Twenty Third & Seventh

Sweet Charity 2005- So, shoot me. by Bent Rantley

Christina Applegate- the Bravest Individual

by Bent Rantley

I guess the real joy of this is speaking a heresy that would make Ben Brantley's brain explode but I think that i's time for the Broadway luvvies to stop equivocating and admit that, whether by design or accident, the 2005 recording of Sweet Charity is the best available. This is absolutely not a comparison of the productions, only the recordings. None of the major Charitys have been strong singers.

Gwen Verdon's Charity is sassier and we know that she knows that we know that she's really a hooker. This recording is raw energy, as might be expected from a Fosse auteur staging. It may well be this that leaves the recording wanting. The not quite complete songlist is good but still not as tight as the 2005 would prove.

Shirley Maclaine's Charity, the cleaned up for screen Charity, is probably still the most heart-breakingly fragile and doomed of the various Charitys. But Maclaine isn't a strong singer and the selection of tracks is completely unsatisfactory. This version is essential for Chita Rivera as Nikkie and Sammi Davis Jr as 'Big Daddy' but, as an album, it doesn't add up to a fulfilling program.

The Debbie Allen version [below] isn't worth inhaling for.

Sweet Charity 2005

Christina Applegate's Charity is far too innocent for my tastes, the possibility that she might be a prostitute euphimising 'dance hall hostess' is abandoned. That doesn't stop Applegate's relatively weak but very listenable voice capturing Charity's inherent contradiction, she's a doomed warrior hero. We know that she'll triumph but only for now.... Applegate manages to make that clear by the end in her, should be praised highly, delivery of 'Where Am I Going?'

The worstest, gayest costumes ever. I had to avert my gaze.

'Big Daddy' prepares to drop a turd bomb that will cloud act two

The 2005 recording is well served by some excellent supporting roles. Denis O'Hare as Oscar reveals something in the character we have never seen. Be warned that the 'Big Daddy' number is where this one goes right off the rails. It's like somebody has parked an enormous turd in a rose garden.

BRantley

O'Hare and Applegate with the Lamp Post that became one of the unexpected stars of the 2004 season.

Signs of the Impending Apocalypse:

The Bible in SMS. warning: click if you're brave!

I wish that this was a prank. It isn't.

I can't even start to imagine how insane the person doing this must have been by the time she got up to the notorious begats. Bg@ in SMS I suppose. Lets not even consider how complicated it might become once those Hebrew names start flying. Zebediah is infinitely more complex to reduce to SMS than it is to spell correctly.

Dumb technology for a dumb future!

The 80s. The Horror!!!!!!!!!

I just found this- a picture of me when I had youth on my side. [1986]

I'm the one in the foreground in the denim jacket trying to pull off a Jimmy Dean smoulder but looking more like I'm severely constipated! L-R is a long lost old friend, the evil creature known as 'the Stick Insect'- my first boyfriend, and fresh faced little me.

The super-80s haircut isn't really visible. It was a cropped / spiked black crown with a very lengthy blonded streak growing from the fringe. It could be worn any number of ways, favourites were straight upright or artfully arranged to look like spiders legs and laquered into place. I can't imagine what we were up to on this night- everyone is way dressed down for the era.

Dusty Springfield at the Brill Building

Some doco playing in the background just caused me to look up when the Brill Building was mentioned. They showed Dusty Springfield visiting which was probably a rare event- I don't know enough to be sure. Regardless, it's Dusty I associate with the Brill and when I found it I felt totally at liberty to walk up the hall howling 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me' a la Dusty. To see Dusty walking that very same hall being the real Dusty is just weird- an experience so contemporary that I don't think that a word has been coined for it.

The last of tin-pan alley? The magnificent Brill Building on Broadway

Pedants Paradise #2

I loathe, with a passion, the expression 'returned home'. While technically correct, it does get damn close to being redundant. Better options exist but the people who write the news reports refuse to look for them. I might suggest 'brought home', 'flew home', 'sent home' or 'came home' according to the context. Worst of all, 'returned home' is ugly and offensive to the ear. Why use it?

Subway

YellowGerbil signed on at 2:56:55 PM.

PusForLunch: Denise Royal - All Headline News
Staff Writer

Los Angeles, California (AHN) - Could Britney Spears be Broadway Bound? Published reports say she’s in serious negotiations to make her Broadway debut in the current revival of Sweet Charity. The pop princess would replace Christina Applegate in the title role of the unlucky-in-love dancer, Charity.

The Insider’s Marc Malkin reports that Spears may be joined on stage by her husband Kevin Federline, who’d be a dancer in the show. Producers reportedly really want Spears in the show and will do anything to make it happen.

Sweet Charity is a 1966 musical show directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. It was made into a film in 1969, directed by Fosse as well. It starred Shirley MacLaine, Chita Rivera, Sammy Davis Jr. and Ricardo Montalban.

PusForLunch: ILL sHOOT THE BITCH MYSELF. SHE WILL NOT PLAY CHARITY!!!!!

YellowGerbil: what is bway coming to???

PusForLunch: so its not just me that considers that stunt casting way way beyond the pale?

PusForLunch: like scary spice in rent was eerie but this

PusForLunch: brb

YellowGerbil: yeah this would be too much. and the sad thing is that i don't think it would pull in any more ticketbuyers

PusForLunch: charity was selling well last i checked. they should put charlotte damoise who subbed for chrisi in. i saw in chicago- she was exceptional. stunt cast another role if they need marquee spave surely

PusForLunch: no- like who win people who go to broadway shows would see britney esp as charity?

PusForLunch: charity is not a slut. she is an innocent barely afloat in a corupt world... a naif

YellowGerbil: it's completely rediculous

PusForLunch: britney is like... a slut.

YellowGerbil: lol

PusForLunch: its offensive!

YellowGerbil: that too

PusForLunch: like.. if she wants to get in beauty and the beast, fine

YellowGerbil: lol or phantom

PusForLunch: but charity is like one the 5 female roles that really matter from the last 40 years

YellowGerbil: yeah it'd be like her trying to play sally. eek

PusForLunch: she could replace rosie in fiddler

YellowGerbil: now that would be genius!

YellowGerbil: hehe

PusForLunch: in that strange way that broadway has 'traditions' charity is so scared that tyhe lovies will revolt. ben brantley with an axe... not pretty

YellowGerbil: yeah i think they're thinking it give bway a boost, but it would be the exact opposite

PusForLunch: it would be more like giving broadway bird flu

PusForLunch: it wont happen- who'd insure britney to show up 8 times a week for 6 months without a drama

YellowGerbil: heh totally

PusForLunch: the woman can have a marriage last less than 24hrs, she's really just an extended paparazzi shot

YellowGerbil: and a baby heh

PusForLunch: exactly

PusForLunch: thats what spooks me about britney

PusForLunch: she has gone from lolita and symbolic pin-up virgin to absuive mother in hyper-time

PusForLunch: it's the second variation on warhol's 15 minutes statement.

PusForLunch: she's almost consuming her 15mins at hyper-speed

YellowGerbil: so is everybody these days

PusForLunch: she only has to do washe d over and o/d at the chelsea / chateau marmont and she's done the whole story, really.

YellowGerbil: marmont definitely

PusForLunch: maybe i meant washed up rather than washed over

PusForLunch: marmont for her i think

YellowGerbil: she'd run screaming from the chelsea. and wouldn't be satisfied with the room

PusForLunch: LOL bad trash. LiZa in the dumpster would freak her out.

PusForLunch: exactly

YellowGerbil: :-D

PusForLunch: id like briteny and paris to die in one spectacular overdose party

PusForLunch: with a couple of minor celebs like

PusForLunch: linsey lohan

PusForLunch: and oprah

YellowGerbil: actually paris i don't mind some of the time

PusForLunch: a backstreet boy- the so called 'reformed one'.

YellowGerbil: i seceretly identify with her a bit

PusForLunch: Oprah or linzy?

YellowGerbil: lol

YellowGerbil: yes all the backstreet boys and nsync can go

PusForLunch: no- paris jumped it. i founbd her amusing for a while but she's gone too far

PusForLunch: and like their bodies all found rutting and heroin needles sticking out of their eyes and stuff. oprajh could have a big 'souvenir of oprahs color purple' dildo jammed in her. oprahs dildo of the month club

YellowGerbil: lol

PusForLunch: paris does make we wonder when we get a drag queen called Chelsea Hotel though....

PusForLunch: paris's dregged out sister.

YellowGerbil: oooh!

PusForLunch: hooked on downers and gin, perhaps?

PusForLunch: i think it's going to turn out that chopin was working on a bomb musical when he was at HC. so far only adding clues to a hypothesis

YellowGerbil: very interesting

PusForLunch: but i think he was probably there while he worked on a flop called 'irene' with barbara cook and wally harper.

PusForLunch: i didnt even know chopin did musicals- even though ive heard babs tell the story on an album a zillion times

YellowGerbil: me either

PusForLunch: it only registered since i started thinking about him.

PusForLunch: otherwise- i had an idea for a chelsea hotel video game

PusForLunch: level 1- you are sid vicious and must collect enough shots to get up the strength to find and stab nancy

YellowGerbil: lol

PusForLunch: level 2- you are janis joplin and must get your bourbon back to your room from the deli without any of the alcoholics in the building stealing it

PusForLunch: you are edie. you have to get it together to run around the hotel selecting an edie suitable outfit and eyeliner. apply eyeliner to go to next level...

PusForLunch: etc

YellowGerbil: hehe

PusForLunch: collect enough amphetamine tablets to write 'on the road' and then flee outraged critics and pople who like punctuation in books.

YellowGerbil: lol i think you must make more levels and send it to sony

PusForLunch: be bob dylan- your job is to get as many poeople as possible hooked on heroin before boring the entire lobby to death

Self generated Aphorism Number Two

if the picture doesn't add up it's probably not because you lack adding skills.

Arseholeus Maximus

And just say he was an unemployed black guy from the Bronx... ? Would justice be so temperate? Not in the NY I saw... Scary thing is, Mme Bedsore very nearly ended up at this venue on the evening of the phone hurling in question but chose instead, to take drinks at a Greenwhich Square dive bar with a drunken Vietnam vet who sang Billy Joel songs. T'was Tonys evening you see, these kinds of things happen...

Found in the Gutter:

Russell Crowe's Hollywood career is back on track after he walked out of a New York court today with just a slap on the wrist for an incident which could have ended his prospects in the United States.

The Academy Award-winning actor pleaded guilty today to reduced misdemeanour charges for hitting hotel clerk Nestor Estrada with a telephone in June this year and was fined $US160 ($218).

Crowe, the star of such movies as A Beautiful Mind and Gladiator, was given a conditional discharge by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Kathryn Freed and told he must avoid arrest for a year.

He could have faced up to one year of being roughly fucked in prison on the reduced charges.

Crowe originally was charged with a felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon - the phone - and could have faced up to seven years of oral and anal humiliation in jail if convicted.

Crowe, wearing a navy blue suit and grey tie, sat in court next to his wife, Danielle Spencer.

During the brief appearance of no more than three or four minutes, the actor appeared relaxed.

Crowe nodded as Judge Freed asked: "Do you admit that on June 6, 2005 at the Mercer Hotel [you did] throw a phone at the complainant?"He also conceded that he had caused physical injury.

Assistant District Attorney Chad Sjoquist told the judge that he regretted having an unpronounceable name and the prosecution agreed to the plea deal because Crowe had no prior criminal record.

After sentencing was handed down, Crowe kissed his wife - the woman he was trying to call before using the phone in frustration as a weapon - before leaving the court without talking to reporters.

The actor was spirited out the back of the courtroom and down a rear stairway. He left out of the back of the courthouse, jumping into a huge black sport utility vehicle that sped away.

If Crowe, who makes about $US20 million ($27.27 million) a movie, had been convicted of a felony the US Government could have barred him from working in America.

His lawyer Gerald Lefcourt told reporters that Crowe was now free to travel and work in America on condition that he is muzzled while in public.

"He is very happy to have this behind him; he can now go on with his life. It is not going to prevent him from doing whatever it is that he wants to do, and he was quite looking forward to the anal humiliation" Lefcourt said.

Crowe was in New York at the time of the incident to promote Cinderella Man and said he lost his temper because the phone in his $US3,000 a night hotel suite in SoHo's Mercer Hotel failed to allow him to call his wife back in Sydney.

The 41-year-old left his room and confronted 28-year-old Estrada in the hotel's foyer.
Crowe threw the phone at Estrada, striking him in the face.

"This is possibly the most shameful situation I've ever gotten myself in in my life, and I've done some pretty dumb things in my life," Crowe told US TV talkshow host David Letterman, days after the incident.

Crowe was arrested and spent the morning locked up in a Manhattan police station cell, before being paraded past about 100 photographers and media representatives in handcuffs to his first court appearance.

Crowe has been contrite since his arrest, which sparked headlines around the world like "Jerkus Maximus" "Anus Maximus" and "Psycrowe".

He had before today's hearing settled a civil suit with Estrada which earned the concierge $US100,000.

Lefcourt said Crowe was travelling home to Australia later today.

Australia said that America could keep him and issued yet another statement reminding the world that New Zealand is to blame for Russs.

I am anus maximus. Thrower of phones and lover of small farm animals.

Pedants Paradise #1

click to enlarge

Courtesy of GoogleEarth, one of TrashPapaya's favoured time-wasters: Casa Carrie from the air.

The PrinceS Highway is marked in pink- hard to miss, I think you'll agree.

[The green blob marks my unit. I'm on level five, so I look over the highway to the toxic wastedump. For an inner-city outlook I am incredibly priviliged to see green and space, albeit toxic green space!]

One definite feature of this blogzine is going to be the indulgence of my compulsion to pedantry.

Before the moaning begins, I probably need issue a statement of intent that clears me of too much return critique... :-) I don't expect that all language should be perfect. That would stop the growth of language and be a major loss to humanity. The idea that correct standards exists in such a pluralist society may even be difficult. The major goal must always be communication.

HOWEVER, some incorrect usages can be avoided and should be avoided because they degrade the power of language and can lead to confusion. This one is, I think, a good example.

I live on the Princes [note the single S] Highway, a giant road that crosses most of Sydney. Very often, it is mistakenly called PrincesS Hway. On one level this might be a trivial error. When you live here and discover the incredible bureaucratic hassles that can emerge when people enter an incorrect / conflicting street name into a database it stops being trivial- it has cost me a lot of time, money and effort.

On this mornng's crap breakfast TV that I really shouldn't watch except that it's on after the Katie Couric show, the traffic announcer has been saying 'PrincesS Highway' all morning. Just over an hour ago I snapped and sent the following email to the program:

Hi,

I was hoping that word could be passed to the Sydney traffic-watch reporter that it is Princes Hway NOT Princess as he is inclined to say. I understand that I may seem petty but the confusion can make like very difficult for those of who live here, especially in this age of databasing.

kind thanks

Mme Bedsore

On the last report he said it correctly! Pedantry is so seldom rewarded I nearly coughed coffee through my nose in shock!

And really, the man is a traffic reporter. His entire job is to read a traffic report every half hour. I don't think that it's unreasonable that he makes the effort to get the name of one of the city's most important roads right. But then, his sole qualification for the job seems to be his status as an ex footballer...

All aboard the handbasket!

Is this your Pussy?

The Mystery Pussy...