Because I Said.

Having a blog is really a pretty egotistical exercise. Essentially, I do this because I believe that people should be reading my thoughts. And those thoughts should be read because they're that good. That profound. Having a blog is a primary indicator of at least a bit of self-obsession.

Meh. At least I don't lie about it. In that vein, I've been giving some thought to a regular feature where I let the world know about (or remind them of) a great performer or performance. Attempting to come up with a name for said feature proved difficult. I realized that when I kept going back to "Great Performances." And that just wasn't going to happen. It wouldn't jive next to such past hits as "I've Got Friends in Lao Places." Then I thought some more about what I was trying to accomplish. I wanted to give exposure to some things I thought were great. So why beat around the bush? Welcome to "Because I Said."

This first installment is easy. With Dreamgirls going wide on Christmas day, I feel it's a moral imperative to showcase Jennifer Holliday's performance of "And I Am Telling You" from the 1982 Tony Awards. (For those keeping track, Holliday's character, Effie, is played by Jennifer Hudson in the new film.) Even watching this in a grainy YouTube video gives me goosebumps. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to see it live. Since we're lucky enough to have a video clip, I don't need to say much. Just watch and be astounded. Should the clip not work, please watch it on YouTube.

HAPPIEST HOLIDAYS. This is my gift to you:



[Friggin' a, YouTube. Another HTML bungle fixed by my crazy Comp 10 skillz.]

Everybody dance now!

I'm in a really good mood at the moment. Strange, huh, for a Tuesday morning? Some of the credit should go to the lovely catered breakfast that was waiting for me in the lobby or the fact that I actually went to sleep at 9:30 (!!) last night. But while those things aided the spring in my step, they didn't put it there. No, that spring is courtesy of something I've discovered that puts a grin on my face for the entire walk from the metro to work. Sometimes, when I'm not deep into my crossword or Sudoku, I even crack a smile on the Metro.

[Hold please, running down to the lobby for more free breakfast. What? It's good to get your metabolism up and running early.... Typical: I come up with a cup of coffee and a juice -- I'm actually completely stuffed from the frittata, french toast, yogurt w/ fruit & granola, and hash browns I've already consumed. I walk past our kitchen and notice someone I haven't seen before with strong attraction potential in the kitchen area. Of course I crane my neck around to get a better look, spill half of my very hot coffee on my hand, swear loudly, and almost walk into the random married guy that always makes uncomfortably long eye contact. URGH!]

So, back to this new thing that I've discovered. Last week, I threw together an on-the-go playlist while on the metro. I wasn't really giving it much thought. My guiding principle was songs that would give me a brisk pace for my walk. To give you a sense, these included 'Celebrity' by N*SYNC, 'Cell Block Tango' from Chicago, 'Accidentally in Love' by Counting Crows, 'Battle Flag' by Lo-Fidelity All Stars, 'Can't Let Go' by Lucinda Williams, and 'No Te Preocupes Por Mi' by Spanish-language superstar Chayanne. Oh. And 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)' by C&C Music Factory. The first few times I listened through my playlist, I didn't really think anything of it. Then, the other day, I had just set off down the mall-tastic tunnels of Crystal City when I heard that familiar screamed lyric in my headphones: "EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!"

And it cracked me up.

For the entire walk to the metro, I was so amused with the fact that I was listening to this song that I had a huge smile plastered on my face. It was only broken by the occasional fit of giggles. I noticed a few people staring at me as they walked by and some of them started smiling, too. This pleased me even more. Then this thought crossed my mind: What if everyone knew what I was listening to? For some indubitably psychotic reason, the thought of everyone knowing what I was listening to struck me as uproariously funny. Before I knew it, I was picturing a choreographed dance number on the escalator featuring the commuters of Crystal City. (See the woefully underrated Superstar starring Molly Shannon for a good example of a C&C Music Factory dance break). It was almost too much.

Now I listen to "Gonna Make You Sweat" every single time I walk to or from the metro. Each time, I'm almost overwhelmed with giddiness. I encourage my readers to try it out for themselves and report back. Feedback will be particularly useful in my attempt to figure out if that song's effect on my commute is something I should disclose to a mental health professional. For now, I won't let my newest source of mirth worry me. I'll assume that my life has just given me a particularly well-honed appreciation for the ridiculous.

Let the people decide.

I just noticed that a reader commented on the SNL post from earlier this week about how much he enjoyed the creepy coworker sketch. I concur. (He actually requested a link to the vid but I was unable to find any. If anyone out there has one, check out his comment and get it to him. I know how frustrating it can be to want to see a clip or hear a song and not be able to find it. I hope someone can help, Ken!)

Anyway, while I was browsing YouTube in an effort to find a posting of the aforementioned sketch, I found instead a clip of the Two A-holes in a Live Nativity Scene. I know that the hate was great the first time I expounded on the virtues of this particular sketch, I feel it's best to let everyone take a gander at it and decide for themselves whether it's as funny as I think it is.



[NOTE: The html from YouTube was messed up and I fixed it all on my own! I knew taking remedial comp sci classes to fulfill my college math requirement was a good idea!]

My e-mail won't go on.

Is this happening to anyone else?

Server Error -- We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes.

It's starting to frustrate me. I'm feeling seriously out of touch. Then again, I'm probably missing a total of 3 real e-mails: [redacted because I don't want my friends getting mad at me].

I feel like Kate Winslet in Titanic. True, GMail being down is NOT like being immersed for hours in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic after a harrowing ship sinking and the death of the love of my life. But, on the other hand, I am blowing into a whistle and hoarsely murmuring, "Come back! Come back!"

Start praying...

I hope I'm overreacting, but I just read that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) was hospitalized with "stroke-like symptoms." Although I feel for him and his family, I cannot help the terror rising inside of me that he might be forced to resign. If so, it would be up to South Dakota's Republican Governor to appoint a replacement. Goodbye Democratic majority in the Senate.


UPDATE:

According to the NY Times, Senator Johnson had surgery for a brain hemorrhage. "A statement issued by Mr. Johnson’s office said that the operation was successful and that the senator was 'recovering without complication,' but that it was too early to say whether further surgery would be necessary, or to assess his long-term prognosis."

I hate that there's a man lying in the hospital and I can't help but think about the ramifications of his incapacity on the balance of power in the Senate. (I hate more that, somewhere out there, some smarmy Republican bastard is excited about this unfortunate turn of events.) Bah. In the end, this sucks much more for his family and friends than it does for me or any other Dem whose hopes may have been dashed. As a believer in the power of positive thinking, I ask for good vibes (whether of the prayerful kind or not, depending on how you roll) for Tim Johnson -- in his capacity as a human being -- and his family.

As for the Senate . . . as my mother always says when faced with something beyond our power to control: "Qualche santo provederá." (“Some saint will provide.”)

Congrats, Ms. H-P!

A big TerenZone CONGRATULATIONS to my friend and former MLK girlfriend Sarah on being named a 2007 Skadden Fellow! Sarah is the reason that I survived my Teach for America experience and I'm so pleased for her that I could pop.

See the complete list of 2007 Skadden Fellows (and notice that not one GW Law person is on there...shame).

Did SNL get funny again?

Or was this last Saturday's broadcast just a fluke? Let's explore.

Sitting around last Saturday evening, I decided that I might DVR Saturday Night Live. It had been quite a while since I'd seen one and I noticed that Annette Bening was hosting so I figured I had nothing to lose. Worst case scenario, it would just go the way of so many episodes of Six Degrees and The Nine: deleted without ever being watched. Last night, suffering from a bit of insomnia, I decided to watch it.

I love Annette, but the opening was nothing special. I was mildly amused with a recut trailer for Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (FYI, Jews killed the Mayas) and a random sketch about a teacher (Bening) who sleeps with her students (the musical outburst was cute), but I was starting to feel a little sleepy and nearly shut it off when a sketch entitled "Two A-holes in a Live Nativity Scene" came on. Where did Kristen Wiig come from? Well, besides Rochester (according to IMDb)? She totally KILLED in that sketch. Playing one of the two titular a-holes, she picks up the baby Jesus doll at one point and deadpans, "This baby doesn't look like Santa." AMAZING.

That was followed up with an extremely funny pre-recorded sketch featuring Lost's Matthew Fox (featuring this magical line: "Tia, half second, my ass is in your mouth."), a cable access show sketch featuring a great Maya Rudolph riff on the Nintendo Wii, and then an unintentionally funny performance from Gwen Stefani (like her a lot but what the hell is up with the new single???). Weekend Update came next and was on point (again with my new favorite funny lady, Ms. Wiig). The sketch after that earned this rave from Freedman: "I fucking lost it in the poorly executed but funny sketch about the monster in the room, when Bill Hader came out singing "Have a holly jolly Christmas." Couldn't have said it better myself.

And it just went on and on. Alec Baldwin + herpes? Very funny. Wiig and Bening as loserish coworkers going to a bar? Awkwardly hilarious. Akon's performance? Ok, not so funny. Neither was the ending sketch about the lawyers representing rich cats. But maybe that's just because I'm sensitive to lawyer jokes. But, still! I remember watching SNL a few years ago and actually feeling a bit uncomfortable at how unfunny some of the sketches were. Last Saturday's episode was such a treat (especially while in throes of insomnia). I'll definitely be DVRing the rest of the season, if only to continue experiencing the comedic master class of Kristen Wiig.

Crystal City isn't a city at all.

It's a neighborhood in Arlington, VA. But more on that in a sec. [Image below © PBS 2006.]

I like teasing out the ways in which living in DC is unique (some of my favorites include the helicopters that buzz my house and rattle my windows at all hours and the unique annoyance of being stranded on a street corner waiting for Cheney’s motorcade to go by) and I’ve decided that the fatigue professional is yet another such distinction. Being a civilian who’s spent most of the last 20 or so years in the NYC and Boston metro areas, I haven’t had much opportunity to see soldiers in day-to-day life except maybe for NYC after September 11th. In DC, there’s rarely a work day when I don’t share a metro car with men and women in uniform. Here in Crystal City, I see green army fatigues all over the underground halls of the shopping center, whether at the newsstand, McDonald’s, or ABP. I was, indeed, thinking about fatigue professionals when I walked in this morning. Then I got to my desk and found the image above as part of an invite e-mail to our holiday party. It captures the denizens of Crystal City so perfectly: fatigues, PBS, businesswear.

Crystal City really is the most bizarre, little place. First off, it sort of gives me the wiggins that I can go from the metro car to my desk without ever seeing sky (well, the window behind me at the moment doesn’t count). Sure, it was nice when it rained last week and during the last two, bitterly cold days, but there’s something almost a bit unnatural about it. I walk through a series of shiny hallways to an elevator that takes me to my building’s lobby. It’s about a third of a mile, maybe a little bit more from escalator to elevator. Lining the halls are advertisements (many for Crystal City itself), shops, and other elevators that lead to other office buildings. No one ever seems to be lingering anywhere, except for maybe inside ABP. The hallways tend to be two lanes of people in various workwear – mostly business casual but some full-on suits, jeans, and the aforementioned fatigues are mixed in – walking, shuffling, or sprinting to or from work. Like rival parades of khakis, skirt suits, and i-Pod headphones.

I guess I just can’t imagine that this place exists after 6pm. I remember coming to visit Freedman when he lived here back in the day (like, 2001). It was a weekend trip and I remember we took the metro more than once into DC proper. Walking through the underground “streets” of Crystal City, I was a bit creeped out. We were essentially alone in a massive underground mall that closed on the weekends. I don’t know how much has changed in the intervening years but I remember that, back then, there was nearly nothing here outside of business hours. I know that there was a big to-do about PBS (and its 500+ employees) coming to neighborhood. We’ve been told that we’ve made the neighborhood so much more hip with our presence. I suppose I buy that. Sesame Street (and all children’s programming, for that matter) does have that quasi-kitsch hipster appeal.

Still, although the underground city is dandy for work, I’m rather glad that I don’t live here. You can keep your weirdly deserted streets, shiny underground shopping mall, and Congressional representation. I’ll stick with my tiny, drafty and spectacularly situated hole-in-the-wall in the District.

The Harrowing Tale of My Morning

You know those days when you really just want everything to go as planned? Those days when you need to be at certain places at certain times and life would just be so very much simpler if nothing went wrong? I went to bed last night knowing that I was going to awaken to one of those days because, today, I am driving up to NJ after work to attend my admission ceremony to the NJ Bar. My best laid plans: (1) spring up early out of bed; (2) review as I got ready if the small bag I packed (the night before!) had everything I needed; (3) get to work before 8am so I wouldn’t feel bad leaving before 4pm; (4) leave early so I could walk up to the Double Tree Hotel down the street and pick up my rental car; (5) haul ass around the city on 295 (and thus skip sitting on New York Ave during rush hour); (6) get home; and (7) make my way into the city (oh yeah, NYC people, I’d love to see you). It was going to be tricky, but I’d done harder things before.

I awoke at 6:45am – a little later than I’d planned. It takes me about 30 minutes to get ready in the morning and a little over 30 (if the metro is kind) to get to work in Crystal City but I knew that I still needed to pack away my toiletries and do a last minute assessment so I figured I’d be late. I turned on the shower to let the water heat up and I turned back to my apartment. Standing near the kitchen (if my sink, two-burner electric stove, and convection microwave can really be called a kitchen), I smelled the strong odor of red wine that’s been sitting around for a few days. I was going to totally fib here and say that the glass of wine sitting near my stove was from last night or from two nights ago, but the wine was actually from Friday night. Instead of pouring it out, I just set it near my stove. I’m certain that deep down I was thinking what a terrible waste it was to pour out a glass of wine. Still, this morning I decided that this particular glass had to go so I picked it up.

Now, I’m not sure if I was still a bit asleep or if I expected the glass to be a lot heavier or if maybe I have some weird spatial judgment problem, but the object in my hand somehow exploded in a fantastic spray of glass and red wine. I stared at my right hand, my fingers still bent in goblet-holding position, and wondered if the dark red liquid dripping from it was wine or blood or both. I felt no pain, but you never can tell. In a bit of a panic I ran to my bathroom sink and rinsed off my hand. A thorough examination revealed that, somehow, I hadn’t been cut. I turned to my stove and counter (not that I really have counter space) and saw what could’ve been a set piece for a Jack the Ripper film. It looked like someone had opened a vein over everything. Wine was splattered on the wall, on the fridge, on the container of Metamucil. Frowning at my own misfortune, I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning.

Clearly, I was going to be later than I’d hoped. After I was done wiping down the walls and cleaning out the innards of my stove, I hopped in the shower. I was lightning fast as I brushed my teeth and did my morning skin routine. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I was going to recoup some time. I had a bit of a false start out the door – getting all the way down my front steps before turning around to snag my EZ Pass – but then I strode confidently towards the metro. Bob Sinclair’s "Love Generation" blaring in my crappy Sony headphones, I actually smiled as I thought about the wine glass incident. But nothing could stop me now. I smiled twice more: first when I was handed an Express at the top of the metro escalator and again when I read the headline “We Are All Going to Feel So Bad If This Book Is Terrific” over a blurb about Tori Spelling’s planned memoir. On the escalator, I had a bit of a debate with myself whether I should stop to add money to my SmartTrip. I knew I was low but I was also late. In the end, by the grace of some higher being, I opted to refill my card. That’s when I noticed my credit card wasn’t there. And neither was my license. If you’ve rented a car before, you probably know that they like seeing a driver’s license before handing you the keys. I felt part of me die as I turned around to walk back.

Last night, I went to JR’s with Chris and started a tab. I had only a couple of beers and I knew that I had remembered to sign it out. What I couldn’t explain was why my card and license (they take both to keep a tab open) weren’t in my wallet. All I could think was that I had slipped them into my pocket. Or left them on the bar. As I walked back, I refused to think about how my license being either at JR’s or gone would alter my plan for the day. You can imagine my relief when I stuck my hand into the pocket of my jeans and found the two cards. Of course, as I made my way down the steps for the third time this morning, I realized that I left my Express on my table. I decided to wastefully accept another one from the nice Express passer-outer rather than turn back.

When I got to Crystal City, it was actually later than when I usually get to work. I think I’m still going to leave early, but I’m going to feel bad about it. In the end, though, I made a command decision to actually be even later. Instead of taking the left after ABP into the elevator that leads up to my lobby (expect a post on the weirdness of the underground mall that is Crystal City soon), I opted to veer right towards McDonald’s. Nothing – and I mean NOTHING – cures crisis better than a bacon, egg, and cheese on a biscuit. (Just remember to use a napkin to squeeze the grease out of the hash brown before you eat it.)

Is that the waaambulance I hear?

"Boo hoo. You haven't updated in a week. Waaa!"

Sorry. The first week of work was great but busy. I promise a decent post over the weekend but, in the meantime, this clip from the Megan Mullally Show made my night:



I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.