Highly Recommended: La Cage Aux Folles

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TJ and I saw La Cage Aux Folles starring George Hamilton and Chris Sieber at the Kennedy Center last night.

One word: Amazeballs.

I haven’t had this much fun seeing a show in a long, long while. The singing, the dancing, the drag queens, the Filipino butler/maid–the whole thing was just a big ball (or several big balls) of campy fun. It also helped that we sat in the third row. :)

The biggest jawdropper of the night for me, though, was Chris Sieber’s superbly scrumptrulescent performance as Albin (essentially Nathan Lane’s character in The Birdcage). I didn’t realize that Sieber was such a fantastic singer, but he is, and I got chills down my spine listening to him belt out “I Am What I Am.”

Here’s an official clip from the touring production:

The show is at the Kennedy Center through February 12, so definitely add it to your list of shows to see in the next few weeks!

Stop SOPA and PIPA! For the Love of Jesus and Oprah on a Jet Ski!

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Okay, so we can all pretty much agree that online piracy is terrible. It’s like Somali pirates attacking you while you have terrible explosive diarrhea, only it’s on the Interwebs and not as you cruise down to the Bahamas with your lovely lady friend.

But SOPA and PIPA, Congress’ proposed solutions to battling online piracy, are waaaaaaay off target. It’s like using a nuke on cute, cuddly kittens who are just LOLing and asking if they can haz cheezburgers. Both proposals miss the point entirely about effectively dealing with online piracy and have terrible, terrible unintended consequences, like SkyNet and evil sentient robots taking over.

Seriously, Congress. Add this to the column of things not to regulate. You Tea Partiers and Occupiers don’t like big government, right? Then tell Congress not to give government the power to censor the Interwebs. That’s what countries where James Bond villains come from do. Because once you start censoring cute puppies falling asleep, you really don’t know when it’ll stop.

If SOPA and PIPA pass, then awesome things like this might never see the light of day (thanks to theoatmeal.com):

Do you want the Interwebs to remain free and open? Read more and sign the petition here: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction. And contact your Senator and Congressperson. It’s their job to represent you, so tell them not to be swayed by the fancy meals and free DVDs from lobbyists.

Online piracy is a real threat to American innovation and economic growth, but SOPA and PIPA are not the right solutions.

Redesign, Baby!

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It’s 2012 and time to do my annual refresh of the blog’s design. This is WordPress’ theme Twenty Eleven, which ironically means that it’s sooooooooo last year. But I like that it’s streamlined, clean, and neat. Just like me. :)

I’ve also changed the blog’s subtitle. Since the list of things I usually write about (e.g., improv, TV, movies, pop culture, faith, politics, higher education, videos of kittens or puppies doing something totally adorbsies) seems to keep expanding, I didn’t want to have a blog subtitle that doubled as a dissertation title. So “other distractions” now officially contains a multitude of topics.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, those are indeed Wonder Woman’s boobs up there.

Right Brain Resolutions

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I don’t usually stake the success of the upcoming year on some grand pronouncement of things I will do more/less of. I’d like to think that New Year’s resolutions don’t really play a significant role in my annual start-of-the-year refresh.

Never mind, of course, that two of the biggest life changes I’ve made were the direct result of New Year’s resolutions. Thanks to the extra incentive of “starting over,” I quit drinking soda in January 2006 and I started taking improv classes in January 2007.

So I thought I’d at least write some general notions of things related to my right brain that I’d like to accomplish this year, if nothing else but to keep me accountable:

  • Read at least one book for pleasure per quarter.
  • Write at least one blog entry a day, even if the entry is nothing more than a JPG of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.
  • Take and publish at least one photo a day month on Flickr.
  • Finish writing my NaNoWriMo novel by December 2012. So it’ll take me a year rather than a month. Whatevs
  • Write at least one song per month.
  • Record at least 12 of my previously written songs in GarageBand to “release” an album in December 2012.

Big, but not unattainable. Let’s hope my Muses don’t fail me this year!

On Brady, Tebow, and Faith

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Look, I’m Christian, and I’m (mostly) proud of it. I’d probably more accurately call myself a Jesus follower because I generally bristle at the idea of being part of organized religion, even though I know it’s a necessary evil. (Seriously, how the hell did we screw up a gospel of inclusion and make it all about excluding others?)

And for the record, I have problems with so-called “Christians” who are really nothing more than Pharisees and Sadduccees version 2012. To them, Jesus said in Matthew 23:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”

These hate-filled hatemongers make us regular ol’ folks who are just trying to live life as best we can, loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, look bad.

And while I admire Tim Tebow for being unashamed of his faith, I’m skeeved by the media and others worshiping at his feet and practically proclaiming him the second coming of Christ. Professing what you believe in is one thing (although I think the story would be completely different if Tebow were, say, Muslim). But when your faith is being used by others (ahem, Focus on the Family) as a vehicle to institutionalize hate, well, that’s quite a different story, isn’t it?

Focus on the Family’s John 3:16 ad during last night’s game, while innocuous-looking enough, was quite “WTF”-inducing. Other than my issue with making the kids look like children of the corn, yes, I do believe that God loved the world so much that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him shouldn’t perish but have everlasting life. I’m all for that. Except we know that Focus on the Family would rather that that “whoever” doesn’t include, oh I don’t know, LGBT people, feminists, and other less desirable people. 

As I angrily tweeted last night:

Dear Focus on the Family: Let’s not pretend like you like everyone, okay? #andyoucallyourselveschristians

I don’t know Tebow, and I don’t claim to know what’s going on in his inner monologue. I know that he looks cuter with scruff, has great abs and arms, and is only slightly less hotter than Tom Brady. And I’m not going to judge what he probably feels is a good opportunity to use his national visibility to share his faith.

But I do want to let people know, as limited a reach as this blog might have, that there are other kinds of Christians out there… the ones who believe in and live a message of love, who quietly do God’s work everyday without fanfare, photos, or commercials. They take to heart what Jesus said in Matthew 5:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

And just to close the loop on this post and make it related to football, here are photos of Darth Brady, who had a stellar game last night along with the Pats defense, and Emperor Belichick: