I knew this was in production and Steve just sent me the trailer. As he says, this is either going to be wonderful or a hot mess.
Either way, we will be there to see it!
With Cher, Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Alan Cummings, et al.
Robbie Williams
I’ve watched this guy for almost 10 years now. I’ll admit, I’ve had a Man Crush on him for years. It’s okay…Steve knows…
Robbie could be have been one of the greats.
But… He always seems to choke when the opportunity for greatness presents itself. He may be this generation’s male Judy Garland. Without the honesty and the guts. God knows, he’s beat her record at re-hab.
He’s the biggest pop star in Europe, but he’s never made it here in the States. He is so versatile… and that seems to scare him…
When Hugh Jackman left “The Boy from Oz” on Broadway, they offered him the part of Peter Allen. It could have been “The Break.” It could have made him here.
But he was too scared of people thinking he was gay. So he turned it down….out of insecurity.
I don’t know if he could have done the part –much less 8 shows a week without missing show– like Hugh did.
But… if he could let loose and get a grip on himself…and get some discipline… I bet he could have. He just can’t let loose…or get that discipline you have to have to be one of the Greats.
Robbie always seems to want to take the easy way….
That’s why he’s touring this year with “Take That” , the boy band he broke out of years ago…
I hate to see talent wasted, but I understand insecurity. I just don’t understand not working through it.
Anyway….
Here are some great clips from his “Sinatra” concert at the Royal Albert Hall almost 10 years ago that show what he could have been.
This was his moment to transition and he blew it….
If only….
If he only hadn’t been so scared. If only he hadn’t been badly managed. If only he had the guts to take it forward…
Maybe one day he’ll still move forward and realize his potential…
I hope so…
But my gut tells me he missed his moment….
The guy’s too talented to let it go to waste singing bubble gum rock at 40….but that seems to be where he’s headed….
But there is still hope…
Filed under Entertainment, Gay, Music, Theatre
Daddy’s Dying, Who’s Got the Bourbon? | My Southern Gothic Life
New Post up on my other blog: MySouthernGothicLife.com. Here is an excerpt with a link to the full post:
My Father died in the early 1980′s when he was about 54 years old. Technically, the cause of death was cancer. I always told people that, after more than 30 years with my Mother, I strongly suspected he really just really wanted some peace and quiet.
See, my Mother truly believed in “till death do you part.” She even had some questions for our Pastor about if, perhaps, the marriage bonds extended into the afterlife. I could never figure out if she was concerned with avoiding the effort of finding a new husband in Heaven or just trying to hang on to my Father forever. Literally.
via Daddy’s Dying, Who’s Got the Bourbon? | My Southern Gothic Life.
Filed under My Journey, Style, The South
Confessions of a Tea Party Casualty | Mother Jones
I found this article extremely interesting. Here is an excerpt and link to the full post:
As he tells this story, the veteran lawmaker is sitting in his congressional office, which he will have to vacate in a few months. On June 22, he was defeated in the primary runoff by Spartanburg County 7th Circuit Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who had assailed Inglis for supposedly straying from his conservative roots, pointing to his vote for the bank bailout and against George W. Bush’s surge in Iraq. Inglis, who served six years in Congress during the 1990s as a conservative firebrand before being reelected to the House in 2004, had also ticked off right-wingers in the state’s 4th Congressional District by urging tea-party activists to “turn Glenn Beck off” and by calling on Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) to apologize for shouting “You lie!” at Obama during the president’s State of the Union address. For this, Inglis, who boasts (literally) a 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, received the wrath of the tea party, losing to Gowdy 71 to 29 percent. In the weeks since, Inglis has criticized Republican House leaders for acquiescing to a poisonous, tea party-driven “demagoguery” that he believes will undermine the GOP’s long-term credibility. And he’s freely recounting his frustrating interactions with tea party types, while noting that Republican leaders are pushing rhetoric tainted with racism, that conservative activists are dabbling in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory nonsense, and that Sarah Palin celebrates ignorance.
Filed under Politics, The Economy
Keeping faith, losing religion
I love Leonard Pitts. He always seems to say what I’m thinking better than I. Here’s a great column he wrote on Religion in America today with some great commentary on the Anne Rice comments that caused so much discussion.
Excerpt below with link to the full article:
“Today, I quit being a Christian.”
With those words last week on Facebook, Anne Rice delivered a wake-up call for organized religion. The question is whether it will be recognized as such.
“I remain committed to Christ as always,” she wrote, “but not to being `Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to `belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious and deservedly infamous group. For 10 years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”
You will recall that the author, famed for her vampire novels, made a much-publicized return to the Catholicism of her youth after years of calling herself an atheist. Now, years later, she says she hasn’t lost her faith, but she’s had it up to here with organized religion.
“In the name of Christ,” she wrote, “I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.”
If that was not nearly enough for atheist observers, one of whom berated her online for refusing to completely give up her “superstitious delusions,” it was surely plenty for people of faith.
But Rice is hardly the only one who feels as she does.
According to a 2008 study by Trinity College, religiosity is trending down sharply in this country. The American Religious Identification Survey, which polled more than 54,000 American adults, found that the percentage who call themselves Christian has fallen by 10 since 1990 (from 86.2 percent to 76 percent) while the percentage of those who claim no religious affiliation has almost doubled (from 8.2 to 15) in the same span.
Small wonder atheist manifestos are doing brisk business at bookstores and Bill Maher’s skeptical Religulous finds an appreciative audience in theaters.
Organized religion, Christianity in particular, is on the decline, and it has no one to blame but itself: It traded moral authority for political power.
via Keeping faith, losing religion – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com.
Filed under Politics, Social Commentary, Uncategorized
Why Sarah Palin Needs to Take Parenting Lessons From Hillary Clinton!
Great Blog from Bonnie Fuller over on the Huffington Post. Funny how the Family Values crowd hated Hillary, but loved that idiot Sarah Palin and her tacky, trashy family….
Here is an excerpt and link to the full post:
Need proof that the Secretary of State is an A+ mom? Check out her daughter Chelsea who didn’t get pregnant at 17 or announce her engagement on the cover of a magazine, and who isn’t shopping a reality show like Bristol Palin.
Isn’t it ironic that uber-working mom Hillary — who took heat as First Lady because she didn’t take her cookie recipes seriously — should be the mom of a Stanford and Oxford University grad, who is getting married on July 31, at the age of 30?
And Chelsea’s not pregnant! She has a great job at Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund, and her husband-to-be is a 32-year-old investment banker — Marc Mezvinsky — who has not stripped naked for Playgirl or any other form of media. Sarah’s future son-in-law, on the other hand, after his adventures as a nude model and D-Lister Kathy Griffin’s date, is currently unemployed but is planning to get his GED and be an electrician.
Furthermore, Chelsea’s wedding, in which 400 guests are expected, is a personal and private affair — in other words, the photos and story are not being sold for the cover of US Weekly, unlike Bristol Palin and her baby daddy Levi Johnston’s.
via Bonnie Fuller: Why Sarah Palin Needs to Take Parenting Lessons From Hillary Clinton!.
Filed under Entertainment, Politics, Social Commentary, Style
On Smoking: Bette vs Bogie: New post on My Southern Gothic Life
New Post up on the other blog. Here is an excerpt and a link to the complete post:
I will confess, growing up, every time my parents said “don’t”, I “did”.
Smoking was one of the key examples.
I know this is totally politically incorrect, but I have had a love /hate relationship with smoking since I can remember…
As a teenager, my parent absolutely forbade it. Therefore, I had to do it.
They were the exceptions to the rule. I grew up in Tabacco Country. My hometown was known as “the world’s best tobacco market”. Every one smoked. Except my parents.
Daddy did smoke a pipe as he forbade cigarettes. Consistency was not important…
My Aunt Goldie, who was always my favorite adult, smoked with gusto.
Movie stars smoked. Audrey Hepburn had to to stay so thin….Clark Gable….The unforgettable Bette Davis. Katharine Hepburn. And, of couse, Bogie. Mr Humphrey Bogart. With a name like “Humphrey” you had to smoke to be cool.
via My Southern Gothic Life | Just another WordPress.com site.
Filed under My Journey, Social Commentary
How French Women Age: The REAL Secret
I found this article totally fascinating, on so many levels. I firmly believe we, men or women, should age naturally and as gracefully as possible. Maybe it’s because I’m a quarter French by heritage. Or because I’m a rabid Francophile. Or maybe I just have an appropriate sense of how one should adjust to how time passes. In any case, I love this article:
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of two things: Articles about aging women that shout about being “Fantastic at 40!, “Fabulous at 50!,” Sensational at 60!” And articles about aging French women along similar lines. Several pieces have made recent headlines in the latter category, with familiar fare about how the older French woman ages gracefully thanks to her life-long beauty regime, her au-naturelle make-up routine, and her Royal Don’t-Get-Fatness. Invariably, they all miss the point.
After living over a decade in France, I’ve learned that the point is as much about us as it is about French women. While older French women do, indeed, generally enjoy lives of accrued sensuality, we American women are often busy whipping ourselves into shape with a vengeance (or feeling guilty for not doing so). And that’s because a wicked feel-good paradox sears its way through our culture. Take a look at any American magazine for women forty-plus. Celebrations of age usually come with a clarion call for emulating youth in all its age-defying Fantastic-at-Forty-Plus firmness. As we age-defy (which, let’s face it, is just shorthand for age-deny), we can finally “Be Ourselves,” because after all those decades we’ve earned it, right? We’ve finally figured out who we are. We can finally not give a damn, as long as we still look Absolutely Fabulous!
Filed under Entertainment, My Journey, Social Commentary, Style
Mitch Miller is Gone…
Okay. This is a test.
Who remembers Mitch Miller? He died today at the age of 99. Frankly, I was amazed he hadn’t died years ago…
He was always a part of our Christmas celebration in the 1960’s with his album of sing-a-long songs.
Of course, that means I had to buy the Christmas CD to recreate the era in our house a couple of years ago…
Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a video of his classic Christmas album featuring “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”.
Here here is what I could find. He is he with his original Gay Chorus. Tell me I’m wrong….
Admittedly, this is really cheesy…But it was the late 1950’s/ early 1960’s.
with his album of sing a long songs.
EW YORK (AP) – Mitch Miller, the goateed orchestra leader who asked Americans to “Sing Along With Mitch” on television and records, has died at age 99.
His daughter, Margaret Miller Reuther, said Monday that Miller died Saturday in Lenox Hill Hospital after a short illness.
Miller was a key record executive at Columbia Records in the pre-rock ‘n’ roll era, making hits with singers Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Johnny Mathis and Tony Bennett.
“Sing Along With Mitch” started as a series of records, then became a popular NBC show starting in early 1961. Miller’s stiff-armed conducting style and signature goatee became famous.
As a producer and arranger, Miller had misses along with his hits, famously striking out on projects with Frank Sinatra and a young Aretha Franklin.
The TV show ranked in the top 20 for the 1961-62 season, and soon children everywhere were parodying Miller’s stiff-armed conducting. An all-male chorus sang old standards, joined by a few female singers, most prominently Leslie Uggams. Viewers were invited to join in with lyrics superimposed on the screen and followed with a bouncing ball.
via Mitch Miller Obituary: View Mitch Miller’s Obituary by New York Times.
Filed under Entertainment, My Journey, Television
Lost in the 21st Century 
Is Glen Beck Really Evita?
I used to think Glen Beck was Dusty Rhodes, but reading the political news, I couldn’t help but think of this song from “Evita.”
Politics is the “art of the possible” seems to be the current mantra.
Based on this, I guess my question is, is Glen Beck “Evita”?
Think about it and discuss…
As an after thought, this chick is really good. I don’t know this production, but I love what I’ve seen.
Beware of Glen Beck in a ball gown.
That’s when it truly get’s scary.
And this might represent that!
We can only hope for this denouement:
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Filed under Politics, Social Commentary, The Economy