3 Films: UP IN THE AIR, SHERLOCK HOLMES, BROKEN EMBRACES (Los abrazos rotos)

I've seen three theatrical films so far in 2010. That's more than I usually see in an entire year. In UP IN THE AIR, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a jet setting middle-aged man employed by a firm hired by top level executives to do the dirty deed of firing employees. He spends most of his time shuffling credit cards and putting away martinis in airports and planes and flies around the country dropping into cities to deliver the bad news to unwitting working stiffs. His graceful, tactful manner in which he boots them out the door is like a good doctor delivering news of a terminal illness. His home base in contrast is a nondescript small condo that looks unlived in. He'd much rather be on a plane up in the air where he loves his life. You may never see another movie character more pleased with living than Clooney is here as the John Wayne of flight bound executives. If the film was a musical he'd be singing zip-a-dee-do-da in an airport lounge. Enter top rated recent college grad Natalie played by Anna Kendrick. She has this new idea of how to revolutionize the industry of firing. Do everything by computer. Why fly around the country to terminate an employee in Des Moines, Iowa when you can give 'em the bad news via face to face hookup, (it doesn't seem like a particularly genius idea.)? Clooney's boss, (Jason Bateman, yes the former child star), likes the idea, Clooney is livid that a new bee is about to knock him off his high cloud. The boss pairs the two of them up, - she is to fly around with him learning the business of job termination, he is to accept the termination of the old way of doing things. But just when you think the movie is about to launch into a Doris Day - Rock Hudson pillow fight, it takes a few unexpected turns, both modern movie chic and old-fashioned nostalgia, over shoots it's expected results, and ascends to its serio-comic conclusion as assuredly as a jet leaving a runway. It's a film that is hard to classify. A comedy, yes but if tragedy can be deathless, this is it. In its lighter than air theme ( we are to understand we are merely dust particles in the ultimate cosmos), it becomes almost as insignificant as a feature film offered on a continental flight, yet with a life supporting oxygen mask dangling at our side to remind us of our mortality. Most of the poor saps getting the employer axe are played by non-professional actors who answered an ad placed by the movie makers looking for recently fired people to participate in a documentary. Imagine the renegotiation when it was understood the 'documentary' starred George Clooney. Here is a preview of UP IN THE AIR.

As portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., SHERLOCK HOLMES is a bit of a boob in the new Guy Ritchie film. He's a drunken eccentric, the laugh of Baker Street, a real character who joins street boxing bouts to get his ass kicked in because he bloody well likes it. His Baker Street residence is a cross between a mad scientist's laboratory and a squatter zone, his relationship with Dr. Watson is more man-crush than gentlemanly and his deductive reasoning is rattled off as if it's a do-good pledge from a Marvel superhero. He often appears as if he's savoring a lung full of opium although the movie never indulges in that Sherlockian trait, (it may have sent poor Robert right back to rehab). I love Sherlock Holmes. I've read the stories, seen all the old movies, all the TV shows, hell if there was a Sherlock Holmes board game, I'd be playing it, a Sherlock Holmes brand of tuna, I'd be buying it. So with a slight degree of reluctance, (where does Sherlock go for blow and gay sex if not Dr. Watson?), this movie is a rowdy but welcome addition to the Holmes repertoire, somewhere between Basil Rathbone in 1939's "The Hound of The Baskervilles" and Gene Wilder in 1975's "Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother". Downey makes a discomforting yet strangely identifiable Sherlock and Jude Law nails a patient control in what is a difficult role for actors as second fiddle Watson. I can't think of another pulp fiction over 100 years old that still fascinates readers today and this spin on Sherlock is ... well it's elementary my dear Watson.

Basil Rathbone


Pedro Almodovar is one of only a few movie directors whose work can get me into a movie house, and Penelope Cruz starring in his new film, BROKEN EMBRACES makes my attendance a certainty. She plays Lena, a struggling former actress and occasional prostitute working as a secretary to one of the richest business tycoons in South America (huh?). Anywa, Ernesto, (Jose Luis Gomez), the old billionaire has super hots for Lena, and she eventually allows him to help her financially support her oppressed family who are burdened by her father's terminal stomach cancer. Got that? She then becomes mistress to Ernesto living the life of luxury with him in his mansion until boredom and a lack of interest in house hostessing causes her to renew her acting career, (apparently she sucked acting too). She then has an affair with the director of a picture she's to star in. Almodovar puts a suspense spin to all this, as Ernesto has the couple followed and watched on film and the movie becomes a Hitchcock maze with little mystery and groundless heightened intrigue merging with a 1950s soap opera like "Back Street", with artsy comments on film making. The movie resonated cerebrally with me, it's got a visual velvety flow, but I was always expecting the film to suddenly reveal it's true core in a crucial scene but to no avail. It just sort of goes on like this. It's a thick comfy pillow supporting a vague careless dream told in flashback and forth. You can watch a preview of BROKEN EMBRACES here.

TEN YEARS AFTER, THAT PETROL EMOTION, THE THE, THIRD EYE BLIND

Ten Years After's CRICKLEWOOD GREEN, 1970 (Deram 18038) , it's title derived from an unclassified hallucinogenic plant, adorned many a stoned teen bedrooms in my youth, the picture of 70s hard stoner rock, staring back at me through a stoned haze while doing a doobie with a buddie after school while the mom was shopping or working. It's 'green' influenced album cover of stagnant collectible curios including a ponderous characterized military statue and a pair of bronzed miniature boots is as familiar to me as the light prism on Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. But I never owned it until recently. I picked the vinyl album up somewhere cheap and felt as if I had encountered a dear old friend. CRICKLEWOOD GREEN is a revered British blues rock album highlighted by Alvin Lee's fluid guitar expressing heavy blues rock and meticulous finger picking. Opener "Sugar The Road" is a snazzy bit of freewheeling rock that streams like a fast corvette on a winding mountain road, a 'roll down the windows' song if ever there was one with guitar bass drums and vocal effortlessly creating an addictive breeze of blues and rock. "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" is a seven minutes plus guitar layered jam that burns like a sizzling dynamite lead about to blow, and "Me and My Baby", apparently an Alvin Lee composition, if not then a blues standard, must have reached that status by now ("Me and my baby never get the blues") - it's air guitar rock heaven like you'd hear in any great blues tavern. CRICKLEWOOD GREEN has a particularly smooth mix and sound, as if the vinyl is a grade better than most, maybe due as stated in the liner notes, the music was recorded in layers of sound rather than absolute separation of instruments. Alvin Lee eventually went on to a solo career but the remaining members, Leo Lynons (bass), Chick Churchill (keyboards), Ric Lee (drums) and new member Joe Gooch (guitar and vocals) still tour and records. In 1969 Ten Years After played Woodstock and were featured in the film and soundtrack, catapulting them to fame. My VERY GOOD copy would fetch about 10 bucks on the market.

THAT PETROL EMOTION is an Irish, London based band fronted by an American vocalist, Steve Mack. I picked up the "Detonate My Dreams" CD single (Koogat) somewhere, at some time for some reason. It also includes a remix of "Blue to Black", a funk sort of dance jam, and the demo version of "Big Human Thing", a jangly pop song sounding a bit like Smoking Popes. "Detonate My Dreams" is a cool enough song with That Petrol Emotion's customary guitar onslaught. Here is the video. We're not too delighted with vocalist Steve Mack prancing around the video like a forest fairy, but the song rocks. This CD maxi-single goes for about 5 bucks.

One of the breeziest songs to flow out of the radio airwaves in 1983 was The The's "This Is The Day", from the debut album, SOUL MINING, Epic 39266, (A previously intended debut, "The Pornography of Despair", was shelved with some tracks being later released as B-sides and extras.). Although many members have filtered in and out of the British The The, the title is essentially a one man affair from writer, musician, vocalist Matt Johnson, sometimes using session players, sometimes a traditional band lineup and sometimes Johnson performed all band functions himself. The The have released six albums since their debut, their last being 2000's NAKED SELF. Interestingly, Matt Johnson has recorded several albums that have never been released but are included in all his listings of The The music. SOUL MINING could probably be found in most lists of best music of the '80s. It's industrial pop landscape full of thick synth and genuine musicianship, (Squeeze's Jools Holland lays a few mesmerizing piano runs on "Uncertain Smile", and The New York Doll's David Johanson plays harmonica on "Perfect Day") is a perfect backdrop to Johnson's brooding day-to-day survival 'too stoned to care' angst-ridden vocals. This record in Very Good condition can be bought for about 12 dollars. You can hear "This Is The Day" here -


Here's another oddball CD single in my collection, how it got there I'll never know, but there's no denying Third Eye Blind's HOW'S IT GOING TO BE (Elektra CD Single) is a fine hit song, a singable hook ridden ballad that was a major success in 1997. The unavailable elsewhere 'B' side, "Horror Show" doesn't raise this CD from a nominal market value.

TEMPTATIONS

I can fly like a bird in the sky,

I can buy most anything that money can buy,

I can turn a river into a raging fire

I can live forever if I so desire,

All of this and more I can do

But I can't get next to you

I Can't Get Next To You, (written by Barrett Strong, performed by The Temptations)

At Christmas with my family, after mega-meal and the endless gift parade, (oh a tie, thank you!), I crashed on the couch in front of the TV, visions of gift cards dancing in my head, and happened upon The Temptations television mini-series. I caught the part where drugs were seeping into the group's repertoire, spouses were being cheated on, and egos were butting heads, as the Motown singing group rose to the heights of fame. This all in about 10 minutes. Ironic in that I was pulling out old Temptations records, in my endless quest for the letter 'T', the past two weekends. I have 4 Temptations records in my pile, the singles, AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG, Gordy G-7054, I WISH IT WOULD RAIN, Gordy G-7068, PAPPA WAS A ROLLIN' STONE, Gordy 7121F, and one album THE TEMPTATIONS GREATEST HITS II, Gordy GS954. A Wikipedia search on the group's history left my head spinning as the lengthy entry detailed constant line-up changes, and a steady juggle of the group's producers, writers and musical style, verifying my understanding The Temptations, like most pop groups of the era including The Beatles, were a commodity controlled by executives and creative geniuses, in this case represented by five fine vocalists. The price of fame hits this group hard as there is only one surviving original member, Otis Williams, who still sings with the current line-up. No matter, what fine records they were. Like new cars, they were controlled, polished and tweaked for consumption by the mass public. Soul standard AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG (1966) has such a great rock and roll rhythm and infectious beat it was later covered by The Rolling Stones. I WISH IT WOULD RAIN (1968) is one of my favorite soul records of all time with a beautiful run on the piano sounding much like Burt Bacharach's '60s work, and bruised by a technically unpolished clap of thunder. PAPPA WAS A ROLLIN' STONE (1972) is The Temptations masterpiece, an 11 or so minute socially conscious opus that had all America humming a ode to absent fathers. The GREATEST HITS II album covers the psychedelic era of The Temptations (Cloud Nine, Ball of Confusion, Psychedelic Shack), in an effort to tap into the rock market The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper cracked open, (and man, it worked-such fine tech craft on these records), along with hits apparently not big enough to make it on Greatest Hits Volume 1; (I Know) I'm Losing You, I Wish It Would Rain. These Temptations singles all go for about $6 in VERY GOOD condition, the GREATEST HITS II, goes for about $16 in VERY GOOD condition.

END OF DECEMBER 2009

As the new year dawns I attempt to save my blog from total dissolution by embracing my love of pop music and celebrating my merry-go-round of recordings. Alphabetically. Incidentally, my shin keeps vibrating like a cell phone waiting to be answered. Just thought I'd mention it. So anyway, I am on the letter 'T'. It took me over a year to listen to artists that began with the letter 'S', listening to roughly 3 or 4 albums, records, cds, etc. a week. I swooned with Siouxsie, sashayed with Spirit, sensamilioned with smokin' Santana, and snacked with Steely Dan. I am so full of S.

I've accumulated a horde of 45rpm records and this past holiday weekend I listened to one of my favorite blue-eyed soul 45s, 1970's MA BELLE AMIE, by The Tee Set, (Colossus CS 107). Ah, what a record. A cascading organ scaling the earthy vocals backed by an impetuous wedding march beat, from a guy so in love with maybe a prostitute, it hurts, (use a lubricant, dear). Like The Beatles' Michelle, it includes just enough French language lyrics to sniff a neck by. B-side ANGELS COMING IN THE HOLY NIGHT, is the hyper-kinetic honeymoon of said wedding march, with Hans Van Eijck's organ again prominently figured. The Tee Set came out of Delft, Holland and scored an international hit with Ma Belle Amie, reaching #5 on the American charts in early 1970. Fairly much a one-hit-wonder in the U.S., their second single, She Likes Weeds, was a Number 1 hit in The Netherlands, but was banned in the States, as it was believed to be a reference to drug use. Lead singer Peter Tetteroo, co-writer of Ma Belle Amie, died in 2002 from liver cancer. My GOOD copy of MA BELLE AMIE has a market value of about 3 bucks. I mention this only because I love my penny ante marketplace.

Teenage Fanclub

My Teenage Fanclub CD-EP, 1992, rare though it may be is worth about 3 dollars. If the lukewarm, amateur pop band from Tom Hanks' film, That Thing You Do progressed to a bigger bullet on the charts instead of the one-hit wonder depicted, it may have sounded a lot like Teenage Fanclub from Scotland. Modest playing of juvenile pop junk, as adolescent as teen musicians with guitar an amp and a drum practicing in a garage with no more than a 6-pack of Coca-Cola to infuse the atmosphere. Kurt Cobain cited them as a major influence, but they're more like The Archies in real life than Nirvana. This four song CD single boasts disposable music with titles like B-SIDE, and FILLER, the latter being a short and tight drum and guitar infused rock and roller ending with an unremarkable roll on the drums, the former a dreary but magnetic Christmas song throwaway you might find on the b-side of a Sonny and Cher or Beach Boys 45 rpm circa 1966. WHAT YOU DO TO ME is the lead song and has much in common; catchy hook, cheery guitar strumming, with the title song from Hanks' film.

Japanese punk recorded live in the studio directly onto 4-track sounds as crude as the dullest needle on the oldest phonograph. Japan's TEENGENERATE, "Get Action!", Crypt CD-048, 1994, strikes that raw primal nerve I experienced when I first heard punk music coming out of England in the 1970s. Fast and furious punk, (is that a tongue in their cheek?), with the only absence of musical expertise being the lo-fi shadowy technology, which gives the sound a live and liberated blast. With member names like Fink, Fifi, Sammy, Suck and original drummer Shoe, TEENGENERATE seems on the verge of comedy, but this is serious punk with a serious smirk. The out of print "Get Action" CD has a market value of about 5 bucks.

LATE SUMMER

I love to feel the rain in the summertime,

I love to feel the rain on my face - The Alarm

A blog is like a sliver in your finger. You can't ignore it and it's painful to confront.

I saw Elvis Costello at The Chautauqua Institution Amphitheatre a couple of Saturdays ago. He played with the Sugarcanes in promotion of Costello's latest, SECRET, PROFANE, & SUGARCANE, a bluegrass influenced album that finds him a master of American folk narrative. The show was extraordinary, a drum-less set of fiddle, bass, accordion, mandolin, and electric guitar, with a huge selection of songs off the new album, and an equal amount of classic Costello with a bluegrass spin, including several off his first album, the rockabilly spirited MY AIM IS TRUE, which lent itself well to the down-home but electrified music of the evening. "Blame It on Cain", and "Allison" seemed born to bluegrass, and there was a bit of a roar when he played, "(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes". The absolute highlights were, "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding", from ARMED FORCES, and "Hidden Shame" from the new album, a mournful ballad about a boy who murders his best friend, sounding a bit like Springsteen's NEBRASKA. Damned though, if there weren't at least two songs the entire crowd seemed to recognize that I had never heard.

I did some theatre work this late summer with Hamburg Theatre Under The Stars' inaugural production of PICNIC. We played four shows over the Labor Day weekend, in the village park on an existing stage with an inclined wooden roof. The village and the producers, (Jon & Greg Premier Events), did well promoting the production and we had over 2,000 audiences members over the 4-day run. Free admission surely helped. I got to wag my tail in a role I had a lot of fun with. The Mayor of Hamburg visited rehearsals regularly, as he was assuring the production was a success, in an effort to boost Hamburg's walking district of shops, restaurants and bars. At the post-production cast party he came up to me and said he had a story to tell me. It seems during rehearsals, he received a call from a concerned resident, reporting a suspicious man lurking around the cast and stage. The caller was convinced the stranger was stalking the production and possibly a cast member. So the mayor checked out the report and well, there I am, in the back of the park, long before my entrance in Act II, pacing and talking to myself while rehearsing my lines.

No ordinary sage-1st!
Roycroft Mag. circa 1908 -1st!




Book of Roses - 3rd

I hastily entered five items in The Chautauqua County Fair and came home with five ribbons, three blues, a red and a yellow.

Best Coleus-fierce competition! Collection of Movie Sheet Music -2nd!

I want to clutch the green grass and hold onto summer.

HIGH SUMMER

I may jump out the door drenched in sun-screen, with a beach ball and a towel, a plastic inflated water toy around my waist, rubber flip-flops, and make like Frankie and Annette down to the beach, and shiver in the chilled air, just to remind myself this cold rainy season is indeed summer.

I hereby proclaim the summer as not being splendid. I know I'm in a bit of a rut when I check Facebook daily. When I choose Turner Classic Movies over The Italian Festival. When I seriously consider Twitter-ing.

My brother is part owner of a horse racing stable and one of his horses, Minister's Appeal, is spending his summer 40 minutes away from me racing at the track in Presque Isle, Pennsylvania. So a caravan of family and friends drive down every few weeks and gamble our money, hit the slots, and the buffet, and generally leave defeated but spirited. Minister's Appeal managed at least one third place finish so far this summer. The horse is like a member of the family, and when he finished third, we hooped and hollered, and slapped high-fives, and behaved just short of popping a champagne bottle and filling glasses. Any passer-byes would have thought we hit the jackpot, or were having a collective nervous breakdown.



























My new landlord is a ghost hunter. He is the son of my previous landlord who died recently. I groaned when he asked me if I still sell records on eBay, because he has some records he's thinking of selling and he'll split the profits with me. I'm like, poor misguided fool. I was forced to explain vinyl records, in and of themselves, are of little value and only a small handful are significantly desired. I get this from people. They think because a record or book is old it is therefore valuable. Old books and records may be rare, but they are rarely valuable. He's like, well I think what I got is pretty collectible, and he hands me a mint copy of The Beatles' White Album in pure white color vinyl with the accompanying pristine poster, (He unfortunately didn't have the four pin-up pics that also came with this edition of the album). He says he only played it once when it first came out just to tape it. I played it and it is beautiful. Now I'm like, fighting saliva drippings, can I see the rest of your record collection?



























In exchanging emails, his was suggestive of ghost-hunting, and I found out he is a committed ghost chaser, and an expert in evp, (electronic voice phenomena), with a fantastic web page.





I read LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel, a wonderful book about a god-loving boy from India who finds himself aboard a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with a wild Bengal tiger. Think Moby Dick meets Curious George. It was perfect summer reading.





























Some years ago a friend asked me to give him a ride to The Chautauqua County Fair. He had some things he wanted to enter into competition. I'm thinking, is he going to put a live goat in my back seat? Maybe a prize winning potato? The world's largest squash? Instead he packed my back seat with boxes and boxes of assorted stuff; old war posters, a collection of beer bottles, a Catholic bronze holy water container, ... delectable, precious junk. He was entering them into competition as antiques and collectibles in The Chautauqua County Fair. I didn't know you could enter anything but pigs and such in the county fair. When the fair was over I gave him a ride to pick up his junk, ...um, entries, and he walked off with all these blue, red and yellow ribbons and a modest bank check for his efforts.



Hell, I got junk. I have a signed leather-bound first edition of a Joyce Carol Oates novel. I have my father's old fishing poles. I have old bottles I unearthed out of my garden. I have an attic of things I've collected over the years. Am I to understand someone would pay me for possessing these things, things that mostly, I couldn't pay someone to take from me?



So there I am the following year, picking up my blue, red and yellow ribbons, and of course, the bank check, for my winning entries. Me and my friend Karl, have a friendly competition every year, finding ourselves competing in some of the same hundreds of categories. He doesn't realize deep in my heart, I'd kill to win. In no time, my Remington western print won 'the blue' in the Print category, ( his second place commemorative 1812 war poster paled in comparison). My 1915 nursery rhyme book blew the others out of the water in the Antique Children's Book category. My Jackson 5 Greatest Hits Picture Disc LP dominated and simply frowned upon the others in the Item from The Seventies category ...

















Apache Ambush by Frederick Remington. 'The Blue'!

And now I have a box in the attic somewhere full of blue, red and yellow ribbons. And I'm a county fair buff. You can find me watching the pig competition muttering to myself that pig number three was clearly the better pig. Standing outside a locked barn asking security when the tractor museum opens. I go to the quaint and innocent Chautauqua County Fair harness horse race every year, and the first year I went, dumb cluck that I am, I asked a Norman Rockwell-ish group of horse people where one bets on the harness race. I learned one does not bet on the county fair harness race. I thought they were going to drag me somewhere and lynch me.

I had county fair fever. I became very competitive. I was scouring my apartment for anything that might produce a blue ribbon. I was envying the farmers with their prized sheep, cows and corn, truly worthy of the great county fair ribbons. Ridiculous thoughts like, do I dare try and bake a blueberry pie? How do you go about raising rabbits? Is the cereal bowl I'm eating from made before 1940, and if so, is there a Best Cereal Bowl category? No, but there is a Buffalo China category which that very cereal bowl won a blue ribbon!

The red and yellow ribbons, (2nd and 3rd Place) were nice but the blue was the gold. One year the judges gave me only an honorable mention for an entry. I could have scowled in their faces, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? That is a one-of-a-kind Roy Rogers comic book with allegedly Trigger's hoof print on the back cover!".

One year, on a whim, on the day I was to enter my stuff, I took a flowering plant out of my crude and simple garden which is out the door of my apartment, and I asked it, are you worth a blue ribbon? It was a purple shamrock which happened to bloom beautifully that year. With my eye on the prize I entered it into the more traditional category of of horticulture. On opening day I went to the fair to check my entries, (read: count my blue ribbons), and my flower was adorned with a gold medal, three ribbons of blue, red and yellow and a banner streamed across it - BEST OF SHOW. I won the frickin' Academy Award of county fair ribbons!!!

I'm jaded, man. I reached the pinnacle. I am an urban cowboy. I'm doing the Rocky punch at the top of the stairs at City Hall. There wasn't a farmer in all of Chautauqua County with a better rose than my shamrock.

So I merely started to mention this Saturday is the day I enter my stuff in the fair. I'm actually finally depleted of blue ribbon quality stuff to enter. I have some sage in the garden which looks like common sage to me, but what do I know about blue ribbon quality sage? I'll enter my few meager offerings if for no other reason than to see which farmer has the best goat. I get a free fair pass just for entering. I'll hook up with Karl and hopefully we'll find ourselves standing in line at the close of the fair, picking up our checks for the winning entries. Several competitors refuse the check and donate it back to the fair, but not me and Karl. We snatch those checks up and hit the beer tent, and boast nostalgia of blue ribbon victory.

As I'm writing this I got a call that I have a role in a play I auditioned for. I don't know if that ends the summer or begins it.

THE ARTIE AWARDS 2009

I went to the 19th Annual Artie Awards at The Town Ballroom in Buffalo on Monday night somewhat reluctantly, being a little sore at The Arties Committee for ignoring my off-stage voice/stage manager position in DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, WITH YOU, this season. Do they have any idea what it's like to read a script in the dark, manipulate sound and lights, and speak into a microphone, all at the same time? Not to mention remaining alert to any theatrical catastrophe that might occur; staying mindful of terrorism; glaring at the audience as someones' cell phone goes off; reaching for a kleenix with one hand on the sound board and the other on the light board as I'm about to sneeze into the microphone? Where's the nomination for Outstanding All-Around Guy? What the hell is wrong with those people?

Mary Loftus, center, with friends prior to receivieng The Artie

I took three pics with my camera, one an accidental but not inappropriate snap of a half-filled cocktail glass, before the batteries died and the new batteries I brought were the wrong damn batteries. Fortunately, one of the pics were of four time nominated, and soon to be 2009 Artie winner Mary Loftus, for her supporting role in THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE.

There was a memorial segment just like in The Academy Awards, where we clap for dead people as their faces are projected on a screen. I hate that. How is it that one dead person can get a bigger applause than another dead person?

Over cocktails, I'm shaking hands with Richard Lambert, Executive Director of The New Phoenix Theatre, accepting an offer to stage manage a production this fall at his theatre. I'm thinking, Jesus, it's just like being at Cannes.

Another champ-ale, my funky friend?

(Best Actor Nominee Richard Lambert with his brother whose name I've forgotten)

Glitz, glamor and Buffalo buffoonery. Cat-calls between the audience and the stage on a first name basis were commonplace.

Host Norm Sham asked award recipient Mary Loftus, as she handled the microphone and put her mouth close to it, "When have you had it so good, Mary?". She quipped, "yesterday".

Some short and gracious acceptance speeches. No long-winded ones.

Outstanding and most enchanted musical performance from the nominated musicals came from the cast of Theatre of Youth's GO DOG GO.

More than once I heard the network TV familiar, "so and so couldn't be here tonight and he's asked me to accept this award on his behalf...". So and so was probably not filming in Spain.

For ten bucks admittance at the door, this show was a real deal. Artvoice should promote it more heavily in other media, as an entertainment in itself. I wonder the chances of having it broadcast on local television.

A complete listing of the 2009 Artie Award winners can be found here.