Media’s Short Memory

Cover of The Cutting Edge – Gold Medal Edition

Today the New York Times ran an article on the marvel of combining hockey and figure skating to create a successful television program. Nowhere does the piece mention that this is not such a new idea. Have they ever seen the movie, The Cutting Edge from 1992!

Perhaps D.B. Sweeney is not their their favorite actor. Co-star Moira Kelly made a handful of movies. But even several movie guides rate the movie very good. It’s hard not to root for them to win the gold!

My Yankees Unsung Hero

Been nearly a decade, which for us Yankee fans seems like an eternity. And this is why other baseball and sports fans feel such warmth toward us.

Still, I relish this moment, particularly since many of the pundits who predicted aYankee win began wavering when the Phillies won Game 5.

One player had a major role in influencing several of the post season games and last night’s World Series game: Damaso Marte.  He had a haoorible season and was even injured during much of the regular season.

Joe Girardi deserves great credit for recognizing that this was a new season. Several newspaper columnists and television broadcasters even took issue with him using Marte and what did the player do, he retired all ten batters he faced in the post season.

Most Dangerous Man

Another intriguing year of movies at a Washington, DC Film Festival. The DC Labor festival featured two weeks of movies.

The most interesting group was called the Whistleblower series. Shown at a time when the US Congress is debating a bill to offer protection to federal government employees who speak out about problems and spending issues, the series included four movies: The Whistleblower, Silkwood, The Insider and The Most Dangerous Man In America.

The latter showed in the new theater at the US Capitol Visitors Center and large, spacious, beautiful theater. Representative Jim Moran (Democrat from Virginia) provided inspiring opening remarks.  The audience contained several other political notables and Washington figures.

The movie is a fascinating time capsule that resonates with America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If five US Presidents can lie to the public about their efforts in Vietnam, then George W. Bush’s lying about Iraq is not unusual and what is currently not being told to the public?

Ellsberg raises the most salient point: citizens need to be vigilant and demand to know what their leaders are doing!

Manu Biosphere: Getting There

Had an amazing time in the Peruvian Amazon River Basin. After watching PBS documentaries for years on the Amazon and having an uncle and a grandfather that spent years in South America, my partner and I went to Peru.

I’m going to focus on the Amazon part of the trip. We went from Cusco into the high Andes, riding along narrow mountain roads, meeting llamas, alpacs, wild dogs, and hundreds of kids walking miles to the nearest schools. Even saw one little girl get pulled down by the pig she was holding on a leash when the pig got startled by our jeep. After six hours we got on mountain bikes

Mountain biking

mountain biking

with only one operating break and road for an hour and a half to the mountain lodge.

Birds at the Lodge included a group of males that cluster at one site and sing to draw a female into the area. Reminded you of a bar.

Cloud Lodge Bird Bar

After a night at the Lodge we got up at 4:30 am to ride in a jeep for a couple of hours to reach the River Basin. View of the Alto Madre de Dios River where we met some of the locals and started our four hour ride to the Madre De Dios River.

The Alto Madre de Dios River

Jewelry vendor and friends

Capital Culture: Dancing in DC

Kennedy Center had an intriguing dance program last night. Keigwins & Company. The show featured four dances to each of the world’s elements: Water, Fire, Earth & Air.

The Company is a viewer friendly group. The opening number featured six dancers in towels moving to Mozart. Slapstick actions and movements reminded this viewer of silent movies. The fourth water piece teased audiences with white body suits.

Fire featured three dances, one in orange, another in red and a third in yellow. The costumes included frills on the arms and hats creating a sense of flames and movement. The male dancers hip hop moves thrilled the audience.

The jokey movements returned with Debussy, the song “Stormy Weather” and Devo, in the earth elements. A friend described the pieces as musical theater comedy.

The Air pieces included performers dressed in airline costuming. The moves in the first piece to “Up, Up and Away,” included the safety demonstrations done by stewards on every flight.

Making accessible dance is a great idea as is dancing to recent music. I wish the performances included more daring and interesting steps/choreography.

Balloon Boy & Stage Moms

We all witnessed what happens on a slow news day. The media followed the silver balloon then it fell like lead.

Why is anyone surprised the people will do anything for publicity? It is not that knew. Stage Mothers pushed their girls and boys onto vaudeville and Broadway (Have you seen Gypsy!)

Who hasn’t seen movies about Judy Garland or any of the other numerous child stars in Hollywood during the Golden Age.

Media on Equality March

Ed Schultz interviewed Representative Tammy Baldwin on Sunday’s March and the actions of Congress on Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Schultz hit her hard with questions about where she stood vis a vis the marchers and their impatience with the Democratic Party. The assessment is that Obama did not give details that activists wanted on when he will act on gays in the military. He could at least issue a stop loss order to cease the actions of kicking out gays.

Dan Savage appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and issued a call to Obama to act. He insisted that gays/lesbians need to pressure the Democrats for action now and the public would support it.

Equality March Success

My partner and I rearranged our trip to Peru so we could be here for the National Equality March this weekend. The March was a huge successith protestors coming in from Maine to California. The boots hit the ground and showed the numbers of gays, lesbians, and straights who believe in equal rights under the law for the United States.

Unlike previous marches on Washington the wattage of celebrity was not too high. Lady Gaga headlined the speakers. Cynthia Nixon was among the biggest names among the marchers.

Much more importantly, the President and the Congress saw that there are numbers out there who will not sit idle and watch as GLBTQ rights continue to go underserved in this country. Speakers demanded an end to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and they spoke eloquently for marriage rights and an end to Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

CNN, The New York Times, CSpan and the Washington Post were among the media outlets offering valuable coverage. CNN’s carried Judy Shepard’s plea. C-Span showed the entire march. Logo went black to show its solidarity. The Washington Post included an article on local gays and lesbians that want to get married and the march the next day.

Kander & Ebb at Signature in DC

DC area residents are the first to see a new show by two gay icons of the American musical theater, Fred Ebb and John Kander. Fresh off a Tony Award for the top regional theater, Signature Theater created First You Dream: The Music of Kander & Ebb that will run for three weeks. Here’s a moment from the concert.

The special event concert has songs for the Broadway aficionado and for the novice as well. The duos most popular works, from the big shows Cabaret and Chicago, are sprinkled throughout the thirty songs and two and a half hours.

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I saw last Friday evening’s show with two savvy Broadway musical listeners and another person, who, like myself, is more of a dabbler in the arena. We all agreed that the 19-piece orchestra and six singers created a fulfilling evening.

Two songs from a little known show, 70, Girls, 70, thrilled one of the experienced guys, because he had never heard them. While he and I found the campy humor of Boom Ditty Boom hilarious and clever, other friends thought the song inane.

The most obvious gay piece in the show is from Kiss of the Spider Woman. The window dresser, played with much verve by Matthew Scott, sings She’s A Woman and Dressing Them Up. The audience gave him one of the most rousing ovations of the entire evening.

Concert shows extract the songs from their original context. Having seen several of the shows at Signature Theater, I could understand much of the sentiment behind the songs from The Rink, Kiss of The Spider Woman, and The Happy Time. People who have not seen the shows might struggle with the feeling of the singers’ characters.

Since several of the songs come from shows that have not been seen on Broadway for eons, I did hear some talk about potentially taking the show to New York. The crew I was with had very mixed feelings about whether the show in its current state would make the leap successfully.

Big Fan

Saw the local DC premiere of Big Fan. It got great reviews out of Sundance Film Festival and a high score on Rotten Tomatoes website so I looked forward to it.

As a huge sports fan, I found the movie accurately portrayed what kind of obsession fans can have. I watched several scenes and th0ught back to some of the football fans I used to know and could see them in Paul’s character.

The movie was definately non-Hollywood as the main character experiences a big event and that does not motivate him to change at all.

Afterwards, I talked with several people about it. Some thought it was neither a black enough movie or a comedy, but walked the line between the two. This left at least a couple of people unsure how they felt.

One person saw the movie as a short story rather than a novel. This was a peek into a world rather than a full blown character study where the person grows and adapts.

I agree with some of the reviewers who found the movie somewhat condescending to the lead character. He knows what he doesn’t want and is willing to accept that he does not have much. A class argument would saythat his fellow siblings were able to move up in society so Paul could too but his character is keeping him from doing so. However, Paul says he does not want the middle class life that his sister and brother have, but he is unable to say what he does want.

I thought the movie could have said much more about the economic circumstances of today’s sports world. We have a vision of Paul and his friend being alone in the Giant Stadium parking lot but is that because they are losers? Where are the other fans who can’t afford the huge ticket prices? Where are the other fans who share the fandom and want to be closer to it but are out of their economic element?

Is Paul another of the many Peter Pans that have been inhabiting movies recently? Both Momma’s Man and Two Lovers bring those characters to the fore. Are these characters trapped as Randy was in The Wrestler? Is this a result of their economic condition?