Okay, I get it now

He’s a dreamboat:

Joni for Babies

Through a combination of Lauren’s request and my insistence I volunteered to make a mix of Joni Mitchell songs for her son Jacob, who’s a baby.  Last night I poured myself a glass of wine and spent my last evening of being 25 making the CD.

How do you introduce a baby to the contributions Joni Mitchell has made to the world?  The playlist was four hours long after my first (conservative) pass.  By the time I had a second glass I was tearfully singing along with my head hanging off of the bed, and I realized that Jacob might grow up to the most worldweary child ever.  So I whittled it down and tried to keep it relatively upbeat.

Here’s the final list:

1. “Night in the City” (Song to a Seagull)
2. “Cactus Tree” (Song to a Seagull)
3. “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” (For the Roses)
4. “Woman of Heart and Mind” (For the Roses)
5. “Big Yellow Taxi” (Ladies of the Canyon)
6. “Woodstock” (Ladies of the Canyon)
7. “All I Want” (Blue)
8. “Little Green” (Blue)
9. “California” (Blue)
10. “The Circle Game (Live)” (Miles of Aisles)
11. “Help Me” (Court and Spark)
12. “People’s Parties” (Court and Spark)
13. “Coyote” (Hejira)
14. “Amelia (Live)” (Shadows & Light)
15. “Night Ride Home” (Night Ride Home)
16. “My Best to You” (Taming the Tiger)
17. “Sunny Sunday” (Turbulent Indigo)
18. “Both Sides Now” (Both Sides Now)

It’s a good primer.  I didn’t get too far into  Hejira and Turbulent Indigo territory, which I actually love more than her early stuff, but I figure I can save those intense musical life lessons for when he’s five.

It’s my birthday and I’ve had a glass of wine so I get to post this

Lauren and Baby Jacob stopped by the box office today

He certainly was the man of my year

New York Moment

(ISAAC is riding the Bolt Bus back to New York from Boston. The bus has been sitting in traffic on Ninth Avenue for the last forty minutes.  A young high school-aged BOY and GIRL are sitting directly behind him, and love luv is blossoming.)

GIRL: What’d you do last summer?
BOY: Um, I worked at this, uh, camp.
GIRL: Like, what, like a sleepaway camp?
BOY: No, like a day camp.
GIRL: Like for how many days?
BOY: Five days a week for seven weeks.
GIRL: Five days?!  Like for how many hours?
BOY: Um, it was like 7 to 5.
GIRL: Oh my god — did you ever get to, like, hang out with your friends?
BOY: I mean, yeah, I hung out with the other counselors.
GIRL: No, but, I mean, like, did you hang out with your regular friends?
BOY: Well, some of them are my regular friends.  But, like, we had the weekend and stuff, too.
GIRL: No, but, I mean, like, you didn’t get to see your regular friends during the day.
BOY: No, I was working.
GIRL: I’ve never had a job.  I don’t want one.  I just don’t want to work, you know?
BOY: Yeah, I mean, this was my first job.
GIRL: So you had, like, two friends last summer.
BOY: No, I had other friends, I just didn’t see them because I was working.
GIRL: No, but do you know what I mean?  Like, you only had, like, two real friends.
BOY: Um, OK.  Yeah, maybe.  Although we hung out on the weekends.
GIRL: I don’t think I could, like, ever go without seeing my friends.  Like, I love my friends so much.  Even my guy friends, like, I couldn’t imagine not seeing them, like, ten times a week, you know?  Oh my god, I’m gonna cry.
BOY: I don’t know.  It was fine.
GIRL: Plus I do stuff during the day over the summer.  I go swimming, I go to the movies, I go hang out at my friend Ben’s house.  He has a pool with a slide.
BOY: Awesome.  I love slides.
GIRL: Did you go to the shore?
BOY: For, like, a weekend.
GIRL: See, I went to the shore for a week.  You only go to to go for a weekend?
BOY: It was fine.  We threw parties at camp.
GIRL: That’s so sad.  You know what I mean?  Like, didn’t you miss your friends?
BOY: I don’t know.  I’m just ready to go to college.
GIRL: Oh, I know, totally.  Me too.

(Beat.)

GIRL: Haha.  Sometimes I just laugh for no reason.  Like, I think pretty much everything is funny.  Did you see Borat?
BOY: I saw, like, part of it.
GIRL: That’s my favorite movie.
BOY: Yeah, uh, it seemed pretty funny.
GIRL: I asked Josh about you.
BOY: You did?
GIRL: Yeah.  I asked him what he knew about you, like, if you were cool and stuff.  He said he didn’t know you, really.  And I was like, “Come on, you share a locker with him!”
BOY: You were stalking me.
GIRL: Oh my god, no I wasn’t!  I’m totally kidding.  I was so not stalking you.
BOY: Yeah, yeah, sure.
GIRL: Oh my god, no!
BOY: I’m kidding.
GIRL: Oh, okay, good.  Because I could’ve stalked you but I didn’t.

FIN.

Renee Zellweger auditions for “Independence Day”

I love

I love the profanity report on Final Draft.  It tallies up every naughty word you use in your script.  My mother is going to be thrilled with my latest draft.

OK — back to work.  Talk soon.

Auto-Tune Cute Kids and Kanye

Thank you, Stacey and David:

Risky Business Fail

Thank you, Colin (again):

Greenport “Peter Pan” Fiasco

Thank you, Colin:

Make sure you watch this all the way through.  This video’s like an onion.  Many layers.

Single Ladies Gone Wrong

Thank you, Chris:

Somewhere, right now, in this, our fair city …

Levi Johnston is posing nude for Playgirl:

One week until my birthday.  What bounty will the universe offer next?

Tax the Catholic Church

From the Washington Post:

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn’t change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”

You can read the rest of the article here.  So disgusting.

Date Night

Yes, yes, I do want to see “Precious,” but it’s DATE NIGHT, people:

“Date Night” shall be my “Precious.”  (Who am I kidding — this will most likely be awful.)

Someone filmed Aaron Tveit in “Next to Normal”

Nice.   If I was craftier I’d make a flip book out of this:

New York Moment

(ISAAC and MICAH are substitute co-teaching a Theater History class at Fordham, their alma mater. They’re discussing Molière and misanthropy in modern times with the students, who barely know what to make of ISAAC and MICAH.)

MICAH: The bitchery in the play obviously resonated for us, since we are both in theater, and homosexuals.
ISAAC: Did you just out me?
MICAH: Yes, I did.
ISAAC: Maybe I wanted there to be a little mystique.
MICAH: Please.  There’s no mystique with that outfit.

FIN.

Dear Eric Schneiderman, I love you

Just got this:

Dear Isaac,

Thank you for contacting me on this fundamental civil rights issue. As you may know, I am 100% committed to passing legislation to enact marriage equality in New York, and a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate. Our state should no longer be in the business of denying people’s rights on the basis of sexual orientation.

I am hopeful that marriage equality will come to the floor of the Senate today. If not, I will keep fighting to make sure we get a vote as soon as possible. Equal protection under the law deserves no less.

Sincerely,
Sen. Eric Schneiderman

I’m obsessed with Sting’s new album

I woke up on Saturday morning to him singing this song on NPR.  My room was freezing but my bed was warm and it was perfect:

I got out of bed, downloaded the album, made a pot of coffee and wrote for three hours while listening to it on repeat.  I’ve hit a wall again with the play, but Sting’s got me so mellow that my approaching deadline hardly scares me.

I’m avoiding writing by looking at pictures of Scott Speedman, who should be illegal

New York Moment

(ISAAC and IAN M. are sitting on the L train, which is stalled at Union Square, waiting for it to continue westward. They sip at cups of lentil soup. A DRUNK YUPPIE GUY stumbles onto the train.)

DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: Ew. What is that?
ISAAC: Lentil soup.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: I’ve never heard of such a thing. What’s in lentil soup?
ISAAC: Lentils.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: Where’d you get that?
ISAAC: In Williamsburg.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: When these train doors close I’m gonna fall through them backwards.

(Beat.)

DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: I think lentil soup is — it sounds like some government project — something you eat that brainwashes you into voting for Democrats.  Yeah.  Like, a Republican wouldn’t eat lentil soup.  They wouldn’t.  Lentil soup — it’s part of the Obama administration.  It’s propaganda.  Like this guy over here.  Hey, would you eat lentil soup?
OTHER DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: No, no.  Split pea, man.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: Yeah, split pea.  What color is it?
OTHER DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: It reveals itself to be green.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: Green is where it’s at. We gotta get, no clean coal.  You gotta leave lights on.  You gotta flush your toilet like eight thousand times a day.  Even when you’re just peeing, you gotta flush it.  I just turn my car on and let it run for weeks.  Until the gas runs out.
CONDUCTOR (V.O.): Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
DRUNK YUPPIE GUY: Oh.

(He falls backwards out through the closing doors.)

FIN.

It’s Friday, and I want Robert Pattinson’s hair

And his sweater:

Where do you think he got that?

Teabaggers on Capitol Hill

Good god.  Rachel Maddow is the only person who could make this palatable:

The cast of “The Addams Family” in Vanity Fair

Looks awesome:

This is heartening

Thank you, Chris, for passing this along: