Location: Philly, Chicago and LA (… and that’s all in one week)
There’s been so much happening and so little time for me to gather all of my thoughts, so get ready for a big ball of craptastic info thrown at you in no particular rhyme or reason. If you prefer a more standard ‘saying’, let me use this one: Buckle up kids ’cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
I spent about 12 hours in Philly, which was totally topsy-turvy, but luckily i was headed out just as a pretty decent snowstorm was headed in. I got out just in time, or so said the redcoats at the airport. Time was well spent in the city of Brotherly Love, i found the service at the Four Seasons to be excellent and it was actually sort of nice being in the bitter cold: It was refreshing. That being said, i may have a whole different outlook on chilly weather if i had to live with it for months at a time. A nice place to visit, but i wouldn’t want to shovel, y’know? lol.
I came back to SA for a night and headed out the following AM for LA, where i spent about another 11-12 hours. Anyone who’s read this blog for awhile also knows that i’m not the biggest fan of LA’s social scene. It’s plastic and placid in my eyes and i’d find much more amusement in reading a good book than gnashing my teeth for the paparazzi and overpaying for food at Spago. I’ve always thought that Wolfgang Puck was an oversaturated flop anyway. I did, however, enjoy his chain of cafes in both California and Las Vegas. They always had meatloaf on the menu and in my eyes, that’s a VERY VERY good thing. Definitely one of my comfort foods đ
So anyway, LA’s gone wayside and then it was out to Chicago for the weekend. I was excited about heading back to my hometown for several reasons: a) The weather was reported to be pretty decent b) I was looking foward to seeing my guy (well, duh right?) c) We were going to catch a performance of the soon-to-be-Broadway-bound ‘Sweet Charity,’ starring Christina Applegate as Charity. I was PSYCHED to say the least.
HOLY GEEZE this gal is talented! She has that x-factor of talent that honestly keeps your eyes glued to her the entire show. Yes, she’s got star power already, but she’s also got the musical theatre chops to back everything up: A good voice, excellent dancing skills and a real relaxed, confident aura about her when she’s onstage. The show itself is in great shape, will soon transfer to Boston for additional previews, then land on Broadway in late April. I forsee this show taking NYC by storm, becoming very ‘Producers-esque’ in terms of selling out and being the new ‘hard to get’ ticket. Fantastic costumes. Wayne Cliento (choreographer) kept much of Fosse’s feeling in the show, while adding some interesting and dynamic moves. The lighting is beautiful and really creates a ’60s feeling with a vivid psychadelic palette of colors.
If you’re in Chicago now: GO SEE IT. It’s at the Palace and will be running through mid-March. They just opened and supposedly cleaned up quite a bit from their prior run in Minneapolis. I’m sure by the time it hits Boston, it will be more than Broadway-ready. For more info on the show, CLICK HERE for the official site.
It’s Oscar Sunday and here’s hoping anyone who was polling (Ed… this means you) picked the right crop of talent to walk across the stage at the Kodak Theater. All-in-all, it seemed to be a rather uneventful Oscars, with most of the awards being shamefully predictible. Enjoy the following commentary with a forewarning: It’s dripping with cynicism and isn’t what you’d call PC. Also… Pardon the mess, but the commentary is working backwards from the end of the evening to the beginning. This was done in off-the-cuff and in realtime. You’ll get the hang of it eventually:
8:37: Dustin Hoffman is clearly drunk as he slurs his way through the nominees for Best Picture. Million Dollar Baby wins! Clint drags his grizzled bones back on stage to accept the award. We had no idea that Bea Arthur produced the movie, but she gives a moving acceptance speech. Even the horn blasts from the orchestra canât stop the lesser producer person from getting in some thanks. Next year, go with a louder, more obnoxious horn blast. Chris Rock loudly thanks Brooklyn forâŠsomething. America has survived his filthy, envelope-pushing, expletive-laden emceeing onslaught. Martin Scorsese begs Robert DeNiro to put him down like a three-legged dog. Annette Bening asks Warren Beatty to loosen the snaps that hold her face taut. Jamie Foxx heads to Mortonâs to receive some very public fellatio from a B-list actress.
8:34: Clint wins Best Director! Martins Scorses may have to work for another century before he gets his moment in the Oscar sun. The Aviator 3: The Milk Bottles Are All Full is going to be a lock for Marty, but itâll be more of a Lifetime Achievment thing. Havenât heard a word Eastwoodâs said. But heâs got the trophy, thatâs all the counts.
8:25: Best Actor timeâŠand itâs Jamie Foxx time. Yawn. We were kind of hoping for a Don Cheadle win, because watching the heavens open and a rain of bloody salamanders in clown makeup wouldâve been pretty awesome. (Yes, we are drunk.) Foxx does the âYeaaaaah. Huuuuh.â thing that heâs done at every awards show this year. Yeah, huh. Ray Charles is excited for you, etc etc.
OK, weâre starting to be won over: Foxx thanks his grandma and thinks she shouldâve won an Oscar for whooping him. Kind of rehearsed and without genuine emotion, but also great in its own way. Whoop Jamieâs ass, grandma!
8:16: Charlie Kaufman wins for Best Original Screenplay! Sweet justice! Kaufman notes the 30-second shot clock that limits his speech, because Gil Cates knows that no one wants to hear writers speak (this might result in increased DVD residuals for WGA members). Kaufman meekly retires from the stage, glad that he wasnât forced to accept his award from the back of the theater, staring at the bald spot on the top of the sound editor from Spider-Manâs head. Did we mention that Eternal Sunshine was the real Best Picture? It was.
8:14: Chris Rock on Gwyneth: She breast-feeds an apple. How droll.
8:05: Hilary Swank wins Best Actress (umm, duh)! Tragically, she wasnât able to find a stylist to dress her on her big night, and had to settle for slipping into a three-dollar navy blue stocking from JC Penney cut down to reveal her toned ass-crack. She goes to the âgirl from a trailer parkâ thing, which is obscene for someone whoâs just won their SECOND Oscar. Um, youâve already overcome the Cheez Wiz sandwiches and GTOs on blocks in the driveway years ago? White trash cred expires after the first award, Hils.
She saves thanking Clint Eastwood to the endâŠthen, as the music blares, erases any genuine Clint sentiment by loudly thanking âher best friend and publicist.â This will go down as one of the worst speeches in the history of spoken language. Can they get that statue back and hand it to the Botox-paralyzed Annette Bening, who wonât know sheâs lost until the middle of the Vanity Fair party?
8:03: Sean Penn laments that five thousand actors canât be nominated for Best Actor/Actress each year, the only way that the craft can be properly respected. Lesser Baldwins watching from check-cashing instutitons silently nod their approval.
8:01: Prince prese
nts Best Original Song, but can barely hide his contempt for people who donât play all their own instruments while wearing ten-inch platform heels. The Motorcycle Diaries wins..
7:58: Beyonce and Josh Grobanâgo together like peanut butter and baby vomit. Itâs a lovely duet, really. You have no idea how great a PB and BV sandwich is until youâve indulged.
7:50: Not even Yo Yo Maâs cello playing can bring back those Hollywood has lost over the last year. But wait! Maâs delicate notes revive Ronald Reagan and Christopher Reeve, who Indian leg-wrestle on the Oscar stage. Reeves wins three out of five falls, and is allowed entrance to Heaven. ReaganâŠwell, he never stood a chance in front of an audience of Hollywood liberals.
7:41: Someone in the control room flips the âBloated Has-Beenâ switch and John Travolta appears in a cloud of fire and brimstone to present Best Original Score. Finding Neverland wins, but there seems to have been some kind of mistake, as this award shouldâve been given out at the Broken English Awards, hosted by Scarlett Johansson. The camera keeps cutting to FN star Johnny Depp, who looks like he was dressed by a high school English teacher whoâs had the fashion lobe removed from his brain.
7:35: Weâre kind of loving this on-stage firing squad thing, but we might be blinded by Natalie Portmanâs freakish beauty. The bin below the stage holding the bodies of the dead, losing nominees must really be quite pungent by now. Also, weâre happy that Craig T. Nelson is supplementing his income with short documentary work. Rock suggests that the short doc people shouldâve been given their Oscars in the parking lot. How about at an undisclosed location in the Valley? Woulndât want anyone mistakenly making eye-contact with Jack Nicholson.
7:30: Antonia Banderas singing erases all ability to think about spurious hot lesbian action between Penlope y Salma, so we offer you this dispatch from an operative in the Oscar Press Room: âSo much ass-licking in this press room⊠Sidney Lumet is now praising Vin Diesel in a touching effort, âVin got his break as a muscle car racer and heâs a glorious actor if you have seen some of his workâŠââ Vin Diesel: Glorious!
7:15: The Aviator wins for Best Cinematography. The Baby Jesus weeps.
7:11: The Live Action Short Film winner is consigned to the in-audience ghetto, as is Animated Short Film. We expect a bloody revolution by filmmakers with no resources and a short attention span by late Monday afternoon.
6:57: Oh, that dudeâs not dead! Not even Vin Diesel playing the most musclebound lawyer ever could kill Sidney Lumet. Heâll live forever. Lumet, we mean. Dieselâs going to suffer a tragic stroller accident on the set of The Pacifier 2.
6:53: The non-Colin Farrell guy from The Recruit is talking about some old director, which has resulted in a montage of that personâs work. Did someone die?
6:46: Holy shit, someoneâs shaved Jake Gyllenhaalâs head! On a lesser heartthrob, heâd look like a second-rate gay porn model. But on Jake, his Dreamy Eyes are enhanced in a totally dreamy-eyed, dreamboaty way. Weâd fuck him. Spider-Man 2 wins something.
6:44: Alexander Payne and The Other Guy win Best Adapted Screenplay for Sideways. Weâre always disappointed when writers so shamelessly thank their agents. Donât they know that agents subsist entirely on a diet of dropped writer clientsâ genitalia?
6:42: Chris Rock and old SNL pal Adam Sandler indulge in some highly eroticized scripted banter. If theyâre not blowing each other in ten seconds, weâre flipping over to Bravo.
6:36: An entire roomful of people breaks into hysterical laughter at the very sight of Counting Crows singer Adam Duritz. It appears that just before the Crows took the stage, Sideshow Bob successfully attacked Duritzâs head and is sodomizing his scalp.
6:34: The Aviator wins for Best EditingâŠthings are looking good for Martin Scorsese. You know, unless they arenât. What the fuck do we know? Weâre drinking keg beer.
6:30: Just in case anyone cares, Leonardo DiCaprio is wearing Prada. I know this because I saw him talk to Star Jones on the red carpetâand he barely shows any ill effects from when Jones spotted the pork chop Leo was inexplicably wearing around his neck earlier, and lunged hungrily for his windpipe, fangs bared. It was an ugly scene.
6:24: Cate Blanchett wins for Best Supporting Actress for her Kate Hepburn impression. Thanks her agent right after her husbandâshe knows where her bread is buttered.
6:17: Oscar Innovations, Part II: All Costume Design nominees are gathered on stage. All but the Aviatorâs crew are shot in the back of the head, their lifeless, losing bodies dropping through trap doors.
6:14: Scarlett Johansson was chosen to host Oscarâs Broken English Awards, which were handed out earlier. People who donât speak-a the Engleesh so good are funny! All will be lynched following the telecast.
6:11: A tech runs out onto the stage to hand Rock a microphone, which is obviously filled with Booty Call jokes for when he introduces Jamie Foxx.
6:02: The make-up people are the first below-the-line category to be forced to stay far, far away from the stage, where they might make eye contact with the people they spackle pancake onto for a living. A stop-watch brandishing Gil Cates mustâve saved at least three and a half seconds by keeping the poor powder-puff kids near their chairs. Oscar continues to shake things up! Whatâs next, a total reversal of gravity, sending the nominees for Best Sound Design hurtling through the ceiling? (Lemony Snicket wins, btw.)
5:57: The best thing about Robin Williams (besides the Ebonics Black Guy, the Phlegmy Jewish Guy, and the Lisping Gay that live inside him) is that he never makes an event all about him.
Oh, The Incredibles, Mortal Oscar Lock number two of the evening, winsâwhile Robin Williams gropes a spokesbimbo in the background. He just keeps giving!
5:51: In the nightâs first mortal lock of the night, Morgan Freeman wins for Million Dollar Baby. If you havenât seen the movie yet, hereâs a spoiler: Freeman plays a one-eyed former who is impregnated by Clint Eastwoodâs grizzled trainer and give birth to a bag of money, played by Hilary Swank.
Freeman gives perhaps the shortest Oscar speech in history. He neglects to thank Chad Lowe for allowing wife Hilary Swank to diminsh his manhood by playing characters far more butch than he could ever hope to be.
5:45: Oscarâs first big curveballâŠleading with Art Direction? Holy shit, theyâre really shaking things up this year! We half expect that the second half of the ceremony will be done in Latin. The Aviator wins, meaning at least one minor Miramax functionary gets to keep their testicles/ovaries for a bit longer.
5:42: Rock goes edgy with a Catwoman 2 joke for Halle BerryâŠguess the hit-and-run jokes are hopelessly out of date.
5:35 pmâChris Rock receives a standing ovation just for showing up, immediately notes the number of black nominees (yay!), then makes a Def Oscar Jam joke (boo). Scores some points off of Colin Farrell, who we vaguely remember starred as a somewhat gay conquereor who gave meaningful glances to a guy with too much eye makeup, then made up for it by banging Rosario Dawson for half an hour.
Oh, how i love Defamer.com’s take on things. Always puts a smile on my face đ
Getting into other celeb-gossip-troubles: I’m sure that some of you heard about Paris Hilton’s cell-phone mishap, as she was ‘hacked’ into and the contents of her camera and phonebook were published on the web. Pretty funny stuff, especially considering Hilton’s got a movie coming out soon and this was all ‘an accident’ or so say her publicists. Riiiight. In any event, the images from her phone cam are about par for the course: lesbian kissing, a bit o’ tit, snapshots with Burt Reynolds (I’m as confused on this one as you are… See below) and lots of other crap.
I can’t believe i’m sharing space with THE BANDIT!
The site with ALL of the info on this new schlockfest can be found HERE. If you’re up for a good laugh, the paraody of this whole scandal can be found HERE. Enjoy both ’cause they kept me in stitched for awhile. When bad publicists attack, eh?
Let’s get back to business and unearth this week’s free WHACKOFF OF THE WEEK site. Once again, this site has come across my desk: Squirt.org. While not a pic site exclusively, Squirt.org is a great site for those seeking instant hookups, info on local cruising spots (bathhouse ratings & testominials included) and tons of profile images that are HOT, HOT, HOT. It’s free to create a profile, so why not sign up soon and take advantage of this A+ site. If you’re a purveyor of bathhouse action (as i can be at times), this is definitely the site for you.
… So i get home from Chicago this evening (without a Steamworks adventure this time… sorry fellas) and have tickets for the current national tour of Chicago, the musical. Coincidence? I think not. I had an oppotunity to see this tour in Houston about a year ago with a good pal and it was an excellent production. The leads were spot-on while the ensemble cast was young, in-shape, talented and quite attractive. I suppose that after a year a lot can happen and unfortunately, this tour hasn’t held up so well from city-to-city.
These two gals were the leads i saw in Houston: Only one was left tonight (Bianca Marrequin) when i saw the show here in San Antonio. The other (Brenda Braxton) left for the Broadway company and was replaced with an actress (Terra MacLeaod) who could neither dance well nor sing confidently. The company was mostly Broadway replacements who looked either too old and flabby to be wearing such skin-tight costumes or they simply danced like they had just taken a horse tranquilizer. If this tour is headed your way, you might do better to simply rent the recent film-version and enjoy the splendor that is Catherine Zeta-Jones hoofing her ass off and earning every ounce of that Oscar she won.
Tastes great… Less filling. It’s EYE CANDY time. Look for more nudity this week, as i’ve been noticing a decent drop in the ‘schlong-quotient’ as of late around here:
WHOOHOO! In future blogging, look for a more diverse selection of EYE CANDY, as hotties come in all shapes, colors and sizes. We’re equal-opportunity orgasmists around here y’know đ
So i’m sorting through my images on my main machine and came across this oldie, but goodie with a very good guy (Dave) from Salt Lake City. It’s a silly pic, but i thought it’d be amusing. I definitely smile everytime i see it:
Yes, i did just paint my teeth with WhiteOut…
Katherine-the-Great DOG UPDATE: Katy is doing really well with the cat, actually getting along well with Toby. She’s now housebroken and one of the most energetic dogs i’ve ever come in contact with. Quite simply, she’s amazing and i can’t believe i’ve waited so long to get a dog. I always considered myself more of a feline guy, but having a dog is a whole different experience. They actually depend on you and give so much back in terms of feeling and love. While i know my cat loves me, Katy is 1000% affectionate in every way. She’s a good addition to the household… even if she does slip up now and then, leaving me a puddle of joy on the tile đ
Tomorrow it’s back to LA for 12 hours, then SA for a night, then back to LA. Why so much travel and why not just stay in LA you ask? Well, i’d prefer to sleep in my own bed when i can and truth be told, i also don’t mind the extra mileage. lol. I’m such a mileage whore.
Later in the month will be an extended trip with LA-based escort Bobby Thompson in Key West. That should be fun. Key West is a great place, as is the company i’ve kept in times past while there. Most definitely, the best cup of coffee in the world comes from Key West đ More about that in the future, or when my good buddy decided to slap a custom label on it and sell it on some branch-off of BenjaminNicholas.com. *snicker*
Tomorrow’s a long day, so i leave you with this very wise saying before heading off to bed:
“Man who go to sleep with itchy butt, wake up with smelly finger”
… Use that droplett of intellect as you will. Knowlege is power, but in times like this, it’s sometimes just stupidity. G’night kiddos.
BN