Hill-Billy

Cueca Funk; dance craze de Brazil

Fight Club.

Good movie. I found myself laughing and looking away in the really bloody parts. I had to watch it as "F*ing Lou" is in town and I'm having dinner with him tonite. His daughter gets married on sunday and we're all a twitter.

My wingwoman of the westcoast grows up on sunday and we're all a twitter. An italian wedding in the hills of Malibu, can you imagine. She had the preacher before she even had the groom. After she found him she had the photog, place, cake, florist and staff in a week. Note to the next generation, Red bull will hurt you, respect the power of the stimulant.

Speaking of stimulant, is Edward Norton available for marriage? I think I just shattered my Singularity For Life vow. He's with that Penelope chick right? Well that says volumes as she was with Tom Cruise. Where did I leave my beard trimmer...................

Tacky again.

Can you imagine what people ask to take home from a restaurant. I'm always annoyed when people ask for more bread for their meal and they are obviously filled up already from dinner. They would just like to take some home with them. By the way folks, please feel free to grab a painting off the wall on your way out. And if you need some additional labor in the garden or even to clean out your attic, the price of your chicken entree includes taking home a valet.

The strangest thing that Robin Hood ever had to wrap up for a guest was a tablespoon of chowder. Now that's crazy. I've wrapped up small items but never something obscene like that. Until last nite when I was clearing one of Rob's tables. The lady asked me to wrap up the bread, and I thought she was joking. I threw her one of my trademarked "Yer soo funny..." sneers, complete with the headtoss, to find she was actually serious. You be the judge, Is it worth it? Let me work it. I'll pull my thing down, flip it, and reverse it.

Tacky.

Breathe.

Blogger is really pissing me off today. This toggle issue of not displaying text is annoying. If the text isn't visible (you probably can't read this) shake the elevator toolbar on the right of the screen. Annoying


This is LA LA Land, and in a town of make-believe we're known for our spectacles. So much so that a certain amount of gaudiness is expected in them. A certain amount of tackiness can be expected in the gaudiness of the spectacles. We expect this, we're not shocked. But when shit like this flies without any taste at all it really gives Southern California it's nasty reputation as a state full of morons. This freaking floored me.

With seconds to spare, the Best Buy in Mission Valley, San Diego had this touched memorial up and soaring. Talk about the band playing on. This gives me the sour taste in my mouth like brushing your teeth with a beautiful mint paste and then accidentally swallowing some room temperature orange juice. I mean, really. The body is barely cold.

This is enough to keep me out of their stores for a while.

(wrinkles nose, as if smelling something rotten)

Wasted.

Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment yesterday afternoon. The autopsy results are inconclusive, but a number of prescription pills found around the room lead to different ideas.

It's so sad when a bright light like Heath Ledger's gets snuffed out in this industry. At twenty eight Ledger leaves a promising body of work, a stunned mass of fans, and a grieving family. He also leaves a little two year old girl named Matilda. So much promise, so sad.

Heath Ledger had just finished the role of the Joker in the upcoming 'Batman Returns' movie scheduled for release in July. Jack Nicholson had immortalized the role in the previous Batman franchise in the early nineties. He had his own comment on the actor's tragic death:

"I
told him so."

The King that addressed The Man.

"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?Expediency asks the question - is it politic?Vanity asks the question - is it popular?But conscience asks the question - is it right?And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right."

-Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968

The Man That Dressed The King.

January 7 th Bill Belew passed away in Palm Springs at the age of 76. He had had a lengthy battle with diabetes. The name may seem obscure but the relevance is awesome. Mr. Belew was the man that gave us Gold lamay Elvis, Bejeweled cape and rhinestone studded jumpsuit Elvis, and my personal favorite; black leather Elvis.

For Elvis' historic comeback television special in 1968, Mr. Belew created a style befitting a king and continued through the 70's to be his personal designer and fashion mentor. All of those bedazzled suits were through Mr. Belew's vision. Soon after Elvis started wearing his clothes, other pop stars began demanding them. The Osmonds, The Four Tops, Earth Wind and Fire, and the Jacksons all were clients for the man.

To him I'm personally indebted for the black leather jumpsuit. It made me gay. I know they say that sitting to close to the television was bad for the vision, but I think it amplified my gay genes. I initially gave credit to Robert Conrad in Wild Wild West but further studies have led back to the King. Thank you Mr. Belew.

Twelve Days Of 40!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't know me by now you'll come to appreciate that I am a showman. I love a good production number and study it's intricacies to reproduce one day in a fashion that suit me. What I've learned from Cher alone, but I digress. Attention Whore? Maybe. Non-traditionalist? Abso-smurfly. (By the by, the Smurfs just turned fifty). At the end of the year I will be ripening like fruit (funny on three levels) to the mature age of 4 decades. 4 decades is earlier to remember than Tony 4.0 or 39 a, but either way there's gonna be some flourish.





Out to lunch (insert joke) with friend Tiffany, a remarkable young lady with as much gumption as myself, sans gaul she asked how I would be marking my 4 decade natal anniversary. I told her of plans to jump from a plane, new tattoo, toys, parties etc. I told her that it would definitely fill a week's worth of activities. She told me that I could do better. (Pause. Cue climbing music) Celebrate the 17 th of every month with some amazing feats of daring and decadence. She's an event coordinator/showman with her own bubbling business. She named this clockwork-banana "The Twelve Days Of 40". Drool fell from my attention whore lips into my lo mien. A sparkle jumped from my eye to her squeals of delight. It was an amazing moment. And as the 'plans' have been forming it became less about me, and more about fun. My people here there and everywhere are being put on notice that if your are around the Los Angeles area during a 17 th of the month and want to have a few squeals, call me. The Master List is being tabulated with forty or more goals to be hit during the 12 Days. Here's a taste;

1. Get notarized.

2. See Cabo.

3. Beach Picnic @ Matador.

4. Stop nail biting.

5. See Sicily.

6. Celebrate anyone who's bday is the 17th.

7. Breast Cancer benefit.

8. Clean closets of apartment to Bree Van De Kamp Crazy.

9. Best shape of life.

10. Find Leslie Silva.

11. New tattoo.

12. Sushi off a male model.

13. Jump from a plane.

14. Jump from a bridge.

15. Jump by Van Halen.

16. Post this crap online.

17. See the LA Colosseum.

18. Tell Phillip Morris to go scratch.

19. Adopt. A panda.

20.See all LA museums.

and the Master List goes on.....suggestions encouraged.

For those of you so inclined, join in wherever you feel. I'm hoping to have a website where there can be fun and frolic, maybe even a gift shoppe for memorabilia. But there will be (blood) pictures and laughs, so tune in.

By the power vested in me my by striking good looks, some striking writers, the sagitarian zodiac, The Universal Life Church, and the state of California, I hereby declare The 12 Days Of 40 now open!!!!

Curtains.

After nearly 12 years on Broadway, the producers of Rent have announced that the play that sparked a resurgence in interest for musical theater will close after it's June 1 st performance. The show, an East Village version of La Boheme, won 4 Tony awards, made stars of it's basically unknown cast and inspired a generation of theater goers. The plays author Jonathan Larson died two weeks before the play was to open of an aneurysm, galvanizing the plays central idea; "No day, but today. "

Wow, I'm sad. I always lose my breath at the lyrics, "Will I lose my dignity, will no one care." The show took me out of my twenties and delivered me to my rambunctious thirties. I was really impressed when Goosy and her girls who would make their ways to NYC to see the latest of plays, had nothing but great things to say about the show, language aside.

End of an era.

It would have been twenty years ago; Never forget. Never forgive

Back in 1987, before the Internet (I just like saying that), times were simpler for the Big Bad Spat. I was just cutting my teeth at UConn as a human being and as a student in the Department for Dramatic Arts. Yep, theaterfag. I was blessed with a great group of peers that made the stale and tawdry curriculum, bearable. We also had some fantastic shows that we put up that I really thought were restaurant quality, if you know what I mean. We had some shows that all the evidence of was destroyed to protect the guilty.



One such success was a collaboration between the Drama and the Music Departments. Usually mutually exclusive, as we did share a building, the students didn't mix well. Different creative processes? Who knows, who cares. But this particular show, directed by a very dirty old man and musically directed by the constantly cocked conductor was outstanding. Sweeny Todd introduced me to Stephen Sondheim, where I immediately threw down my allegiance. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice took my virginity, but Stephen and I had a real love affair, until I threw him out for Jonathan Lawson, but I digress. The darkness of that show is so mesmerizing that you forget any prejudice you might feel towards Musical Theater. The lyrics, the blood, the characters, the blood, the rhythm, and the blood all make for a delightful night out. Our show utilized the drama graduate students and the darlings of the music department with yours truly and my band of merry men running costumes. Costumes includes laundry, did i mention that there is an ocean of blood involved. The show became a proud moment for me, and the piece itself is an icon in my psyche.


Which brings me to Dreamworks' Film Sweeny Todd starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and directed by Tim Burton. I was scared to see what was going to happen with this little baby of mine. There have been so many bastardized babies of Musicals to Film that I was concerned. Dreamgirls was disappointing and Rent was embarrassing. When I began to hear the compiling of talent and saw the first trailer, they had me with the first cut. Johnny Depp can do no wrong in my eyes his talent is epic and he creates amazing work. All of his characters are complete and amazing to watch. Sweeny was no different, his deliberate and sullen walk, and intense eyes were selling points to this. His vocal quality, not Great White Way worthy, was still competent for the job. And Helena Bonham Carter was devious, devoted and delicious. I don't often gush about a movie but this one and I have history. All of my hopes on the score being kept true to were met. Tim Burton's vision of the time and the place were outstanding. The use of blood was lascivious. It was enormous and erotic. There was so much blood in spots that it stopped just short of laughable. Burton's movie is one I can't wait to own. GO SEE IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even GirlFran had this to say....

And the joke of a Golden Globes Award Ceremony recognized Sweeny as Winner, Best Film Comedy or Musical, and Johnny Depp as Winner, Best Actor in a Film Musical or Comedy. That means something, y'know.

A world gone mad.

Will Smith has been identified as a Scientologist. Can you believe it? They got another one?

http://socialitelife.buzznet.com/2008/01/10/they_got_will_smith.php

Keeping with Kings.

January 10, 2008 also marks my Pop's 80Th trip around the sun. Can you imagine? The man's pretty amazing, he takes nothing for granted and has been in amazement of life every step of the way. He's not one to be fussed over, but does enjoy a certain amount of quality time with his tribe. He's the type of father that insists that all the kids come home for the annual family, but the noise gets so deafening that the novelty wears off and he'll beat a hasty retreat. But he does this in the spirit that the kids are having a grand time on their own, so his efforts are successful.

Growing up he was a spirited lad. He had two roads ahead of him, jail or the marines. Carpe diem, Semper Fi; off to the military he went. He came back to the states after his service to fall in love, marry and have a family. After the first child came he must have seen that his time was limited (more kids would be a-comin') and he dumped my brother with his parents and fled to Europe, at least until the money ran out. He said the experience was one of the best things he ever did. Dad's sense of living is legendary. It would aid him in his professional career paths; private eye, insurance salesman, travel agent and rake.

He parlayed his military training, or all the movies he'd seen on base, to becoming a private detective. He won't say much about this time in early career but he does have amazing tricks for unlocking doors, translating Farsi, and remembering license plates (or just the alphabet game we'd play with them). As he would regularly expose insurance fraud, he found that there was more money and less danger in selling the stuff. Dad taught us that if you did what you loved, the money would always follow. Insurance lead it's way to travel insurance and then to bringing in most of Syracusa, Sicily to populate the greater Hartford, CT area, and selling the tickets for steamship and eventually air travel. Dad worked with his father in an agency that spanned nearly forty years in a volatile, adventurous industry. Dad puts his mind to something, it goes places.

After the loss of his first wife, my siblings' mom, the neighborhood came right into insulate the young widower and four precious children. The local nuns were on hand, the grandparents on both sides, the cousins and especially the neighbors. The lady around the corner took in the family laundry to ease the burden, and to ensure propriety in the time of mourning, stitched up all the 'front doors' on his boxer shorts with red thread. She did it in little cross-stitches. The neighborhood was a pretty safe and wonderful place to grow, because of people like Mrs. Hutch. These people always looked out for each other. Dad always believes that the good people find each other. He believes that what you put out in the world, will come back to you. He eventually fell in love again and brought two more disciples into the world; Me and the baby. We became all he feared; loud, outgoing, sensitive, social, talented and loyal children that will take anything down that messed with our family. In other words we became six chips off the block.

When one of us Malaprop's (wrong word, wrong time, wrong use) we can look to our Pop for that trait. When the kids start the giggle that can drive a spouse from the room, especially if more than two of us are together, Dad only has himself to blame. Our sense of humor all falls from the gnarled tree that Uno, developed. Dad began to call himself Uno more regularly in the mid nineties. It was not that he had an overdeveloped penchant for the card game, it was that he was number one over this tribe and for clarity sake, he should bear the standard. It was about this time in the nineties when the family began breeding pretty regularly. I had nephews and nieces popping up all over the place. There were so many christenings that I was running out of vests and bolo-ties to wear to them. To keep everyone abreast on the families and their doings Uno took pen to paper to start desktop publishing the first volume of 'Spatagram'. In it you would find who to pray for, who to congratulate and who's birthday you just missed. This volume of Spatagram would deal categorically with the households and fill everyone in on what was coming up in the way of events. Yep this is just pre-Internet and it was looked forward to every month. Uno's verve for life was ahead of the cyber-curve, who knew? Uno would always sign off on his editions "with love from Uno and Due"; Due, number two, was to throw props to Moms. He would also wrap the edition with a quote. His most used was, "the child who heeds, sucks up to, calls, cooks for, dotes, honors his parents, is the child remembered in the Will. Thank god we weren't raised competitive or there's no telling what kind of forces of nature we would have all grown into.

Happy Birthday Dad, Pa, Pop, Master Anton, Spats, Uno and King Of All You Survey; we're looking up to you as what we hope to be. Except for how you dress. My vests and bolo ties aside, you are the owner of green corduroy pants with red lobsters stitched into them.

Three Kings.

I believe that the Festival De Los Tres Reyes is on the 5Th, but January 8Th will always be the 3 Kings day to me. It's the birthday of three very important men in my life Jim, Sunil, and Elvis. Each man god on earth has affected me to my core in one way or another, and since yesterday was monumental to Jim, all are being saluted.

On the eighth Jim turned 40, and this is happening all too frequently around me. What is it with this fruit and it's ripening stage? Jim was the most youthful of us all in the Anne Frank Acting Camp. That's very tongue in cheek actually; an acting company that was sequestered in the actual mansion where we portrayed the family that lived there in 1891. The fact that we also did a staged reading of Anne Frank the musical just brings my joke together. If any reader is Offensivsensitive, hit the keypad cupcake. Jimmy was the scrawny, pretty one who sang a beautiful tenor and could torment any of us in the cast to the point of wrestling, how butch for all of us. Jim is BIG fun. Jim was also my gateway drug to coming out. When I started to get my swerve on, he was one of the first to offer a big ear to listen, and turn me to decent literature to frame my personal constitution. This seems like it happened yesterday, and yet it was in our early twenties. Happy Birthday Jimmy, you'll always be the happy ward on the front lawn in the jodhpurs with his butterfly net, running free with a big smile. Tongue in cheek, literally.

Sunil was the crazy Indian I worked for in Yankee Key West. Imagine; A five foot four Indian basketball star, schooled in Zurich, leaving the Caribbean, to cook Cajun, for Yankees, in an old funeral home, surrounded by silk flowers. He would freeze milk, to save a buck or two when it was on sale (it never came back fully and was called Zombie Milk) We called the place 'The Temple Of The Unusual' (props to Zsa Zsa) as it was a hoot. Sunil taught me about the art of the deal and how you can negotiate with a noose. He fell in love with a pretty little blonde on the high seas and followed her to her hometown, a sleepy little lobster town on the CT shoreline. He's an amazingly talented man, with incredible food who always makes me laugh and who's stories will ring through the Internet on this blog/bell/belle. Happy Birthday Suny, you'll always be the happy Egyptian scaring the shit out of uptight garden club members looking for gift certificates.

The third king, and really The King, in Elvis Aaron Presley. Back a couple years he released a compilation of digitally remastered work that included an released track that soon went to number one on the dance charts. "A Little Less Conversation" was a great driving tune that had me and Suzie Q chair dancing all the way through Newport and the Cape of Cod. It was especially fun to ask people, "Have you heard the new Elvis song?" just so we could say, "No, not Costello". Has anyone ever seen anyone as beautiful as this man was. He would have been seventy two and there's a large faction of the American populace that believe he is alive. He is still a very hard working man in show biz, and god knows Vegas wouldn't be the same without his presence. This year his holiday CD, the largest selling Christmas album of all time, retained it's title against the monumental sales of Josh Grobins. Gone all this time and not forgotten. Elvis taught me how to rock my hips and how hip is rock. I'm moved to tears when I think of Graceland and Elvis in the service and his love for his momma. There ain't much more that's as American as that. Happy Birthday Elvis, people have some stuff planned for you. I'm still waiting for you to return my call.

Fine and Dandy.

Initially 'Fine and Dandy' was the working title of the treatment I'm writing for a friend and I's tv vehicle to the stars. "Unavoidably two arrogant alpha dogs, one gay, one straight, alphabetically speaking are tied to each other's lives. Raising their best friend's two children after her tragic passing. Weeds meets Will and Grace meets Full House meets Two and a half men. I've bastardized the project since then. Since then I've been doing odd things to pay the bills.

One such thing is catering. I've often dabbled in it and thought it to be an exciting little gig. I'm enjoying it deliciously, as an extra resource. I did a party last Sunday and made the darndest little wonton cups for smoked salmon mousse with caramelized onions (Martha). They were the shit and now a cornerstone for the Fine and Dandy Catering Co.'s appetizer menus.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

Holiday Hideousness or What Were They Thinking?

Can anyone really think that the subjects in these pictures capture the holiday spirit? What were these people thinking. And that poor monkey.......................

Rabbit, rabbit.

Rabbit, rabbit.

Saying Rabbit, rabbit first thing on the first day of the month will bring you Good fortune. I don't know this as fact, but I do know it as superstition, and that's good enough for me.

Rabbit, rabbit.

Well a crazy year has passed and it has brought us a new one to play with. 2007 was a year of enormous change and growth and I hope the lessons learned provide the way to a great new year. 2008 holds interest to me as it is the long walk towards.....................................40. I'm also dabbling with calling it 39a, or Tony 4.0 or Cuarenta-dah (hands flourish)! You can insert any Green Mile joke you want to here. But make no mistake, I will welcome this opportunity with arms wide open and laughter raucous. I officially launch The 12 Days of 40 on the 17th of this month with some spectacular feet of strength and daring. Tune in to get all the details.

But as you all know, New Year's means Spring cleaning, speaking of inserting. And this annually involves The Master Cleanse, starting next Monday. Tune in for updates from my colon. Hey, my heads up there so often, I may as well start blogging from there.