Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in tinglypants' LiveJournal:

Friday, June 9th, 2006
12:09 am	Glowing reviews! I said I'd post it when I found my good review. Here is the link! http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/05/26/100ae_ae26gypsy001.cfm I've always wanted to be hilarious in print.... Current Mood: sore Current Music: Theme from Frasier (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
12:26 am	Let Me Entertain You.... We're heading into the final weekend of Gypsy at the Everett (WA) PUD facility. Yes, the PUD. As in the public utility. They actually have a really nice stage. The show has been going really well. Plus, this is not a show that you see very often on stge, particularly put on by community theatre groups (It's a really complicated show to put on; lots of scenes, lots of props, lots of characters, and at least two animals, preferably more). So if you CAN get there, you really should. Here are some really excellent reviews we've gotten. I'm so pleased I could burst. Here's the links I've found so far: http://www.mukilteobeacon.com/52406edmondsgypsy.html http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/06/05/19/100ae_ae20gypsy001.cfm http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2003013899_gypsy24n.html There's a review in the Everett Herald that mentions me by name, but it turns out that that's not the one I posted. If I find it, I'll post it, though. Oh, and on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy tonight, the wife of the straight guy makes G-strings. Such a "Gypsy" thing. Made me all smiley. The show's closing this weekend, though, which is making me a little blue. But it's still a great show. Current Mood: sad Current Music: Let Me Entertain You (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 19th, 2006
3:49 am	Absentee Blog Parent It's true. I've been lax about entries lately. I don't think my outrage has died off. Just my time. Let's see....I've done a bunch of shows, which is where I got all busy. But lately, apparenly, I've hit a theatrical dryspot. Which BLOWS. In the meantime, I'm doing a production of The Pirates of Penzance. Which also BLOWS. The good point? I'm actually playing a pirate this time. Also, I'm doing the show with the lovely Lisa and the fabulous Rob, who comes complete with his own English accent. Smashing. Although this time out he's playing the police sergeant, and for me, Rob will always be Major General Stanley. Y'see, the LAST time I did Pirates, that's who he played. I was the clutzy ward. If there was a woman with her ass up in the air, it was almost always me. This time, I'm a dim pirate (I haven't finished flushing this character out yet), and a REALLY dim and clutzy cop. The cop thing causes me to sound like I just woke up. I'm not so much a baritone. But I'm still angling to get to sing "A Rollicking Band" all by my lonesome, because I guess we don't think the pirates as a whole can do it. Huh. I could be this group's Monkey. WEIRD. But I'm looking at going HERE to get my pirate gear. And no, I'm planning to dress more like Blackbeard than Anne Bonny. Actually, judging from my costume, I think I'll look more like Mr. Smee from Disney's Peter Pan. Still and all. Archie McPhee. Best! pirate! outfitter! EVER! Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: A Rollicking Band of Pirates We (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 15th, 2005
1:01 am	Cosmic.... I bought a bottle of Jones Soda this Saturday. I like Jones. Plus, they're local. And nummy. They put photos on their labels that are sent in by Regular Folks. Some of them are pretty looney, some are just pretty. The one I got on Saturday was a photo of just a fish-eye view of the signpost at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon streets. Nice. I've been trying to find the picture to link to here, but I can't find it anywhere. Sorry. But it was a very nice thing, regardless. Current Mood: weirded out Current Music: Twighlight Zone theme (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
11:44 pm	Let's just classify this under "No News is Good News" Or at least, I suspect that's what Bush thinks. Recently he made an address to the nation in which he said that the American people had seen John Roberts, and they liked what they saw. Really? I haven't really seen ANYthing from John Roberts. I don't know anything about him other than that he worked for Reagan and he's a carbon-based life-form. Oh, and that he may or may not be (but probably is) pro-life. Unless I've missed a memo, "not objecting vociferously" does NOT equal "liking". Anyway, the DNC filed an order under the freedom of information act demanding something, ANYthing, so we know what the hell Roberts stands for so we know if he's worth confirming. No idea if they found anything out, or not. The confirmation hearings have been pretty...lame, really. Perplexing. Not especially helpful. I mean, I realize we have other things on our collective minds, and we SHOULD. But still. Let's actually ask something worth knowing. And yes, I DID mean to post this earlier. My computer and my modem and my browsers have not been getting along lately. Current Mood: Hurty Current Music: My two-measure solo from The Gondoliers (Comment on this)
Friday, September 9th, 2005
11:48 am	A follow-up to the earlier rant Ha! Brownie has been relieved of his hurricane Katrina command. Do you suppose that's because he brought new heights to the definition of "FUBAR?" Also, apparently he's been padding his resume. Although still not enough to cover the fact that he was asked to resign from running horse shows. Idiot. I don't have a link for the Newsweek story about the resume padding, but will try to add it soon. In the meantime, you can check out the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's story, which touches on both. And hey, maybe he's leaving FEMA altogether. After he cries into his margarita. Actually, it says he would stay untl the end of hurricane season. Sure. Because he's been such a great help on the LAST hurricane. IDIOT. Current Mood: Grr! Current Music: STILL Behold the Lord High Executioner (5 Comments |Comment on this)
4:20 am	I am a crabby, pissy liberal, and I'm not afraid to show it. This is probably a totally incomplete, incomprehensible entry because I needed to go to bed five hours ago. However, I'm so pissed off, I had to say SOMEthing. But if this post is completely rambling and incoherent, that's why. And really, it won't separate it that much from many of the political/current events-oriented blogs out there. Oh, oh, first? The music? It's a tune from a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, "The Mikado." It is not a threat. It doesn't mean anything other than the fact that it's been stuck in my head since Tuesday. Nice tune. Don't know why it's there. But it isn't insidious in any way. A friend of mine once called me a yellow dog Democrat. This is incorrect. I might call myself a yellow dog non-Republican, especially after this whole hurricane Katrina fiasco. I fully intend to vote for the candidate who is best suited to the job. But given the conduct of the Republicans in charge for the last five years-let ALONE the last five days-, I'm going to say that the odds of me finding a Republican I feel to be best suited to the job are pretty damn slim. This has been bungled at every possible opportunity. So today I read that, of course, thousands of people affected by the hurricane are unemployed. Thousands applied for unemployment. And apparently more would have applied, but they had to close the unemployment offices to evacuate, so people couldn't physically apply. Celebrities and entertainers have been giving lots of money to hurricane survivors. Which, considering that many of them have more money than God, is only right. Hey, did Brittney Spears ever get off her ass and actually DO something for residents of her former state, or is she still just whining and praying about it? Praying is nice, but I think right now they'd rather have food, water, medicine... something to hold onto. Anyway, Brittney (gag) could be an entry all to herself, but I'm not that pissed off about her just this minute. Though I'll drift for a minute to BEG, can't SOMEone PLEASE put Ashlee Simpson out of my misery? Please?! Right. Back to business. One could say that the celebrities giving money to the hurricane relief effort have more money than the government (if they have more money than God, they MUST have more money than the Treasury Department), so they should give something. But I do submit that at least entertainers are making the effort. And not waiting five days to do it. Heck, Sean Penn, nutty as he is (mostly he's just utterly humorless-makes sense now, but he's ALWAYS like that) was actually physically going around in a boat and helping out! Duh-bya? Went several days after the danger was over, got nowhere NEAR the heart of the problem, praised the idiot at FEMA who screwed everyone in the first place (the man was incompetent at running HORSE shows. He's supposed to manage national emergencies?!?!?!) and talked about how great it was that Trent Lott was going to have a better house out of the ashes of this. Sure. He didn't go into diabetic shock. And Trent Lott also has more money than God. He's probably keeping it to himself. By the way, Duh-bya's approval rating is well under 50%, having "declined to 46 percent in a September 2 Washington Post/ABC News poll and has now sunk to 38 percent, with 54-55 percent disapproval, in the September 4-5 tracking polls conducted by SurveyUSA." The latest CBS news poll shows him at "41 percent, and his ratings on the economy and Iraq are 37 percent and 38 percent, respectively." (Quotes/figures from http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1025417). So at least SOMEone is paying attention. It's about damn time. Oh, and he's down to TWENTY percent on gas prices. Damn straight. I missed it when "Brownie," the head of FEMA got appointed. He must have given lots of money to the election campaign. Or is a close family friend. Because there is NO other way he should have gotten that. According to the Boston Herald, Mike Brown had to be ASKED to resign from International Arabian Horse Association "after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures" (my emphases). So, he was such a dipshit that he couldn't oversee pet shows, so we decided to hand over disaster relief to him? It's not as though this administration didn't know disasters happen. September 11, which they trot out at every opportunity to remind us of how WELL they're handling things, was a HELL of a disaster. So it's not as though they didn't know disasters still happen in this country (Brownie didn't take over until 2003. So it's hardly as though he has that huge success to point to. He did oversee it last year, which was apparently a record hurricane season. However, it wasn't a broken-levee-dead-bodies-in-the-street-for-over-a-week issue). Oh, sorry, he got the job through his ex-college roommate. The old boys' network is alive and well and screwing over the American people-the VERY American people who need the help most, who have been screwed over by life and the environment already and don't need it from the government that's SUPPOSED to be caring for them. Oh, and how did having FEMA become a part of Homeland Security help things? They actually used to be able to HELP during disasters. They USED to know things about disasters without hearing about it by watching the news. I have GOT to find a clip of Ted Koppel handing Brownie's ass to him on a plate. The couple of clips I've seen have just been RIGHTEOUS. Oh! Here we go! http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/861 includes this paraphrased quote from Koppel: "We've been reporting on the crisis at the Convention Center for a lot longer than just today, but you say that you only heard about it today?" I can't open the movie clip from the site, though; I have to save it and then watch. I'll let you know if it's a good site after I watch it. Ah. There we go. Yes. Go. Watch. A little more than halfway through the interview, first Koppel stuns him into silence (I'm reminded of the presidential debate where Duh-bya demanded to rebut, and then blinked in clueless desperation for about half of the time he was given TO rebut), and then it looks like the guy is going to cry. And not Celine-Dion-this-is-heartbreaking-crying. This is I'm-getting-my-ass-handed-to-me-on-a-plate almost-crying (yeah, sorry about the hyphens). The interview also includes this exchange (quoted at http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/09/1764772.php): "Brown: 'The people in the convention center are being fed; the people on the bridges are being provided with water. ...' "Koppel: 'With all due respect, sir, the people, the people in the convention center are not being fed. Our reporters. ...' "Brown: 'I misspoke. The people in the, the people in the Superdome. I'm sorry, you're absolutely correct. We're getting the supplies to the convention center now...'" So now they're forming a committee to figure out what went wrong. Only they want it to be congressional or senatorial. Not independent, anyway. And democrats are boycotting it because it should be independent. Which it SHOULD be. But I'm afraid boycotting will just let the Republicans feel they have free rein to put all the blame they want somewhere else. I want to call my representatives and tell them to fight this, but all of the people who represent me are Democrats, and therefore already boycotting. Does anyone know if there's someone I can talk to who might GET me somewhere? And does calling the Republican congressman the next district over get me anywhere? Oh, ALSO, I read the article Ben Stein wrote for American Spectator. Now, I love Ben Stein as an actor and funny guy (I wouldn't say he was a comedian, but he is funny). But when you find yourself publishing that Bush didn't cause a hurricane, I think you're Officially Done. I mean, he made some arguments that weren't stupid and/or insane (well, sort of stupid. Mostly just In Denial), but seriously, if you write down that Bush didn't create global warming or build levees, you've officially run out of steam. I know, I know, he was making a point, and I'll bet he was trying to be a little sardonic, but it mostly just came off as desperate. Then again, the man wrote speeches for Nixon. He's probably gotten really good at making desperately insane arguments to make his bosses, literal or figurative, look good. Or at least less criminally incompetent (to paraphrase someone I know). Also, and I know this isn't exactly about the hurricane directly, but I've NEVER understood it, and it does come up in Ben Stein's article, but what is the whole deal with the Kyoto protocol? Okay, so allegedly some of the world's biggest polluters aren't covered (although I really have a hard time believing that China or India individually pollute more than we do. Who knows, maybe they do. But considering the crap we spew out into the air and water every day, it does seem a little hard to fathom), but why, then, does that excuse US? If we were part of the treaty, that would still cut down a SUBSTANTIAL amount of pollution, thereby helping to reduce global warming, THEREBY making major weather disasters less common and less devastating. Why is it all or none? The state of Washington used to have a motto: "Every Litter Bit Helps." Think of pollution as HUGE litter. By committing to cut pollution, we would be helping substantially! Why is it if EVERYONE isn't involved, we can't be involved either-or WON'T get involved? The only answer is that "we" don't care and "we" don't want to take responsibility. Which we (no quotes) have known all along. But, I've digressed. Again. By the way, have we ever gotten around to accepting foreign aid? And is anyone going to say Screw FEMA and, like The Seattle Times did with the war coffins, publish photos that show how bad things really are? I don't particularly want to see the horror, but I think there's a certain amount of complacency from some members of the public because they can't imagine, can't CONCEIVE of what's really happening, and people need to get mad about this. Or they at least need to demand action and accountability. Facing the cold, hard truth, that things look as bad as they do in third world countries right in our own back yard might go a long way towards shaking people into action. I've just spent all night unable to sleep, angry about the horrible mishandling of this, the heartbreaking incomprehensibility that this could happen to Americans in America-that this is STILL happening to Americans IN America. I'm outraged, and I'm depressed. Maybe I'm not the only one. Now if I only knew what to do to help. I mean, yeah, give money. Done that. Hope to do it again after my next payday, when I'm sure my check won't bounce. But how do I, as one person with no real connections, how do I help to fix things? How do I demand accountability? What can I do to keep it from happening again? What can I do to help get people fed, into homes, get their medication? And how the hell does this happen HERE? Current Mood: really infuriated! Current Music: Behold the Lord High Executioner (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 4th, 2005
10:51 pm	Almost Live! lives again! Apparently there is a reunion show airing next week. How do I know? I was at the taping yesterday. All this upcoming week (Sept. 6-9) Pat Cashman is hosting Evening Magazine (I BELIEVE that's at 7:30 on KING), and they're doing pieces on many members of the cast. Although apparently not on Ross Schaffer or John Keister. Make of THAT what you will--apparently John did. HOwever, if you are looking for it, bear in mind that the Labor Day episode will be a rerun. The rest of the week is Pat Cashman guest hosting. Then, apparently on Sept 12 (Monday), they will be airing the reunion episode taped yesterday. I think they said it would be at 8 PM. I was surprised to see Joel McHale there. I assumed that since he's hosting Talk Soup or The Soup or whatever it's called these days that he would have to stay wherever that's filmed, but since I guess many talk shows are in reruns right now, he's free. And they had him doing a lot. Similarly, I was disappointed that Lauren Weedman WASN'T there. I liked her a lot on Almost Live, and I LOVED her on the Daily Show. I also saw what I THINK was her first one-woman show after she left the Daily Show, "Rash," which was hilarious. I'd been hoping to find out what she's doing. I've seen her on Reno 911! a couple of times, but that can't be her full-time gig. Ross Shaffer was also not there. We suspect that he has other things to do in California. Plus, I know a lot of folks who thought the show didn't really take off until he left the show. I didn't even start WATCHING it until after he left. Bill Nye WAS there, and even did a Science Guy segment. Things explode, as should happen in any good science guy segment. I have to watch it on TV (as I was going to do anyway) because they had a camera set up directly above the explosion, but I only saw the very end of it in the monitor since I was watching Bill and John. There was another great segment featuring Pat Cashman as an executive trying to explain things to hapless folks. Not unlike the sketch where he tries to explain the concept of WSU becoming a "dry campus." There's a gameshow about testing your Seattle IQ. Yet another Late Report. An interesting aside about the Late Report. I had hoped, since they were doing the reunion, that it would be the John Report. Since it wasn't, I wonder if KIRO owns the title "The John Report" now. Ed Wyatt was also not there, which I confess I might not have noticed, except they were showing clips from their classic sketches, and there was one with Ed featured pretty prominently. I wonder where he was. And last night during the weekly Saturday at 1 AM rerun, they used the same opening credits sequence that they used in the reunion show, which doesn't include Joel McHale. But DOES include Ed Wyatt. Now, I knew they had edited Ed out, but it occurs to me right now that there was a credits sequenced filmed later without Ed but WITH Joel. Don't know why they didn't just use that. Bill Nye wasn't in either of those sequences, so he was screwed regardless, but still.... Most of them look pretty good and not THAT different from when they were on the show. Tracey Conway's hair is shorter and lighter, and Bill Stainton may be a little more bald. His hair is shorter than I think it used to be, too. Though the shorter thing may be what's making me think he's more bald. The obvious exception would be John Keister, bless his heart, who is much more gray and quite a bit heavier. He'd actually been gaining weight during the last couple of seasons of the show, which was about the time he started wearing black shirts all the time. And it had actually worked pretty well-I hadn't noticed he was gaining weight until I went to a live taping. He was significantly heavier when he did the John Report with Bob in 1999-2000. The strange thing was that he was wearing a purple shirt yesterday-VERY cool shirt-but it wasn't his "usual" slimming black. THen again, he may have figured (probably not without some degree of accuracy), that a black shirt wouldn't help that much anymore. He did make fun of the weight gain, at least. I think he might have even done it "on the air," but I don't totally remember now. Afterwards, I got to meet some of the cast members: John Keister, Bill Stainton, Tracey Conway (whom I've met once before, but clearly she didn't remember it), Pat Cashman, and Bill Nye. I did consider asking Joel McHale if he had finished any other movies or Burger King ads, but I didn't want to sound like a crazy stalker. However, Chris Cashman was in the audience, which struck me as kind of a shame, because I thought, after all, he was in a couple of sketches, I assumed he'd get some sort of Seat of Honor. So I went up afterwards and introduced myself, and said it had bugged me for YEARS, and I wondered if he was, in fact, the kid who had been in "The Miracle of Sluggy." Yes, he said, he was. Apparently much of that was filmed at his house, the wood chips he rolled around in were wood chips he was supposed to rake up or spread out or something, the slime left by the slug was the hair gel out of his room (well, it was the early 90s. Or possibly the very late 80s. But either way). So that was nice. I told him HIS installment of the Sluggy saga was my favorite. He said his wife had been excited when they started running clips from the classic sketches, and one of them was a Sluggy bit. Unfortunately, the were running Sluggy, Come Home, which featured a different kid and a MUCH worse-looking slug. But anyway, so that was nice. Oh, and he said that when he was a kid, he had always gotten to come in through the back entrance, so it was kind of nice for him to come in through the front of the studio for once. Shows what I know. ;) Featured clips include a bit from Billy Kwan, The Worst Girlfriend in the World, the High-Fivin' White Guys (All riiiiiiiiiight!), Ballard Driving School, Uncle Fran's Musical Forest, DJ/Waiter (probably the best DJ/_______ sketch), and of course, Speeeeedwalker. No Jet Guy, though. Oh, but afterward they took a few questions from the audience. I could have asked Joel McHale about the movie thing THEN, but I didn't want to sound like a crazy stalker then, either. Anyway, someone asked about whether DVDs would be coming out. Apparently they used so many music and video clips without permission that putting it out would be hard. Or an invitation for a lawsuit. Which they didn't make any better by playing more music during the bumps illegally. Keister said he was considering putting it out himself, because there wouldn't be anything to take if he got sued. So he'd let us know if anything was coming. Don't know if there was any truth to any of that, but I reported it anyway. I didn't know the reunion thing ws coming. I heard from my mom, who is friends with Tracey Conway and Bill Stainton. And a friend of mine also hadn't heard. So set your TiVos to Sept 12, KING5, 8 pm, I think. And catch Evening all this week. If you get those shows. Don't if you don't. And remember kids: Be like Billy; Behave yourself! Current Mood: Sleepy but pumped Current Music: Hey ya! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
11:24 pm	This page is sad Someday I hope to actually POST something here. But first I have to find a new apartment. And move into it. I don't see that happening REAL soon. I mean the posting. Not the moving. Gotta move by the 31st, so unless I decide to became a squatter in this crap hole, I think I'm finding a new place. Although not moving but not paying rent is sort of attractive. Even if it is in this crap hole.... Current Mood: stressed Current Music: 4:44 (3 Comments |Comment on this)