The hour badly spent

Saturday night, 7:15 right outside the Purple Masque Theatre. All the slackers who hadn’t bought advance tickets were waitlisted. There was me, Smallville, and about ten other people. The Hipster Grey Lady walked by, with her super-sexy already-having-a-ticket, dressed-like-a-soror self. In the hall, three hipsters started announcing a list of American foods shaped like dicks.

"Hot dogs."

"Popsicles."

"Candy bars," I chimed in.

The hipster with the pink scarf had watched Amish Paradise earlier today. The short hipster with the white scarf started talking about the next performance coming up in her drama class.

"There’s one female part. It’s gonna go to Shelby. Everyone knows."

Finally, the hipsters’ convo was getting interesting. But I needed more perspective. I needed an insider.

The Hour Badly Spent: Is there a drama student named Shelby who is annoyingly popular?
Super Hipster Grey Lady: Maybe a freshman. Idk her.

The Hour Badly Spent: meh. shoulda got ticks in advance. learned my lesson
Super Hipster Grey Lady: right.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: still wish you could have seen it tho
The Hour Badly Spent: it was good, wasn’t it?
Super Hipster Grey Lady: i thought so. although you would have been irked by the accents in it.
The Hour Badly Spent: what nationality were the accents?
Super Hipster Grey Lady: most were awesome. but two didn’t have it at all.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: and it took you out big time.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: northern england accents
The Hour Badly Spent: ah
The Hour Badly Spent: i was hoping you’d say russian or something
The Hour Badly Spent: i also wish it were running next weekend
Super Hipster Grey Lady: yeah… that’s how i feel about noises off. i can’t see it
Super Hipster Grey Lady: although, on a side note, the show reminded me why i’m not a theater major
The Hour Badly Spent: oh?
Super Hipster Grey Lady: i’m just too fat.
The Hour Badly Spent: oh christ. wasn’t juliet kinda pudgy, in romeo & juliet last april?
Super Hipster Grey Lady: no. she’s really petite. then. she’s preggers now. i was joking. but they were really tiny. and in their underwear on stage.
The Hour Badly Spent: FUCKFUCKFUCK i can’t believe i missed that
Super Hipster Grey Lady: haha they looked hot.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: pregger juliet was at the show tongiht too
The Hour Badly Spent: she’s with child? [ed. note: Yes, I talk like a dumbass.]
Super Hipster Grey Lady: in her tummy. yes
Super Hipster Grey Lady: its rather large now
The Hour Badly Spent: "The kid is not my son."
Super Hipster Grey Lady: yes. thank you.

Super Hipster Grey Lady: also…with the girl talking about parts for theater cast, the only theater class that casts is fundies of acting and that’s mainly all non-majors.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: there’s a few but they are likely to be freshman. and not nearly as importnant as they’d like to make themselves sound.
Super Hipster Grey Lady: i can say that since i’m a sophmore, you know.

Right before Grey Lady, friend of this blog, left Facebook earlier this week, she poked me one last farewell.

See how it just hangs there all half-done, no "poke back" option? It’s the three-legged puppy of Facebook pokes. And much like a dog needing extra love, I will cherish it forever and never click remove, partly because I’ve got such a big heart, but mostly because my intertubes haven’t been working so well lately and I can’t get online much, so why waste valuable bandwidth on that? I know: I’m a terrible Facebook friend! And a bad blogger! And an awful person! But here’s the kicker:

She left a message on my wall, but since she termed her account, the comment’s gone and I’ll never know what it is. Ahem, was. It would be irresponsible of me to speculate as to its content. Nevertheless, I’m going to assume it was pithy, clever, and saucy, and probably makes me look bad — which is not difficult, so I guess it’s for the best that no one can read it.

Sorry for being out of touch! My intertubez connection has been kind of wobbly, which has seriously impeded my otherwise steady accumulation of BBW porn (don’t judge me). Also, I’ve been trying to avoid my stalkerey ex. Yeah, I’ve got one of those. And not in the sense of "an enthusiastic follower who just likes me a lot," which is what people in Kansas think a stalker is; no, it’s more like "someone who’s intrusive and crazy and a little bit destructive," which trust me, is soooo much more exciting than the Kansas kind.

Good times, good times. So I’ve been spending my time temping in swank Santa Monica offices as well as furiously groping around for more school money. What’s going on with you guys? Grey Lady? Sexy Communist Spy? Princess Glitter Bunny? Atomic Fireball Candy? Saucy Aussie? Poetess? Sitemeter tells me you all still check in here once in a while (thanks!).

In addition to the money thing and the temping, my friend MiniMii celebrated my return to Los Angeles by taking me to the Wild Goose and springing for my first lap dance ever (don’t click there). And OF COURSE I was gonna write an awesomely cogent blog post about it, transitioning from the viewing of nipples to some revelatory insight on the true nature of man-woman relations, but I got drunk and couldn’t really come up with anything to say about it, except "tits!" which really sums up everything in the world with wit and precision.

Technorati Profile (Don’t click there).

In the process of reviewing Dancing at Lughnasa, I noted that one of the sisters was hot. "Hottest," in fact. I hear the actress’ significant other flew into a rage and and wanted to go all Hulk-smashey on The Hour Badly Spent. Well, where I come from, we distinguish between idly admiring a girl for her looks, complimenting her on a sort of striking beauty which is glaringly obvious to everyone anyway, and actually hitting on her.

These subtle nuances are apparently lost on Kansans. Fine; since I have no way of actually knowing who’s boinking whom, I take back the compliment. Everybody in the theatre department is ugly. And not just ugly, but extremely ultrahideous. And not just extremely ultrahideous, but so miserably appallingly haggard that the mere sight of any of you makes me want to repent of my sins and bathe my eyes in battery acid.

Glad I got that off my chest. So what did you think of Mud, River, Stone? I don’t remember too much of it, because I’m not drunk like I was when I saw the play way back in February, but I remember liking it.

In it, a bunch of richly-storied characters, starting with an annoying NYC black couple (they were from NY, right? I hardly remember), were thrown together at a quaint off-the-beaten-path South Africa hotel. Bells and alarms started going off the moment the couple stepped on stage, because I used to watch Friends, a show that proved there are no black people in New York.

Immediately, Sarah Bradley starts bitching because she can’t charge her iPod or something. Which was awesome. My favorite frenemy - Ama Cyllah’s actress - agreed.

My Hair Thinks Its Famous: What did you think of Sarah?
The Hour Badly Spent:        So persistently snotty. So relentlessly catty. Exactly what I look for in a girl.
My Hair Thinks Its Famous: I know. She acts like that in real life too. Isn’t she hot!
The Hour Badly Spent:        Yes!
[Ed. note: I meant no, because as we just established, everyone’s too fugly].
My Hair Thinks Its Famous: You should get her number.
The Hour Badly Spent:        You kidding? Actresses are scary. And I’m not that drunk yet.

Mr. Blake, an affable Englishman — wait, no, a white African with a British accent — wait, no, leader of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — translates the spit of the country that raised him into a wise, pithy sort of polish. "There is no telephone, no running water, not even a road. Just perfect martinis," he once said (a note on martinis: they are all perfect). Blake is graceful whether he is being conciliatory or aggressive; in fact, his confrontations often move the plot along when it veers into stagnation.

Left stranded at the hotel as part of a peacekeeping envoy, Simone Frick stammered through her part like a mouse talking her way out of a tiger pit. Her crisp uniform and radiant, hyperblonde hair underscored how out-of-place the character felt. Silly Ms. Frick! When you visit a war zone, you’ve gotta do like I do, and walk up in there like you fucking own the joint. You’d be surprised at how far a pimp roll will take you, literally and metaphorically.

There were other actors too. Whatever. Eventually, cabin fever really sets in. Everyone starts to get kinda livejournalley; going through all their character histories, their oedipal issues, proving how "African" they truly are or something. We are given an education that, however self-indulgent, is also insightful and unromanticized. Then someone shoots someone else, and he pretty much deserves it for taking hostages and being a chronic ass. Oh Mr. Blake, why couldn’t you take me too?

So far I’ve gone to see Stop Kiss, the Modigliani String Quartet, Huck & Tom and the Mighty Mississippi, Too Many Sopranos, Brian Pemberly’s poetry reading, Dunya Mikhail’s poetry reading, Denise Lowe’s poetry reading, Allison Wallace’s memoir-reading, and lots of other fun stuff, all independent and date-less. But Thursday night’s performance of Romeo & Juliet was different. I’d been looking forward to this since last semester. I needed someone — and not just ANYONE, but someone special: another hyper-literate bastard, to sit with me and make mischief. Otherwise, the whole experience is ruined by constant thoughs of "I’m awesome and everybody else in the world missed out, because they all suck." So, Rhymes With Leather, my favorite nerd, heroically restored my faith in humanity by coming with me to this affair.

The acting was superb all-around. Notable roles:

The lanky Mercutio, of course. He swaggered around with a pimp cane and dick jokes, fucking dominating every scene in which he appeared. Pure awesomeness.

Benvolio delivered his urgent tone with a rich clarity to his voice.

Unfortunately, Romeo couldn’t accomplish this. His lines tripped out over each other at the same high speed throughout his performance; his sense of urgency overpowered, instead of underlining, his emotional expression. No joy, no despair, no delight, no pining adolescent lust, only the same homogenous desperation. Perhaps I was disinclined to like him because of his tousled hair, Ivy League chin, and piercing, intense eyes. But Rhymes With Leather didn’t seem to mind that stuff too much.

He had that kind of angsty, teen aloofness. You know? He reminded me a lot of the way that Leonard Whiting portrayed Romeo in the Franco Zeffirelli version. The fact that he was in love kind of takes over and of course he’s going to go crazy with desperation. His joy was and is Juliet, so–brace yourself–like Edward essentially can’t find his happiness without Bella, Romeo has all of his joy in Juliet. Basically there was no point in finding joy in anything else. This Romeo, I thought, handled that very well, and therefore I was pleased with his performance. He’s a teenager in love; what more can you ask for? You see that Twilight reference I slipped in?

Duly noted. Maybe she should be writing this review.

"It’s a girl thing," she explained during the post-perfomance reception, as I attentively guzzled mimosas. I see what she’s saying. And Romeo truly did a good job of body-acting; gestures, fluid grace moving across the stage — that stuff enhanced his part, and ultimately I did not dislike him.

I was originally disinclined to like Juliet solely on the basis of her pretty blonde tresses. And as The Grey Lady pointed out, Juliet held a doll with her in a lot of scenes, reminding us that she’s playing a 13-year-old, which we didn’t really want to think about. Nevertheless, it was clear early on that the actress really inhabited every scene she was in. Her voice was clear and pleading. She delivered her lines at a musical pace. Every word hung in the air, like the last line of a song refrain. And as she spoke she would move to and fro, across the stage or across the balcony, starry-eyed, clutching her hands and pivoting gracefully on her heeled shoes, putting a lot of body movement, along with the words, into delivering her character to us. Tres magnifique.

All in all, I was on the edge of my seat, the whole time, taking in every movement on the stage (some scenes had a lot of activity; fighting, dancing, more fighting. Those were a real treat) and every word that fell from everyone’s lips. I tip my hat to the pretentious bastard who actually threw the script together.