runs a haunted house near Waco, joined a picture-sharing Web site and posted his artwork and political views. After he blocked some people from his page because of insults and foul language, they retaliated by making obscene digitally altered pictures of him, he said.

Anderson, who went by the screen name "Johnny Darkness," traded barbs with Tavares, aka "PyroDice."

Investigators say Tavares boiled over when Anderson called him a nerd and posted a digitally altered photo making Tavares look like a skinny boy in high-water pants, holding a gun and a laptop under a "Revenge of the Nerds" sign.

Blog Pimping

One of my best friends, and favorite drinking buddies, Eric, has jumped into the blogosphere. His blog, Cultural Slagheap, is starting off with his take on DeLillo's Falling Man. Check him out.

Apparently, the Beat Does Not Go On

At least in the Broward County Penal System. From the Miami Herald. This story is truly an embarrassment of riches.

Inmate found guilty in masturbation trial

A Broward prisoner accused of committing a sex act while he was alone in his jail cell was found guilty Tuesday of indecent exposure.

Terry Lee Alexander, 20, unsuccessfully fought the charge, which had been brought by a female Broward Sheriff's Office detention deputy who saw him perform the sex act in his cell in November.

The sole witness in the case, BSO Deputy Coryus Veal, testified that Alexander did not try to hide what he was doing as most prisoners do. Veal saw him perform the act while she was working in a glass-enclosed master control room, 100 feetfrom Alexander's cell. There was no video tape or other witnesses.

[snip]

Alexander's attorney argued that the prison cell was a private place and that what Alexander was doing was perfectly normal.

''Did other inmates start masturbating because of Mr. Alexander?'' McHugh asked Veal. ``Did you call a SWAT team?''

''I wish I had,'' Veal answered.

Veal, who has charged seven other inmates with the same offense, insisted that she was not against the act itself -- just the fact that Alexander was so blatant about it. Most inmates, she testified, do it in bed, under the blankets.

Veal said this was the third time she caught Alexander, and she had had enough.

[snip]

He also said that none of the jurors had a problem with the sex act, per se.

The case drew snickers in the courtroom, especially during jury selection, when prospective jurors were quizzed about their own habits.

Defense attorney Kathleen McHugh faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never done that particular sex act.

No hands went up.

The website How Appealing goes a littler further detailing the Defense's line of questioning regarding prospective jurors' hand-hockey habits.

During jury selection Wednesday in the case of inmate Terry Lee Alexander, all seven jurors admitted to attorneys that they have masturbated. The awkward questioning was posed by defense attorney Kathleen McHugh, who faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never masturbated. No hands went up. Then, she went one-by-one, asking each prospective juror if he or she had ever masturbated. All nine men said yes, two of the 10 women said no."

Emphases mine.

I Knew They Were Up to Something

Today's Horoscope for Leos:

Your mojo has been missing for an awfully long time now, and no matter how much you tell yourself that you believe it'll come back, part of you believes that it has been kidnapped by a rogue tribe of gnomes.

Poem for the Day

Haven't done one of these in ages. This is from Heather McHugh's The Father of the Predicaments.


Etymological Dirge

* "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear"


Calm comes from burning.

Tall comes from fast.

Comely doesn't come from come.

Person comes from mask.



The kin of charity is whore,

the root of charity is dear.

Incentive has its source in song

and winning in the sufferer.



Afford yourself what you can carry out.

A coward and a coda share a word.

We get our ugliness from fear.

We get our danger from the lord.

For Radish King

Was flipping through the latest issue of Harper's tonight, trying to catch up on my reading, and noted there was a new story "Fiction" by Alice Munro. I read this bit and thought of some of Rebecca's posts regarding music lessons and students.

She felt herself shedding the day's work, which was harried and uncertain, filled with the dispensing of music to the indifferent as well as the responsive. How much better to work with wood and by yourself--she didn't count the apprentice--than with the unpredictible human young.

Evening

I went and cut the acidanthera and am now enjoying it in a big glass vase as I type. They're one of the only "high maintenance" bulbs I keep. They don't winter over well here so I dig them up every fall...but I think it's worth it. The perfect tigridia is no more. I went out to cut it as well and nothin to be seen...not even a spent bloom...curious. I had a few starts of a striped purple prairie mallow on the back porch in a terra cot pot that I've been nurturing the last couple of weeks to set out this weekend...went out to water this morning and something had dug up the dirt in the pot. Out of the six I had...it seems like only two will survive.

~*~

I finished up a "curb appeal" grouping at the front entrance of the hotel this morning. Two large pagoda umbrellas and four planters. Very pretty...but very very heavy. Arbor vitae that are 6 feet tall are a bitch to move. In the middle of appraising the effect and spacing, the owner and I were in the parking lot, a woman stops her car in the middle of the street and yelled out to us that she loved the colors. It was one of those peculiar positive small town moments.

~*~

Have been pinging back and forth between Ripple Effect and Misery Prefigured the last few nights before bed.

Flourish and Yield

It amazes me how long it takes tomatoes to ripen--even the "Early Girls" are proving tardy. The plants are so weighed down they're taking the stakes with them, but the fruits are still that tomatillo green...I grow impatient. And the impatiens are full and bushy, as are the alumroot, all six varieties of cleome, the scented geraniums (rose & citronella.) The crocosmia are ready to transplant this weekend....intense little orange and red buds like a kindergartener's sketch of a flame. The acidanthera are ready to cut and bring in to my desk. And there is one intense, perfectly red tigridia in bloom. I want an hour just to sit and enjoy the whole sprawling mess...but so much needs done...trimming, deadheading, weeding...maybe after this weekend I can. I've missed the daylilies entirely. All their blooms, spent; hanging like soggy socks.

~*~

Sometime soon I'll be starting new poems...I can feel it. But I want them different. I want rush and word drunkenness and pause and...and..and....I want ecstacy.

After

The run of the show went well overall...bigger crowds than I'd expected (esp. since there were few to no roles for younger children and that seems to be what really puts asses in seats here)...but I am seriously glad it's over. More time for my own life and I can tend my garden which is getting rebellious on me.

~*~

Dreamt this morning that I woke, looked out the window and saw it raining. Never realized it was a dream at all until it was pointed out to me that it was dry outside. It's raining now though. Slow and drizzly.

~*~

Bought and finished the last Harry Potter this weekend and I'm left with a "this is all there is?" sort of feeling. Not wholly negative, not wholly positive, either.

~*~

Catching up on comments from the last couple of days here...feel free to skip this lot.

Peter: Excepting Saturday's night from hell, the run of the show was excellent. There was some sort of total cast meltdown Saturday--no one could focus and the audience was just useless...totally low affect and near-t0-unresponsive. Hard to generate energy if there's nothing to work from.

Aaron: It's not so much I'm secure...it's more I've hit this sort of Zen about things...I just don't give a feck.

Radish: This show has grown on me as I've done it...and it's all due to the music. I'm still wandering around singing tunes from it.

Tha Good, Tha Bad and The Ugly

Opening night was a success...overall. A few minor problems, but the crowd loved the show. A little shy of capacity, which surprised me...I wasn't expecting much in the way of audience numbers. The weather's supposed to be really temperate so I'm hoping we keep pulling in people.

The girl who's doing our tattoos for the show is phenomenal--she freehands the craziest stuff in just a short amount of time. By the time she was done with me I looked like I could be on Cops. I know some people were snapping pics as she worked and after she was done, so I'm hoping to get some of them. My favorite tatt is the topless hula girl who looks like Lucille Ball.

On to the disasters: oddly, about 4 of us had moments early on where our throats just seemed to lock up on us and we fought to sing at capacity the rest of the night. In Act II I have a line that's supposed to be belted out in full falsetto--I opened my mouth and it just wasn't there. I'd never had that problem before in rehearsal; I'd always just open my mouth and blare it out. So today is a lot of vocal rest, water and an herbal tea that's gotten me through other shows in the past. Additionally, my coconuts came untied in the middle of "HoneyBun." I made it through...the audience had no idea, but they got a good laugh from it. It's a pity that trying to do something like that intentionally never seems to work....

Here's a couple of pics from the final dress rehearsal. More to follow

Bloody Mary and I seem to be channeling Norma Desmond here...no idea when in the show this takes place


The less said about this the better


The kickline from "Honey Bun"

Forgot to mention--these photos are courtesy of my friend Nancy.

New Tunes

I got the latest Modest Mouse album just before I went to Baltimore and it's become my pre-rehearsal, pre-show listen. It's like Tom Waits fronting Talking Heads. Here's the video for "Dashboard."

Tales From the Make Up Chair

A compendium of things said to me or that I've overheard while getting ready each night. Check back--I'll update as the show progresses.

Keith (to me): Be sure to rouge your nipples. Not too much though; you want them looking perky-- not puffy. Puffy nipples could mean there's an infection.

Jerry (to me): What's wrong with your chest? Do you shave it? Chest hair's not supposed to look like that.

Some Random Girl: I wish I had to stuff my bra.

??(Can't remember who to me): Your dove tattoos look much better tonight. Last night it looked like you had a map of Texas above each tit.

Update from 7-19:

Nurse: I've ruined my boobs. Where's Anthony? He's really good with my boobs.

(I've realized that I'm essentially 12. Boob jokes always amuse me.)

Tune In

To Spike TV Sunday Night at 9:00 pm for the first episode of the new series The Kill Point. They filmed in Pittsburgh and my friend Minda is an extra...no idea how much screen time she gets but I'm hoping to see her in her kick-ass FBI togs.

The show's directed by Steven Shill who, according to his IMDB bio, has done episodes of Rome, The Sopranos, Big Love, Dexter, Deadwood, The Wire and Carnivale for the cable nets. He's also done some (less impressive) network stuff. I'm wondering where this series will fall in terms of style, substance and production values..I'm sort of hoping that Spike's going for a series more akin to The Shield rather than Blade.

T-Minus 8 and Other Things

In a little under 8 hours, we'll have opening night. Last night was the final dress rehearsal and it went really really well...too well for my liking. Just about the only superstition I have about how the run of a show will go is "bad final dress, good opening night." I dropped and transposed a couple of lines last night...nothing we didn't manage though...so...at least I did something wrong.

Regarding actor superstitions...this is perhaps the grossest I know of...a former castmate always wore the same clothes to the theatre from first dress rehearsal to closing night...Everything..shirt, pants, undies, socks...never laundered any of it. I'm glad I was never particularly near him in past shows.

Hopefully Tuesday will bring some production photos. My outfit for "Honey Bun" in Act II is particularly good. Tassles, camo, coconuts and heels.

~*~

We had a scheduled power outage this morning...god knows why....but it was nice. I perced some coffee on the stove top and sat around finishing up What's Written On the Body. I've been reading through it before bed at night as a little treat to myself for not murdering people during rehearsals. It's made me want to write. I love reading work by people with a different aesthetic and relationship to language than my own...always so much possibility there.

While the power was out I had the back door open to let in some breeze and to hear the rain. I was running around in a pair of boxers just enjoying my day off, talking to the cat, idly scratching when I heard voices outside. Mens' voices. Apparently today's the day that the power company dudes came to read the meter. I was standing in the doorway looking out when they walked by. So close to a scene from a porno...well..maybe bear porn. They seemed a little hostile to my immodesty.

Front Page News

This is the front page picture in my local paper.

hat tip to Amy.

And Now For Something Completely Different

The other day I was flipping around and caught part of a documentary on BBC America called Love Me, Love My Doll about men who have the high quality silicone "companion" dolls. I saw part of two profiles. One was an Englishman, fond of posing his dolls in day-t0-day situations (reading the newspaper) and photographing them with himself in the picture. He also kept his mother's room as a shrine, down to the point that there was a note on the garbage can saying it was not to be emptied or added to. The other was a rather scary guy from rural VA who was also into guns. I couldn't watch more than that...it was just too prurient. It's one thing to do documentaries about subcultures...it's another thing to highlight the oddities of people too socially awkward to form strong bonds with other humans.

Needless to say this reminded me of something I read about in Spin last month. There are apparently sex dolls for dogs now.

This is the Hotdoll.

It is apparently an appropriate object choice for dogs that hump things.

More can be found here.

Snippets

We open in two days...and it finally feels like we have a real show. I left rehearsals early last night because it felt like I was coming down with bronchitis. I took some Mucinex and ended up falling asleep on the couch last night about 9:30 and slept there until 7:30 this morning. Woke up feeling fine.

~*~

The rest of this week should be easier--all the print design stuff is finally done and at the printer's, so I don't have to deal with that or last minute design meetings or any of that stuff. I can just concentrate on acting and singing and all that jazz.

~*~

There is a little girl in the show who is inarguably the rudest child I've met in my life. She reminds me of Samara from The Ring. Perhaps that's only because I want to throw her down a well.

~*~

Brian got his exam results yesterday, he passed both. I'm thrilled for him. He also gets to go to a special screening of Hairspray on Thursday (I'm only a little jealous...the John Travolta thing really makes me want to avoid this movie like the plague. Part of me hopes that since it is Baltimore that John Waters will be there...) Saturday he's driving in for the weekend and to see the show. It's almost obscene, getting to see him twice in one month.

~*~

Harvesting like crazy at work right now...tons of squash, cukes and green tomatoes.

The Phone Call

I had a tanning session yesterday before rehearsal to try and coax my lunescent torso into something resembling a flesh tone. Let me be honest--I'm scattered and exhausted right now, so I'm not at my best. I'm practically witless. So I'm getting ready to get into the tanning bed and I notice the little sign about removal of jewelry. So I took out my nipple ring and got into the bed. I get through the session, get dressed, go to rehearsal. I realize about an hour after I left that I neglected to retrieve my nipple ring. So I call the tanning salon. This is how it went.

Me: Um, hi. I was in bed 3 for a tanning session at 5:30?
Employee: Mhmmm.
Me: Well, uh, I left my nipple ring in the jewelry dish and I was wondering if someone could hold onto it until tomorrow when I have my next session.
Employee: Nip-ple ring.(long pause). Ok. (strangled, repulsed quality to her voice at that moment.)

Sigh. It's the little things.

I'm Not Addicted...

I'm forestalling Parkinsons.

hat tip to Brian.

Horrorscopes

Two horoscopes that seem to have my number...

Your dramatic lion-like traits, which you've always assumed made you a charismatic, appealing person, have actually made most people despise you, and today is no exception.

You know that your opinion is the one that counts. But just as a courtesy, could you ask your partner for his or her thoughts before you get started? Otherwise, you could start to seem a little dictatorial.

I always imagined when I had my head bicced that if you put the right hat on me I could vaguely resemble Mussolini...or Donald Pleasance in a tea cozy.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Midway on life's journey, I found myself
On stage, the right line lost. To tell
about last night is hard--so tangled and rough...

(with apologies to both Dante and Robert Pinsky)

Last night's rehearsal was from hell. Production staff pissing contests, freak outs, hissy fits, the whole nine. On top of that we had to have EMS come and take a cast member to the emergency room. Truly, exhausting on any number of levels. How will tonight go?

More Baltimore Photoblogging

Across Howard Street from Brian's building is this sort of parkish area. When we were out walking around I saw this sculpture there and found it really striking. Usually sculpture doesn't do much for me--I seem to have a hard time relating to three-dimensional space and the way art pieces act within it and upon it...but I digress. I really liked this piece. The inset tile pieces are actually shards of ceramic plates and cups. Above the figure's head are an inset series of shells taken from a necklace. It never occured to me to get a closer picture to show them in situ.

South Pacific and Other things.

The show opens in 10 days...it doesn't seem possible. I'm supposed to be off book tonight, but I don't think it's gonna happen...I'm crap at memorization. I'm one of those types that really learns more from repetition of the lines tied to action than from sitting and reading. I'm going to do my best though. In my favor is the fact that a) I've got the songs cold and b) I've got the choreography down as well.

Spent all day yesterday designing publicity materials. The initial poster design was going to be influenced by the WW II homefront propaganda posters but it just didn't work. Too dark, too dreary. So I went with something more in line with the era's painted postcards. I'm pretty happy with the finished results. It's different than how I usually design, much more pretty and lyric, but it seems to serve well. I consulted with the printer this morning and just finished the final tweaks about an hour ago. A larger version of the image can be found here.

~*~

We had our first harvest from the hotel's garden today, two nice pie pan squash. There's going to be tons more...the squash and tomatoes are loaded and full.

The home garden's just as crazy. The tomatoes have had to be tied twice in the past week.

~*~

So much poetry to catch up on and more books coming. I've flipped through J. Allyn Rosser's Misery Prefigured over coffee the last couple of mornings and I can't wait to sit down for a good close reading. Beautiful stuff. Elaine Equi's Ripple Effect also came in the mail and I'm looking forward to it as well. But before that I have to a) free up some time and b) get through all the other stuff in the bedside stack. The delirious tyranny of options.

(I don't even want to think about when I'm going to be able to actually write.)

Photo Geekery

The day after I got to B-more, Brian and I went for a walk around his neighborhood, heading up Park Ave to see the house where Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night and just to get out for a bit. I saw the above notice posted on another historic house...I can't remember for the life of me why it's significant...but the typo on the public signage amused me.

Why I Love Baltimore

Even the trees aren't safe from graffiti.

Name That Bloom

I saw this tree (well several of them, planted around Brian's building) while I was out of town and I love it...problem is, I don't know what it is.

I know plants and flowers but when it comes to trees and shrubs I'm pretty well clueless and lost. I'm wondering if anyone out there has an idea.

Here's a closer picture of the leaves and one of the flower bunches.

They had it in three flavors: white, light pink, and this darker pink. I'd love to get a couple of the darker pink ones for my own garden. Any ideas or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Narcoleptic

I am knackered. I am, if I were behind the wheel of a car, "a danger to myself and others" tired. Tired to the point that I can't seem to nap.

Yesterday was ridiculously long--up and headed out of Baltimore before 8:30. Then rehearsal last night until a little after 9:00. Up at 7 this morning and off to work and errands.

Must sleep...at least a little. Otherwise tonight's rehearsal will be a disaster.

Ebirah's Hit Hard Times

Despite his appearance in the 1969 epic, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, the giant crab Ebirah never really seemed to take off like some of the other giant monsters. Imagine my chagrin, seeing him reduced to restaurant promotion in the Inner Harbor.

Will busk for food.

No, little princess, I have not seen your twin, nor Mothra.


Brian with crab.

Sadly, the picture of the little boy terrifed of Phillip's Ebirah didn't turn out. I'm going to try photoshopping it this weekend. It's priceless...well..if you're amused by the suffering and tears of children.

We're Like Kristall

Checking out at Eddie's the other day I saw bottles of this Kristall Pear soda in the coolers. It was a sheer impulse buy...just something to sip at walking back to the apartment. It's great stuff. It doesn't taste artificial like a lot of fruit sodas. You don't really taste the pear until it's further back on the tongue; a little tart, not overly carbonated, really mild. When we were grabbing some last minute things yesterday I checked to see what other flavors they had--sadly just pear and lingonberry (the company also makes raspberry, orange, apple and black currant sodas.)

Do You Know the Way to San Jose

Went wandering around the neighborhood this morning--to a theatrical supply place a few blocks down Howard Street for some new stage makeup then to Eddie's for some groceries. I was gone maybe an hour. While I was out, I was asked twice for directions--I was pleasantly surprised when I could help both people.

Baltibloggin

Heddo from Baltimore. I managed to get my carcass up and moving at 5 am on Saturday and was at Brian's just before 11:30. There was some fierce fog in places so I was sensible and slowed down. At one point I was at the top of a mountain and looked out above me, blue sky and clouds. Then I looked down at the terrain ahead of me...it seemed like even more cumulus clouds rising up from the valleys.

~*~

The weather's been lovely--not too humid, not too hot...delightful. We wandered around the Inner Harbor and did some shopping Saturday (Brian bought me the shoes pictured above.) Being a weekend, there were tons of people out...the best thing we saw? Nope, not the girl in the square dancing outfit. The guy in the inflatable crab outfit pimping for his restaurant. There will be pictures--I promise. At least 3.