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:

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.)

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.

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:

Assessing Barack Obama

An interesting feature from the Times.  Thank you Chris.

The Full Johnston

We have confirmation that on November 16th Levi Johnston will pose fully nude for Playgirl — just in time for my birthday:

I want a copy.

The Proposal

RYAN REYNOLDS: Um.
SANDRA BULLOCK: Yeah.
RYAN REYNOLDS: This movie’s kind of a shitefest, isn’t it.
SANDRA BULLOCK: Yeah.  Not even worth a Netflix rental.
RYAN REYNOLDS: I knew it.  I’m legitimately funny.  That must be why I look so sad in every scene.
SANDRA BULLOCK: I’m also relatively funny.  Or at least I was until I got some bad work done on my face that’s so distracting it’s all you can pay attention to when I’m on screen.
RYAN REYNOLDS: It is bizarre facial work.  You’re supposed to be this fearsome corporate powerhouse but your face is stuck looking like you’re trying to sneak out a poot.
SANDRA BULLOCK: I know, I know.  The days of “Speed” are behind me.
RYAN REYNOLDS: Did you know that you were Isaac’s cover-up crush before he came out of the closet?
SANDRA BULLOCK: There was a period of time in which Isaac pretended to like women?
RYAN REYNOLDS: For about two and a half days, yeah.
SANDRA BULLOCK: That was brief.
RYAN REYNOLDS: Well, I couldn’t hide from him for long.  I had a career to begin.

Shouts & Murmurs Live

I went to The New Yorker Festival’s Humor Revue on Sunday to hear Woody Allen, Paul Rudnick, Noah Baumbach, Ian Frazier and others read.  The revue itself was a delight, but I won’t pretend I wasn’t also on the make for a smarty.

The seat next to me was unoccupied until the very last minute when they let in people from the waiting list.  As each person filed in I thought, Maybe he’ll be next.  Maybe he’ll have a quick brain and a kind heart and a peacoat that smells like a fireplace.

No dice: I got a grizzled elderly gentleman with a rubber-banded bundle of newspapers who picked his teeth during everyone’s pieces except Woody Allen’s.  Ah well.  Maybe next year.

Someone is even hornier than I am, and it’s Meredith Vieira

Thank you, Morgan:

It’s Simple, Darling

Zsa Zsa Gabor works out — “I wasn’t born to be an athlete; I was born to be a lover!”

Thank you, Stacey:

Sunday

Dave and I were riding a crowded 1 train downtown when a homeless man at one end of the car jumped to his feet, jammed his finger in the face of a young woman who was leaning up against the train door, and began to scream.  He called her a bitch, a prick, a cunt, a piece of shit.  She remained largely unfazed, even responding at one point, “I’m a piece of shit?”

The train went quiet.  He stormed up and down the car, encouraging several men on the car to attack her while daring her to go to the police.  He said he would laugh when a man dragged her by her hair off of the subway.  He said he had AIDS and he was dying and he didn’t care. 

“Look what you made me do,” he shouted at her when he noticed a small child in a father’s arms. “There’s kids on this train.  Look what you made me do.”  He turned to the father: “I’m sorry.  So sorry.”  Then it was immediately back to bitch, prick, cunt, piece of shit.

The train pulled into the 116th Street station — her destination.  She moved towards a door.  He stormed over to her, announcing that he was going to follow her off the train and beat her up himself, he didn’t care.  She turned to him and said without missing a beat, “Well, this is our stop,” which just made my jaw drop.

People rushed out to see if the man was indeed following her, but he just boarded the next car while she continued on out of the station.  Jesus.

Pennsylvania Dispatch

At eight o’clock on Saturday morning in Port Authority I ran into a former classmate from Fordham who was also on her way to a grandfather’s memorial service in Pennsylvania. 

My head pounded its need for coffee and happier thoughts.  On the bus the girl across the aisle from me fell asleep listening to loud rap music on her iPod.  Why is it that there’s always one girl on every early morning bus listening to loud rap music, and why does she always sit across from me?  I began to fantasize: her stepping off of the bus and not hearing over her music the anvil falling towards her head while I, Wile E. Coyote in a Uniqlo cardigan and black sorry-for-our-loss necktie, rub my hands in satisfaction.

The service was lovely.  My parents sang.  My father, aunts, cousins and I all shared memories.  There’s something epic about attending a memorial service in an assisted living home.  I wasn’t quite prepared for it.  But my grandmother continues to be an inspiration.  How, after 66 years together, do you say goodbye?

Today

Today I got my hair cut by a mouth-breather named Martin.  At one point I could feel his hot breath on the back of my left ear and even though in the moment I was repulsed it nonetheless made me nostalgic for the days of being horizontal underneath men.

The subway home was crammed with people the entire ride from 42nd to 181st Street.  It was insufferable.  As my luck would have it I stood next to the only loud-talkers aboard the ambling train, a Gay Guy in Local Television and his Gal Friday with A Hot Glue Gun in Her Purse.  They talked about Atlantic City, about the swine flu, about making his Halloween costume: a crazy cat lady.  If I wasn’t hating on them so hard I would fully acknowledge that it sounded like a great costume.

I closed my eyes and envisioned the evening I’d planned — a glass of wine, some tofu and broccoli, the first season of “Frasier,” masturbating to free adequate porn, and working on my play, all with minimal mouse sightings.

A woman was screaming into her cell phone in the Chinese take-out place.  The nice cashier with the lazy eye was trying to get the screaming woman’s attention to pay up — no dice.  Her rage was mostly in Spanish, but she peppered in a few fucks here and there.  Is there no Spanish equivalent of “fuck”?  Not that I blame her — it’s a real hoot to say, that word.

I have to get to bed.  Tomorrow’s my grandfather’s memorial service in Pennsylvania and I’ve got an early bus to catch.  Fuck fuck fuck.

Brighton Beach Memoirs

At the Nederlander Theatre they’re reviving Neil Simon’s “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Broadway Bound” to eventually be performed in rep.  I saw “Brighton Beach Memoirs” last night and thought it was terrific. 

A beautiful production, exquisitely designed and sensitively directed, with a phenomenal cast giving unselfish, fantastic performances.  On our way out of the theater Dave and I saw David Cromer, the director, in the lobby and I couldn’t help but tell him how great I thought it was.  I was so moved.  I highly, highly recommend this one.  I can’t wait for “Broadway Bound.”

Is it a crime for me to like this song, this video, this man?

Then lock me up:

Who says he can’t get stoned?  Who?!  Not me!  You get as stoned as you’d like, John Mayer.  I own all of your albums.  You can get stoned and I can have a glass or three of wine at home.  Yikes — it’s time to go to bed.  No Restless Leg Syndrome tonight!

Tonight

I was stretched out on my bed drinking a glass or two of wine, listening to music and trying to plot out the events of my play on blank index cards.  I pulled my copy of David Auburn’s “Proof” down from the bookshelf and read the first scene, marveling at how it unfolds, so seductive and perfect.

Then I pulled out the Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country and read this passage:

Who was the wisest person I ever met in my life?  It was a man, but of course it needn’t have been.  It was the graphic artist Saul Steinberg who, like everyone else I know, is dead now.  I could ask him anything, and six seconds would pass, and then he would give me a perfect answer, gruffly, almost a growl.  He was born in Romania, in a house where, according to him, “the geese looked in the windows.”

I said, “Saul, how should I feel about Picasso?”

Six seconds passed, and then he said, “God put him on Earth to show us what it’s like to be really rich.”

I said, “Saul, I am a novelist, and many of my friends are novelists and good ones, but when we talk I keep feeling we are in two very different businesses.  What makes me feel that way?”

Six seconds passed, and then he said, “It’s very simple.  There are two sorts of artists, one not being in the least superior to the other.  But one responds to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself.”

I said, “Saul, are you gifted?“

Six seconds passed, and then he growled, “No, but what you respond to in any work of art is the artist’s struggle against his or her limitations.”

That’s when, from my iTunes, “Rhapsody in Blue” flowed into Adam Guettel singing “Hero and Leander” and I flopped over onto my pillow, cried a little, stopped, uncapped my Sharpie and continued struggling.