The He Generation, By Him.

Darlings, Little Dougie suggested I review the new book by Our Mutual Friend (a lovely Charles Dickens novel I also heartily recommend to those of you desperate enough to read books. How well I remember Charlie reading it to me by candlelight, installment by installment, as he wrote it, after long sessions of Barnaby Rudging my brains out! That man was Oliver Twisted. He had Great Sexpectations. In fact... What? I haven't even used Hard Times yet. Oh, all right!), Ken Levine, as he has been so kind about our books. I had two small problems with this plan:

1. It's about life in Los Angeles for a teenager in the 1960s. I was - ah - past my teen years by the 1960s, and spent those years in Europe and Los Angeles starring in high-class movies like Edgar Allen Poe's The Premature Climax, Torah, Torah Torah (It's the story of Moses with divine Steve Reeves as My Deliverer), It Sounds Like Music, and Fiddler on a Hot Tin Roof. The number of proms and sock-hops I attended in the '60s is in the low single-digits. (Though NOT "Zero".)

2. It would require me to read an entire book, and I'm lucky to read an entire sentence. Focusing my eyes enough to read more than one, easily-recognized word at a time, like, say "Vodka" or "Gin" for completely random examples, is more than I can manage most days. Little Dougie types up these blog entries for me from my semi-live (the jury is still out on my latest autopsy - I have them regularly, like check-ups, which will save time then the times comes) dictation.

Now Little Dougie is a mere three and a half months younger than Little Kenny - Face it, they're both VERY old, old men - and also grew up in Southern California, and Dougie reads books all the time, for reasons that utterly elude me, so I suggested he read Ken's pamphlet and review it here himself. So Here's Little Dougie, taking over this column, for today ONLY!

Here are the opinions of other people about Ken's book, from the back cover. Even though Bob Costas likes it, it's still a good book anyway.
Having trouble reading darling Howard Kaylan's (I adore Little Howard) remarks, particularly when the light-blue font is spread across a light-blue background? Thank whomever the book cover designer was who forgot that Blurbs need to be EASILY readable in order to SELL BOOKS, not simply to "look cool".

Hi. "Little Dougie" here. I did read Ken Levine's new memoir, The Me Generation... By Me: Growing Up in the '60s, which makes me a luckier person than those of you who have not read it, except for those of you whom will eventually read it, as you are the luckiest of all, since you still have the treat of its first-read ahead. Sadly, you can never read anything for the first time twice.

Last year, like all literate Americans, I read Ken's book of travel pieces, Where the Hell Am I?, which is also the title of chapter 42 of my book, Tallulah's first memoir, My Lush Life, thus demonstrating that great minds think alike even when severely disoriented. It was a collection of very funny, snarky, irreverent, jokey observations made during trips to various locales, running between two and six pages each, essentially blog pieces assembled, albeit, very funny and entertaining blog pieces.

Having read many of the chapters of The Me Generation in advance in Ken's popular blog, By Ken Levine, I expected his new book again to be a series of thematically-unified separate essays on various events, aspects, and stuff related to being an LA Tennybopper in the 1960s. However, Ken's new book is much more than that. This time out the individual essays are pieces of a greater whole. Much as Ray Bradbury's linked short stories when assembled makes a novel of The Martian Chronicles, so do Ken's essays add up to a narrative of coming of age, though not one likely to be confused with Catcher in the Rye. It's much, much funnier for one thing. And as for Bradbury, well, Ken's Woodland Hills in the 1960s is even more believably alien than Bradbury's Mars.

I eargerly await the sequel: "Trips I Have Not Survived!

(And not-coincidentally, Where the Hell Am I? is still available, and is still highly entertaining. At 2 to 6 pages each, the essays are perfect bathroom-break reading, and I keep my copy in the "Bathroom Literature" stack outside the bathroom door for grabbing-on-the-way-in. Ken's book is so much fun, you'll pray for constipation.)

After 130 pages, you'll get permanent agoraphobia and never leave your house again or your money back!

(Offer not valid in Georgia or Alaska.)  

Ken's new book has two basic audiences: People who also grew up in those days revisiting their youths, for whom it is The Me Generation... By Me, and people who weren't around then, for whom it is a guided tour of an alien culture on an alien planet in a parallel universe: "The Past," people for whom it is The Them Generation, By Another One A Them! (In his brilliant play I Hate Hamlet, Paul Rudnick has a TV producer say: "Wow, people who aren't me. What a concept!") Since I belong solidly in the first category, I must remark on it from that perspective. For how good it is as a guide to those who never knew those days, you must look elsewhere. But from either perspective, the jokes are friggin' funny.

Ken covers his own life from the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963 (Or, if you're a hardcore TV sci-fi geek who isn't all that into "history and stuff," The Day Doctor Who Debuted, November 23, 1963), until Midnight, December 31, 1969, which Ken pinpoints as his "End of the Sixties," though, as we were all pedantically informed and informed back on January 31, 1999, "The decades don't change until 2001!" "Yeah, yeah. Eat me, Pythagoras!"

Ken is 13 as the book begins and 19 at its close, so it is truly a chronicle of puberty and sexual coming-of-age, with jokes, lots of jokes, funny jokes. The youthful protagonist is laughing away blue-balls for 300 pages.

Which brings me to my own point-of-view as a reader: learning what it was like to grow up when I did near where I did, only straight.

Man. I thought we had it bad, what with homophobia and being offically culturally invisible and all, but after reading Ken's hilarious account of growing up breeder, I would not trade.

For instance: I don't recall ever having blue balls, or wet dreams either. I'm not saying I never came home from a date hornier than when I left, but not often, and not for long. Gay guys got laid. Right off. At puberty. With each other. When you don't have to play The Relationship Game to get laid, you get laid much, much more easily, and often. (I maintain that the REAL root cause of homophobia in straight men is unconscious jealousy of the ease with which gay guys can get laid.)

Also, I was in the Drama Department in high school. Guys, you straight guys out there, I'm talking to YOU! You wanna get laid in high school? Get into the Drama Department. Appear in the plays or work on the crews. Trust me. Never mind your dopey jock sports. Come to the Drama Department if you're serious about wanting sex. 50% to 80% of the "actresses" in high school are "Free Spirits" who believe in having sex without waiting for a diamond ring, or the Lunch Bell.

AND THE GUYS ARE ALL GAY!

You have NO competition for the girls! (And the gay guys will blow you secretly, backstage, when there are no girls available. Tell no one. By which I mean, tell everyone.)

The book is a guided tour of that bygone era from a very specific point-of-view, so you get a lot more on The Lloyd Thaxton Show than on war strategy or sociology or heavy drama, not that those weighty topics are wholly missing, not by a long shot. But you know, speaking as someone who was 13 in 1963 and 19 in 1969 also, The Lloyd Thaxton Show was a daily part of our lives, as much as The Mickey Mouse Club and The Soupy Sales Show had been before it, and chronicles of The Lloyd Thaxton Show are rare.

I admit to being brought up short when Ken criticized Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In as "the unfunniest sketch comedy show ever." Back in my day, sonny boy, that was heresy. But you know, I've got a few Laugh-Ins sitting round on DVD. Let's take a look.

That's my boss, mentor, friend, and ticket-of-entree to the Laugh-In set, Dick Whittington, at the top of the ladder in 1968.  Glad to say, he's still alive. I was present in the room when this picture was taken.

The one, the only Gary Owens, Ken's friend, boss, mentor and ticket-of-entree to the Laugh-In set. Gary is also known to friends and fans as "Garish." There is NO ONE else like Garish! Glad to say he's still alive also.

There is no way to explain Tiny Tim to anyone not around in 1968. Children saw this - ah - man on TV. I stood in line to get his autograph on his record album after paying perfectly good money to see him "in concert" at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

What were we thinking? (Not the peak of Goldie's career, but Ken, those memories!)

Okay, the musical numbers weren't exactly Sondheim, but they were by the great Billy Barnes (who only just passed away last month), and were peppy and amusing. This one was about clowns. No really. Clowns. (But it was not Send in the Clowns, more like Lose the Clowns!)

"Was that a chicken joke?"

(No, it wasn't. No one ever dared tell a chicken joke around her for some reason. Look, I love JoAnne, who has been exceedingly nice to me my whole life, but she can be a tad over-powering. Just saying.)

"Say 'Goodnight, Dick'."
"That reminds me of a dick my aunt once sucked."
Schlatter: "And we're off the air!"

Oops.

Ah, this is a hell of a fun party with lots of funny folks who are enjoyable to spend time with and all but... these comedy sketches are lousy: obvious, ancient, overly-inoffensive, and broader than The Mouth of the Amazon River. There's more cutting-edge political satire and hilarious wit stuffed into a single Pat Paulson editorial on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in that era than on the whole of Laugh-In's run put together. (Mind you, a trip through the Smothers Brothers' DVDs reveals that their big, guest-star-driven comedy sketches are pretty grizzly affairs also, sub-Carol Burnett Show work. It is the Pat Paulson solo pieces that not only still hold up, but still hit it out of the park.)

With Laugh-In, Ken and I share a weird coincidental similarity (one of several), we were both allowed at ages 18 and 19 to hang on the Laugh-In set, over on Stage 4 at NBC in Burbank in 1968 and '69, Ken via his radio mentor, Gary Owens, me via my radio mentor, "Sweet Dick" Whittington. We must have been in some of the same rooms at the same time, but never met. Well, when Jack Benny or Ethel Merman or Nancy Sinatra or Lena Horn or Sonny & Cher or Kate Smith or Sammy Davis Jr or Douglas Fairbanks Jr, or even just JoAnne Worley may appear at any moment, and Alan Sues won't leave, who's going to notice that other 19 year old, also soaking it all in? Not me. Not Ken. However, I was not present when Ken's "Greatest Goldie Hawn Story Ever" event happened. I won't spoil it here, but the tale lives up to its title. I can't top that one.

I was hugely amused by Ken's tale of being intimidated when his high school team had to play at Manuel Arts High School, and when, having scored an unlikely win over these black athletic giants, the team's coach advised the players to skip changing or showering, just get on the bus and get away now, fast! MOVE! My dad, as wimpy a skinny, white science-nerd guy as ever lived, graduated from Manuel Arts High School. His tales of it were less exciting. (Of course, he went there a generation earlier, and my dad's tales of ANYTHING were less exciting. My dad made World War II sound dull. My dad thought mathematics was fun! As a raconteur my dad was beaten out by tapioca pudding that has gone off.)

Ken takes us back to so much: the Beatlemania of the Beatles' first visit to America in 1964. (Ken's "inside information" sends him on a hilarious wild goose chase); the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, in which, we now know, civilization and humanity really did tremble on the brink of extinction, subject to a madman's whim; KFWB vs KHJ for the rock 'n' Roll teenage listeners. Ken was a KHJ-er, I was a dye hard KFWB-er, thanks largely to Lohman & Barkley, with KRLA as my backup solely because of the geniuses that were The Credibility Gap. (Harry Shearer, Richard L. Bebe, David L. Landers and Michael McKean, so no one that ever went anywhere or did anything or is any kind of comic genius ner nothin'.)

Ken tells of a miserable two weeks he spent staying with his grandparents in Hemet, the most-boring place on earth. Argh! Two weeks? You pussy, Levine! I lived in Hemet for 8 YEARS! I do not fear death; I've already done my time in Purgatory.

In praising the professionalism of long-time KTTV 1950s and '60s stalwart Bill Welsh, Ken asks "How do you ask Gypsy Boots what his next project is with a straight face?" As it happens I worked a number of times with the garrulous, friendly, sweet, hot-in-his-day (LONG ago!), truly insane Gypsy Boots. Here's how you asked Gypsy Boots what his next project was with a straight face. You put the camera on Gypsy alone. Then it didn't matter if you had a straight face or not. (Gypsy wouldn't have cared. As long as you were pointing a microphone and/or a camera at him, you were His Best Friend.) You'd say: "Tell us about your next project, Gypsy." Then you could go to lunch or take a nap or read a book or start a new country or say "Uh-huh" occasionally or tour Lichtenstein or marry, have children, grow old and die peacefully surrounded by your scores of apple-cheeked grandchildren or do anything you liked. Gypsy, without any further prompting from you whatsoever, would then speak at five times the rate at which humans can hear until you one day pried the microphone from his cold dead hands. And it didn't matter if he had no "next project," or even a current one, one would pour out of his mouth like water over Niagara Falls. Slooooowly he turns...

This may be a first in a '60s memoir, but Ken claims "not" to have been at Woodstock. Yeah, sure. I wasn't there either, Ken. [Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink] Kids, by which I mean everyone under 55, when a Baby Boomer tells you he or she was not at Woodstock, they're bullshitting you. It's a scientifically-established fact that everyone born between 1945 and 1955 was at Woodstock. Some of us were even there more than once. (Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey stuff. Don't ask.)

I'm working at a small disadvantage here in trying to convince you that Ken's narrative of searching for sex and a professional direction through girlfriend after girlfriend and teenage job after teenage job is a highly entertaining, consistently make-laughing-noises-with-your-voice funny, once in a while even moving story. (He assures us he has changed a few names. I'm assuming one of the changed names is for the high school girl he repeatedly tells us had had sex with her own brother.) It's known that Ken has gone on record a few times in praise of my own meager efforts. Oh Look; here's what I mean.

How did the back cover of my own soon-(Honest! Really soon now!)-to-be-published book Tallyho, Tallulah! get in here? Oh please, boys, all that praise! You're making me blush. Stop! Stop now or I'm leaving! Oh, ya got me, you scamps.

As you can see, Ken has been free with his praise, and I could be perceived as merely returning praise-for-praise rather than honestly assessing Ken's funny book. So, though it pains me as it does, I must, to restore my critical credibility, level some gratuitous negative remarks at this book. Brace yourselves. I shall be brutal, BRUTAL!

Ah... Hmm... Uh... Oh, yes, the proof-reading! Yes, it really needed another pass under a good solid proof-reader. Here and there were italicized words where the accompanying punctuation mark wasn't italicized. "The musical Annie!" as opposed to "The Musical Annie!" There were occasional italicized words that were missing the spaces before or after them: "What theHell are you talking about?" or "Go fuckyourself, Miss Grundy!"

And then, on page 279 we find this excuse for a sentence: "Like most kids of my generation, the Three Stooges were gods." Now, unless Ken means to tell us that most Baby Boomers were gods, which frankly, I doubt on every level, that sentence is missing two words, and should say: "Like most kids of my generation, I thought the Three Stooges were gods." How DARE they try to sell such half-assed proof-reading to the American book-reading public for money? I demand a public investigation, indictments, arrests, free booze.

There! See? I was mean and hyper-critical just like I would be with anyone's work. As it happens, I was a professional proof-reader at The Hollywood Reporter about three decades ago. It gets in your blood. Also, I spent about half the summer straining my eyes to try and rid the published edition of Tallyho, Tallulah! of all such similar typos and oversights. They become hard to miss once you are not looking for them. (As long as you are looking for them, they are God-damned elusive.) I'm sorry.

As regards The Three Stooges. Ken brings them up in the context of driving Moe Howard to a radio interview in his own (Ken's, that is) car. OK, when I was 9 years old, I loved The Three Stooges. We got them on TV in Los Angeles in those days on a one-hour show nightly (running 4 shorts each broadcast, or was it 2?), hosted by Don Lamond, a mildly smarmy announcer personality who had the bonifides to host The Three Stooges because he was Larry Fine's son-in-law. Yup, pretty cool. His children had Stoogeblood.

But my admiration for The Three Stooges did not survive puberty. Really. I have not watched one of their shorts in 40 years. My love for Laurel & Hardy is as great today as it was when I was 5. My adoration of Abbott & Costello, though reduced from what it was as a boy, nonetheless remains embedded in me. My worship of The Marx Brothers (who are the ones who replaced the Stooges in my heart), WC Fields and Buster Keaton only grow greater with the passing of years. The Stooges have bored me since Puberty.

Also, around the time puberty hit, I saw the Three Stooges perform live onstage - without sound effects! In the early 1960s, without sound effects, The Three Stooges were just three old, old men hitting each other pointlessly. It was not remotely funny. My love of them really was not up to the strain of surviving that.

On the other hand, if in 1969 I had driven Moe Howard in my own car, and he had sat in the front seat and called me "Boychick", I most certainly would have been jazzed out of my head. In 1974, Adela Rogers St. John rode in the front seat of my car as I drove her to a radio interview. She was witty, erudite, friendly, and had known everyone of importance in the 20th Century, from Louis B. Mayer to Richard Nixon, personally. ("The morning Watergate broke, I got on the phone to Nixon. I said to him, 'Dick, you have to get in front of this. Tell the whole truth now!") She didn't call me "boychick," but she did invite me to eat lunch with her afterwards in her home, cooked and served by her cook. ("You're sitting in Clark Gable's favorite chair. That's where he sat whenever he was here.")

But, cool as she was, Adela was no Moe Howard. Not once had she ever poked Betty Davis in the eyes, nor had she ever even smacked Eleanor Roosevelt over the head with a sledge hammer that makes a "Boing!" sound effect. (The Secret Service really frowns rather strictly on throwing slapstick gags at the First Family anyway. Those spoil sports have no sense of humor at all.)

I did drive John Cassevettes in my car to a radio interview once, but he sat in the back, and barely spoke to me. And frankly, the less conversation there was, the less likely I was to say "I saw your film Husbands last week. That was the most pretentious, boring, self-indulgent piece of narcissistic crap I have ever sat through. Might you refund my money, please?" which he might have taken offense to. (About five years ago, my brother introduced me to Larry Hagman. I mentioned to him that I had seen the comedy Son of Blob, aka Beware The Blob, which he had directed. Larry immediately said: "Do you want your money back? 'Cause I'll write ya a check right now." I turned Larry down. It's a funny movie. I liked it. But if Cassevettes had offered me my money back on Husbands, I'd have taken it.)

You, however, will not want your money back from "He" for buying The Me Generation... By Me. Unless you're a humorless lout yourself, in which case, that's on you.

The beat goes on. Oh yes, the beat goes on...
[You can purchase The ME Generation... By ME here.]

Ken Levine and Tallulah Morehead at a literary conference.

“Re-Imagining” The Tony Awards, 2012

The Tonys are always lovely. We get to see musical numbers, mostly not about Mormons, and scenes from far away shows, yet it always languishes in the ratings. The problem is, obviously, that America hasn’t seen these shows. In most of the country, they generate about as much enthusiasm as would an awards banquet for a high school theater department from another state. The Oscars struggle in the ratings, and America has seen the movies. The Tonys never have a chance.


But I'll keep watching them, if only to see what Angela Lansbury will be wearing, and to see what the Ahmanson and Pantages Theaters in my home town, Los Angeles, will be presenting with different casts and scaled-down sets in two years. (The Pantages has The Addams Family playing right now. Does it star Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth? No. Douglas Sills and Sara Gettelfinger. Oooh. There’s the sort of excitement to coax $60 out of one’s pocket.)


I know that the musical The Book of Mormon is a satirical show from the creators of South Park. I know that many people whose opinions I value and respect praise it to the skies as brilliant. I really do know this. But still, the title and the “Hello, My name is Elder Price” stuff make my skin crawl. (Nothing like seeing a brainless 20 year old calling himself an “elder” for sheer creepiness.) If the show were what I need it to be for me to like it, Mormons would be picketing it, and attacking it in the press as a “libel” on Mormonism, and I’ve seen none of that.


Still, watching a parade of Broadway stars slam their doors in the faces of these creepy Mormon missionaries made me smile. I’ve slammed a few doors into a few Mormon missionaries’ faces myself, though if possible, I’d douse them with a pitcher of ice water first. Setting them on fire is still sadly illegal, even though it is legal for them to campaign against the civil rights of gay people. (My father’s family was Mormon. My dad was born in Salt Lake City and I’m directly descended from HIGHLY prominent early Mormon polygamists. I’ve been putting up with my smug, evil Mormon relatives all my life. I’ve earned the right to douse them with ice water.)


So I just couldn’t fully enjoy the Tony’s opening musical number. I want to like the musical The Book of Mormon, but it’s like trying to like a musical titled The Satanic Bible. If only they’d set a couple of them on fire, saying: “This is for Proposition 8” as they struck the match.


Then out came openly-gay Neil Patrick Harris, dressed like one of these skin-crawly kids who are a big part of making his marriage illegal in California and where ever else their money and evil influence pollutes America. Why didn’t he say: “Get out of here, you mother-F*@king @$$holes”? I know they’re just actors, but what they represent is evil, and spends millions annually to fight NPH’s civil rights. I just don’t find it funny. The audience was applauding (though not, I noticed, Phillip Seymour Hoffman), I was booing at home.


I really don’t get all the love for NPH as a Tony host. He isn’t bad. He’s personable and pleasant. But I would vastly prefer Nathan Lane or a naked Hugh Jackman. (Please don’t confuse them. A naked Nathan Lane would not be appreciated, nor a dressed Hugh Jackman.)

Hugh cleanses his big one.

Jon Voight was there? How did they get him? Did someone tell him it was a Teabagger rally?


My, hasn’t Patti Lupone packed on a few pounds? Glad I wasn’t one of the dancers who had to heft her up into the air, or did they reuse Mary Poppins’s cables?

"Don't [Grunt] Crush me, [Gasp! Pant!], Argentina!"
(Thank Heavens NPH is light in his loafers.)

Neil’s musical number wasn’t particularly clever or well-written, but it was amusingly danced, and Neil only needed a couple more rehearsals to stop tripping over lyrics and jumping cues.


Paul Rudd: "What does that mean: ‘Featured Actress in a Play’?” Oh no. They aren’t going to waste time explaining to us what everyone there and everyone watching already knows are they?


Yes, they are.


Paul darling, you’re adorable, but if you’re going to waste my time explaining the bleeding obvious in tired awards-show banter, please, do it naked or get off the stage.

Paul Rudd wants to show you his Best Featured Performer in a Supporting Role.

Linda Emond was nominated for Best Featured Actress in a Play, Pageant or Piano Recital for playing Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman? That’s a leading role, not a “featured” one.


Judith Light, who won that category, said she felt like she was “the luckiest girl in New York City.” Was this because she no longer has to act with Tony Danza? (“Girl?” Judith is 63!) She then went on to use CBS prime network time to thank the box office personnel and the understudies. She’s had 6 decades to edit this speech down.


Newsies is a new concept for finding a musical; instead of making a stage musical out of a beloved hit movie, this one was based on a forgotten bomb of a movie. Can a stage production of Bugsy Malone be far behind?


We got a really good idea of just whom CBS thinks watches the Tonys when we got the commercial in which respected character actor Ronald Guttman slipped on a rubber glove and asked: “Embarrassed by a prostate exam? Imagine how your doctor feels.” Hey, that doctor CHOSE to be a proctologist. He must have had a reason, though I'd rather not know what it was. I’m sure this was meaningful to every woman in the viewership. Little Dougie tells me his doctor is only embarrassed by how much Dougie enjoys the exam. He keeps telling Dougie: “You don’t need one EVERY time you come to the office.” (And how appropriate to have an actor named “Guttman” doing an ad for prostate exams. Was Dame Edna busy?)


Neil Patrick Harris: “So every year, I like to come out.” Once was enough, Neil. We all got it. You’re gay.


Danny Burstein’s performance of Buddy’s Blues from Follies was terrific. I’d love to see that. When does it close in L.A.? Yesterday? Never mind.


So there’s a musical on Broadway based on Ghost, and it includes the ancient Unchained Melody in its score? Does it contain any original content at all?


Mike Nichols looked awful. I hope he’s okay. The man is a genius. He made me roar with laughter two years ago with Spamalot. (It took it awhile to hit the Ahmanson.) This time he was winning for directing Death of a Salesman, about as far away from Spamalot as you can get. If only he’d never broken up his act with Elaine May, he might have amounted to something.

I still have this album in vinyl, though 40 minutes is hardly "an evening," however brilliantly funny it is. (I love that the album cover says "Original Cast". Was there a road company of An Evening With Mike Nichols and Eliane May, starring Orson Bean and Jayne Meadows?)

They actually had the nerve to play off Mike Nichols? Nothing like seeing a giant drowned out by Lilliputians.


Ok, NPH’s Spider-Man line made me laugh. And there’s something appealingly tone-deaf-to-taste in doing a joke about your “junk” as you introduce 300 year old Angela Lansbury.

"Ya gotta be well-liked, Spidey!"

The guy from Smash! beat out Spider-Man for a Tony? I guess the Broadway community is very forgiving. So he plays Captain Hook disguised as Groucho Marx? I’m confused.


And was Andrew Garfield nominated for Death of a Spider-Man?

Andrew Garfield makes for one buff Biff! But I'm supposed to believe that Phillip Seymour Hoffman fathered this guy? Willy Loman was on the road a good deal with just a shoeshine and a smile (Which would get you arrested in most cites. Also we know he traveled well-stocked with nylons), and the play makes it clear that he cheated on Linda while he was gone. This photo makes me wonder if Linda didn't have a hunky mailman or milkman making "special deliveries" while Willy was out working his willy on the road.

George Gershwin had TWO new musicals on Broadway this year? Not bad for a guy who’s been dead for 75 years. So many long-dead people get so LAZY! My dead grandfathers haven’t lifted a finger in decades, and I’m still waiting for Charles Dickens to get off his ass and finish The Mystery of Edwin Drood. (I have five bucks on the butler having done it.) Just doing the occasional guest spot on Doctor Who doesn’t cut it, Charlie! (Okay, technically Porgy and Bess is not a “new” musical, but “Porgy and Bess Gutted for the Attention-Span-Deprived” is.)


Formerly-cute Matthew Broderick is packing on the pounds also. In fact, he appears to be morphing into Patti Lupone. So much for the myth that singing and dancing in a strenuous musical on Broadway 8 shows a week will keep you in shape. I’m now tossing out my Sarah Jessica Parker voodoo doll. Sarah, he's all yours.


Once does Newsies one better. While Newsies is based on a forgotten turkey of decades back that few saw, Once is based on a movie nobody saw at all. (Yes, I know it won an Oscar, but for “Best Song”. That's the same award they gave to It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp. Very highly-respected category. No one saw the movie; the Music Branch of the Academy just listened to the CD.)


Why was James Marsten presenting? He’s never appeared on Broadway. They had to use a movie credit to introduce him. Has he any stage credits anywhere? High school?


Did Ellen Barkin do her hair in a wind tunnel?


Okay, Peter and the Starcatcher is a “prequel” to Peter Pan, like Psycho IV: The Beginning. (Did no one learn the lessons of Hook?) In that case, why does Peter Pan, who went to Neverland according to James M. Barrie, who should know, as a tiny child, look 30? Shouldn’t he be, oh I don’t know, an INFANT? Oh wait. I see. They "re-imagined" it. Yes, Peter Pan was always so insufficiently imagined.


Hold your horses of a different color! In End of the Rainbow, Judy Garland is played by a WOMAN? That’s awfully outre casting. Traditionally,  Francis Gumm is a cross-dressing role like Edna in Hairspray, reserved solely for drag queens and John Travolta. And then she didn’t win, even though the Tonys were being handed out on Judy’s 90th birthday? (Actually, just from the small bit of it we saw, I wouldn’t have given it to her either. Judy was a lot better than that.)


“Craig Owens,” aka James Corden, is acting on Broadway (apparently playing two roles at once)? Then who is protecting Colchester from the Cybermen, and raising Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All?

James Corden, aka, "Craig Owen," thwarts the Cybermen's evil plans to conquer Colchester.

Is winning the Best Original Score Tony still an honor when it’s presented by Sheryl Crow?


So slashing up Porgy and Bess like Norman Bates slimming down Janet Leigh in the shower, is really “re-imagining” it? Like imagining it as half as long? Why not just call it “Porgy an”? I bet the Gershwins would call it something else, something far-less broadcastable, even on cable. I can hear George and Ira somewhere saying: “If we’d wanted it gutted, and then rewritten by hacks, we would have gutted it ourselves, and then hired hacks to rewrite it.” I’ve seen several different productions of it, and not once have I found myself thinking: “This would be so much better if they just hacked it to pieces.” BTW, the “excerpt” they performed from it on the Tony Show is now the whole thing.


Audra McDonald is so magnificent, she really should consider appearing in Porgy and Bess sometime.

I noticed on a commercial break that Paul Tazewell lost the Costume Design Tony for the revival of A Streetcar Named Desire. (Which has also been somewhat “re-imagined”.) I know why. It was for putting Blair Underwear in tank-tops when he should have been shirtless - and pantsless. (Though I can see the visual pun of putting Stanley No-Longer-Kowalski-Because-It’s-“Re-Imagined” in a "wife-beater", but I’d rather see his pecs, thank you.)

Blair Underwood as he should be costumed.
(Sweet bleeding Williams, he's beautiful! Not that that's news.)

Why was Tyler Perry presenting? The show was running on CBS, not TBS.


How did Death of a Salesman win Best Revival? Sure it’s one of the three greatest plays ever written by an American, but they forgot to “re-imagine” it. It almost seems as though they thought that Arthur Miller had already imagined it sufficiently the first time out. The least they could have done would have been to cut it’s running time by 50% and make it about a travelling pimp.


After listening to the Once musical number I decided that sometimes Once is more than enough. Who knew they had Irish marching bands? It was like a halftime show at a rugby match in Dublin.


Why did I bet so heavily on Spider-Man: Turn Off That God-Damn Dark sweeping the Tonys?


Donyale Werle (there’s a name you don’t see everyday. Well, she does), in her acceptance speech for Best Scenic Design of a Play, said: “This is a show that doesn’t need any scenery at all.” Was she bragging about pulling a fast one on the producers and the Tony voters? What’s next for her? Our Town?

How does Jim Parsons, who is starring in Harvey, do a Broadway show in New York and a sitcom in Los Angeles at the same time? Does he have a grueling daily commute, or is he playing Harvey’s title role? (I've always wanted to see Lembeck: a play about a sweet middle-aged drinker who thinks his best friend is an invisible Harvey Lembeck.)

Get a shave, hippie!

You know, if the Che Guevara had looked anywhere near as hot as Ricky Martin does, I’d have had those 1960s Che posters all over the place. If Che looked exactly like Ricky, I’d have been riding with he and Fidel. Well, with Che. Fidel, not so much. How fortunate Che wasn’t actually hot at all. (And was it just me, or was Ricky looking a bit like Jean Dujardin?)

You don't Che!

Corbin Bleu, who stars in Godspell, is adorable. If only he were starring in a musical I could stand. I want more "spell", much less "god".

Corbin Bleu in black and white with all his hair on his head, and in color with some hair moved from his scalp to his cleavage and crab ladder. I prefer his hairier look. He could cast a spell on me that could make me see God!

Have I ever mentioned how deeply I can not stand Mandy Patinkin? He was on for 30 seconds, and I was irritated enough to change channels, except I was writing this for YOU, my loyal readers whom I know weren't watching this, as no one was. Oh, the grueling sacrifices I make for you dears.


Porgy An won Best Revival of a Musical? Shouldn’t it have won Best Partial Revival of What Once Was an Opera? All through the producer’s acceptance speech, I wanted to slap him. This time I supported playing him off. He doesn’t want the Gershwins to run on too long, but he’s okay with doing it himself, dispensing bullshit about “bringing it into the 21st Century.” Yes, the Gershwins so need your "help".


They took up time to show us bits of a CRUISE SHIP production of Hairspray? Why not a community theater production? Or a production staged by Spanky MacFarland and starring Alfalfa Schweitzer and Darla Hood? How about a cruise ship production of Titanic? The cruise ship excerpt was “live.” How I wish that when we’d cut to the show they would have been trying to perform in the midst of hurricane, with the stage violently rocking, and filling with seawater. And then Somalian pirates could run in and rob and rape the passengers! The Poseidon Hairspray. Oh, and the guy playing Corny Collins was pretty bad. That ship is as close to performing on Broadway as he’ll ever get.


Finally a meaningful, deserved award, namely a special award to Hugh Jackman for being Hugh Jackman. Works for me, except it was presented by that woman who claims to be his wife, or as I think of her, that slut who came between us. Sure, Hugh CLAIMS he loves her, but that's only because he’s afraid of her. Stalkers can be very scary. I know. It said so on that injunction she made Hugh take out against me a few years back, and renew every six months ever since. Hugh, I forgive you, and I have a “Special Award” for you right here, but you have to accept it in person - without HER! (And how great does his now-finished-shooting film of Les Miserables look? I love that show. I relate to it. I myself have often been called by my many lovers "Lay Miserable". And if Hugh was all that attached to the annoying woman, why didn’t he take her along to the shoot? Someone wanted a six month break from her. If only I’d known, I’d have come running, also while walking and even while standing still and/or reclining.)




Hugh Jackman damp. That's Entertainment!

 Candice Bergan looked pretty good, especially since I think she’s only about three hours younger than Angela Lansbury.


Holy Crap! James Cordon beat John Lithgow, Frank Langella (whose new book, Dropped Names, is a fascinating, fun read, highly recommended by moi), Darth Vader, and even Phillip Seymour Hoffman in one of the best-written roles of all time! Wow! I mean I like James and all. He is, after all, a personal friend of Doctor Who, but that, my friends, is what you call an upset! Hell, I thought Blair Underwood had a stronger chance of winning, and he wasn’t even nominated. Is this really for his acting, or is it for saving Colchester from the Cybermen?

James and The Doctor. The Doctor had to hide from James the fact that he was going to win a Tony. He knew, of course. He's a time traveller. Here he's "re-imagining" The Daleks.

Back home, Stormageddon: Dark Lord of All is so proud.


Did you see Darth Vader’s face when they said “James Corden”? It looked like he was asking his lady companion: “Who?” If you lip-read his companion, she’s saying: “He’s the fat English guy.”


On the other hand, James said of his girlfriend who gave birth to their kid some months back: “She’s my baby mama and I can’t wait to marry her.” Well, apparently he could.


How nice. The sublime Audra McDonald won a Tony for playing bits of Bess. Think how good she’d be if she played the entire role.


However, Audra was a bit guilty of over-sharing: “To be in love with Norm Lewis every night, to get raped by Phillip Boykin every night, and to snort drugs with David Alan Grier every night.” Hello? With all that going on backstage, how do they ever manage to perform even what little is left of the show? She then mentioned “the man I’m going to marry.” Is she still sure? He may have just changed his mind about 30 seconds before. Then she spoke to her 11 year-old daughter in the audience. Excuse me? Are these the sorts of confessions you make before your pre-pubescent daughter? (Frankly, even taken as jokes, it’s pretty gamy stuff to say in front of your 11 year-old daughter. “Mommy thinks getting raped and snorting narcotics is funny. Watch me make Mommy laugh.” Child Protection Services, clean up on Aisle 2.")


So, with the show already running over time, NPH once again felt the need to do a gratuitous finale number about having no time to do a gratuitous finale number. Neil, all anyone wants at 6 minutes after 11 is to get to the bar. Shut up. Stop showing off and leave the stage. The show has been over ever since they gave Best Musical to that Irish thing you couldn't pay me to sit through, and I'm half-Irish. (The thirsty half.)


Cheers, darlings.

"Let's see Matt Smith get one of these!"

And keep an eye out for Tallyho, Tallulah!, Tallulah's new memoir, coming out later this summer. Watch this space for purchasing information as soon as it becomes available.

Pip, Pip,Tut, Tut.

Low Expectations.

I'm watching this new BBC adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS with Gillian Anderson as a ridiculously too-young-and-glamorous Miss Havisham. There are obvious problems, like Pip looking more like a coked-out runway model than a blacksmith's apprentice...

Douglas Booth, aka "Pip" in this new Great Expectations, in the excellent Christopher Isherwood biopic Christopher and His Kind, based on Isherwood's wonderful memoir of the same title, where Dougie had rather a lot of gay sex with Doctor Who!

...but it has lots of atmosphere, the scenes are excitingly staged, David Suchet is giving an interesting performance as Jaggars, and they hew closely to the novel.


But, and this is a HUGE "BUT," they've eliminated ALL of Charles Dickens's dialogue! This is tantamount to doing Hamlet and tossing out all of Shakespeare's "tiresome" poetry and writing their own dialogue.


Message to ALL TV writers everywhere: You may think you can write better dialogue than Charles Dickens did. Well here's your Reality Check: YOU CAN'T!!!! There's a reason Dickens is revered as the greatest English-Language novelist in history and you are not: BECAUSE HE IS! Do NOT rewrite his dialogue! The EGO! To rewrite Dickensian dialogue!


And especially, do not put in anachronistic cliches!

Pip: "Yes, but..."
Jaggars: "No buts about it!" 

Pip: "Curiosity is natural under the circumstances..."
Jaggars: "Curiosity killed the cat."

Dickens never wrote that cliched, jarringly anachronistic crap.


Herbert Pocket is being well-played by a handsome and engaging young actor who happens to be Charles Dickens's Great-Great-Great-Grandson, Harry Lloyd. You may remember him in "The Family of Blood" on Doctor Who about five years ago. He should have DEMANDED his G-G-G-Grandfather's words be restored.

This man has Charles Dickens's genes in his DNA. He even looks like Young Dickens.

Young Charles Dickens. See!


 And in the program intro, Laura Linney said that Dickens "wrote over 15 best sellling novels." Excuuuuuse me! I have read every word of every novel Charles Dickens ever wrote, and there are fourteen and one-half novels by Charles Dickens, and ...that's all! He wrote a lot of short stories and novellas. At usually 100 pages, A Christmas Carol is a novella, not a novel!


Foutreen and a half are not "more than fifteen." They aren't even fifteen. They are fourteen and a half. At best, they are "a bit over fourteen." But yes, they are all best sellers, all fourteen and a half of them. (The "half" is The Mystery of Edwin Drood. He died when it was exactly half written. He took who done it and what they done with him to his grave.)

Charlie, thinking up better dialogue than 21st Century BBC writers can.

So listen, if you're going to do Charles Dickens, then do Charles Dickens. This is not an isolated incident. Three years ago I had to issue a similar spanking over a BBC TV adaptation of Little Dorrit which had done the same thing, as had a BBC TV Oliver Twist with a sexy Tom Hardy as Bill Sykes, all his disfiguring tattoos hidden. But my words, like those of Dickens, were ignored. I live in terror of the next BBC Dickens adaptaion being A Tale of Two Cities, and opening with : "It was a good time; it was bad time," and ending with "The thing I'm gonna do now is a whole lot better than all the stuff I did previously."
 
In the words of Star Kist: "Sorry, Charlie."
 
Cheers, darlings.

Charlie as drawn by Campbell Grant for Richard Armour's hilarious English Lit ReLit.

Scarlet Housewives

Ladies of Wisteria Lane.

Dana Delaney: "Ladies, you miss me?"

Me, watching at home: "No."

After 8 years of "Is it a soap? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama?", ABC's once-popular Desperate Housewives finally concluded forever last night, and none too soon. In fact, about two seasons too late. We were promised that the series finale would answer all our questions, but many remain: Did they all movie to Wisteria Lane by coincidence, or did Jacob bring them? Now that Mrs. McClusky is dead, will Hurley be the New Mrs. McClusky? And how original to let the Smokin' Monster escape and have all charges against her dismissed.

Little Dougie and I paid a little visit to Wisteria Lane with some friends back in April, out on the Universal Studios backlot. Although less exciting to visit than The Bates Motel..

"Norman, is that you?"

...or the plane crashed in a suburb from War of the Worlds...

Tom Cruise leaves a mess in suburbia. (That's Little Dougie, not Tom Cruise. Dougie is standing on top of Tom.)

...Wisteria Lane was the only set we visited that was actually in use, as Desperate Housewives wound up shooting its final episodes. We weren't allowed out of the golf cart to romp. Drat!

Closed now, forever.

Mrs. Ward Cleaver was shocked, shocked!, to see what has become of her neighborhood 50 years on!

What Little Dougie had in mind for Eva, I can not pretend to know. He barely noticed there were women on the show. Carlos Solis? Si! Gabrielle Solis? No!

The fact is, I had some major problems with how the plots wound up.

[Warning: Major Spoilers ahead. If you plan to watch the Desperate Housewives finale but have not yet, do not read further.]

Let's take the sluts one by one, shall we?

First off Lynette Schaivo.

"Controlling, manipulative bitch? Moi?"

When the show began, a hundred years ago, Lynette seemed like the sane, sensible one. Nope. It soon became apparent that she was every bit as total a Control Freak as the evil Bree, and had resolutely vowed NEVER to let her husband win ANYTHING! If she couldn't control his life and choices fairly, there was no vile tactic she would not stoop to to win, and utterly erase his choices from existence. (How perfect that Lynette worked in advertising, which is all about underhanded manipulation and lying.) She was a total bitch, but disguised as a loving wife and occasionally-loving mother. Why her sons didn't grow up gay, I can not imagine. Having this bitch control your every moment growing up ought to be enough to turn any boy gay. Hell, I don't know how her husband stayed straight. Oh wait. He used to be gay, back on the original Melrose Place.

Doug Savant remembers being gay with nostalgia.

The smartest thing Tom Schaivo ever did was to leave and divorce Lynette, who had made systematically castrating him her hobby and avocation in life. But I had no hope that it would stick. Despite the fact that his self-respect DEMANDED he leave the controlling bitch forever, he, oh-so-predictably, caved to TV necessity and went crawling back to her in the finale, Network TV's idea of a happy ending, even though it's really a tragic ending. Does being pussy-whipped really hurt anymore, when you've left your balls behind forever?

So that story ended predictably and unhappily. They then moved to New York City, where it will be easier for Lynette to pass as nice.

Whether new Baby Daddy Preston Schaivo moved with them, given his new-born baby, is unclear. I hope he stayed behind.

What a casting coup, to cast Young Matt Damon as the grown Schaivo Twins.

Let us move on to the least of the Housewives, the genuinely nicest but also the most-irritating: Susan.

Susan Mayer in less-desperate days.

The problem here was not so much the character as the actress. Susan's schtick would have gotten tiresome soon anyway, but that it was the highly-tiresome Teri Hatcher playing her made her go stale all the faster. Teri had worn out her welcome on my TV a decade earlier on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, where she was actually more annoying than having a Republican playing Superman. Susan's slapstick inability to do anything quickly became the stuff one fast-forwarded through on Desperate Housewives. What Mike Delfino saw in her always eluded me. Not addressed on the final broadcast was when Mrs. McClusky needed home care to die at home instead of in a hospice, and Susan blithely volunteered she and her poker pals to take care of her unto death shall she be cancelled, while not mentioning to anyone that she was moving away and was going to be sticking the others with the responsibilities for which she'd just volunteered. Fortunately for Mrs. McClusky, she died before Susan could move.

It took a while to accept James Denton as a good guy, after seeing him play a nasty villain for a few seasons on the now-forgotten The Pretender.

Knowing from a friend who has had the misfortune to work with Teri Hatcher what a total pain-in-the-ass she can be, I find myself wondering if the violent death of Mike Delfino a few episodes back was the result of James Denton, after some trying day of putting up with Teri at her worst, happening to say within Mark Cherry's earshot: "Just shoot me!" Or was it just a way to punish Susan's character, since punishing Teri herself was off the table.

So Lynette and Tom reconciled: Unhappy Ending #1. Mike Delfino shot leaving Susan Mayer Delfino a miserable widow. Unhappy Ending #2.

Let's movie on to man-favorite Gabrielle Solis.


Eva Longoria.

Gabby was always the funniest of the Housewives. Her high-maintenance selfishness was a schtick that, unlike Susan's clumsiness, never grew old. And her taste in men was superb.

(Jessie Metcalf, barely visible in the above photograph due to Eva's camera-hogging, left the series way too soon - I always say Desperate Housewives jumped the shark when Jessie Metcalf left the show, or just got dressed . Fortunately he will be back shortly in the exciting Dallas reboot which I can not wait to see!)

For her "Happy Ending," she decided she was "tired" of being selfish (My lifelong experience is that this is something folks never grow tired of in themselves, though they generally find it tiresome in others.), and decided to become selfless and self-sacrificing to save Carlos. Okay, except for two small matters:

1. She had this epiphany regularly, about once a season. It never stuck.

2. In her case, her self-sacrifice was to let an innocent old lady who was dying of cancer take the blame for her and Carlos's crimes. Way to go, Miss Unselfish!

Which brings us to Mrs. McClusky, aka the wonderful Katheryn Joosten.

Kathryn Joosten.

Katheryn Joosten I have had the pleasure of meeting, and she is absolutely wonderful. Her vanity-free performance in the final episode lifted the whole morass up. She was wonderful, and her death scene was truly moving, even if it was ladled over with the birth of Susan's grand-daughter (Yes, Teri Hatcher, you're now playing grandmothers, and will never again play anything but grandmothers!) in a "Circle-of-Life" bit that was so heavy-handed, I expected her 45rpm record to get replaced by the opening number from The Lion King. And Katheryn's understated, beautiful performance was made all the more difficult in that she was, and had been for some time, required to pretend to be in love with Orson Bean. That takes major acting chops! At least she didn't have to pretend Bean was funny.

But where was Lily Tomlin as her sister for her death? Hello?

While I'm on lesser, supporting Wisteria Lane housewives, I really could have done without the tired old wheeze of a subplot about Renee's desperate attempts to become a housewife, but unable to get to the church on time. Gee, I haven't seen that farcical bit more than a billion times. All it needed was Mike Tyson and a tiger.

"Get Me To the Church on Time"
Copyright 1955, Alan J. Lerner.

I'm not a big fan of Vanessa Williams. Oh, I saw her play the witch in Sondheim's Into the Woods onstage once, and she was good, though hardly a Bernadette Peters. She's good enough, though I find her much-vaunted beauty to be in serious decline, and the character of Renee was a drag on the show's later seasons. We already had a self-involved selfish bitch. The show didn't need two. The best thing about her this season was the excuse she provided to keep putting Aussie mega-hunk Charles Measure in front of our faces, albeit, generally wearing too much clothing.

A major Australian hunk, Charles Measure provides yet more reason to go down under, and also to visit Australia.

Okay, I can't avoid her anymore. Time to deal with the stink of Bree. From the pilot episode on, I have loathed Bree Van De Kamp. Why doesn't everyone?

"Evil? Me? I use coasters!"

Bree is the sort of uptight, repressed, anal retentive, control freak Republican bitch I have loathed all my life. Marcia Cross brilliantly played her with total commitment and believablity, which only made her even more horrifying and hateful. I've known women exactly like Bree all my life; my family is full of them, and I have hated all of them. But none of the women like Bree in my family were murderers, except of hope and goodness.

For 8 years, Mark Cherry struggled to try to make Bree likable and sympathetic. A lost cause with me. Her being a Republican alone is sufficient reason to hate her. I never got why the other Wisteria women were friends with her. She's a Republican! She voted for Bush! She voted for Sarah Palin! Shun her!

So her struggles with drinking (Why struggle? What is wrong with the evil woman?) and finding her inner-slut left me unmoved. Everything awful that happened to her was less than what she deserved.

Much of the last season revolved around supposed suspense as to whether Bree would be convicted of a murder of which she was innocent, mostly, except for that pesky accessory-after-the-fact stuff. I found this plotline to hold zero suspense for several very good reasons.

First off, no way in hell was Mark Cherry going to end the series with Bree going to prison (or better yet, executed), though she did go to Kentucky, which may be worse, where she now has a political career, spreading her baleful evil even farther. Bree's political career plot wind-up was the most frightening thing that happened in the whole series. I guess now she throws her repressed teaparties for the Teabaggers.

Secondly, although she didn't kill Gabby's child-raping step-father, she DID kill her first two husbands! The series kept conveniently forgetting her homicidal forms of divorce. She IS guilty of murder, TWO murders, and in prison is where she belongs. She is a disgusting character, and if the show had had any balls or reality, she'd have been one of the villains, not one of the heroines.

Frankly, the whole hiding of Carlos's killing of Gabby's stepfather plot that dominated this last season made no sense whatever. Guess what? If you find a man raping your wife, and especially when it's a man with a history of raping your wife, you're allowed to defend her, and if he gets killed in the process; all the state will do is thank you for saving them the trouble and expense (both financial and emotional) of a rape trial.

Mrs. McClusky's noble gesture saved Bree. What a waste of a noble gesture. But it also saved all four of the main housewives, as the DA apparently had no interest in investigating the conspiracy to hide this murder. The fact is that Bree, Gabby, Susan, Lynette, Carlos, and Ben are all guilty of Obstruction of Justice, but we're supposed to just forget about all that. It's not quite as big a miscarriage of justice as when Blake Carrington got away with murdering his son's gay lover on Dynasty 30 years ago, but it's still bothersome.

Scott Bakula back when he was a sizler.

And no way did I buy that rushed, lame "romance" between Bree and her lawyer, played by Scott Bakula. (Scott's looks have jumped the shark also, and the shark looks to have bitten him in the face mid-jump. He used to be so hot.)  That was hurried, unconvincing, and included solely so Bree didn't end the series manless, she having killed or driven to suicide all of her husbands. Scott, RUN!

What did I like about the series finale of Desperate Housewives? Well, as mentioned above, I loved Katheryn Joosten's great performance. Clear room on your mantle for another Emmy, Katheryn.

And I liked that the last shot ever of Carlos had him shirtless. He was always, to me, the hottest of the Desperate Husbands



Carlos, muy macho hottie!

Frankly, Ricardo Chavira first made a big impression on me in a supporting role back on the great series Six Feet Under (which had one of the best series finales ever. Everyone died.), especially this scene, which Little Dougie must have rewound and rewatched 30 times. Ricardo proved he didn't need no stinkin' housewives!

"Gabby! Ah... Great dress, honey."
Ricardo Chavira, Six Feet Under, and 9 inches in. (And one very lucky undress extra.)

So overall, it was a disappointment, but at least now I can relax and enjoy The Hounds of Baskerville on Sherlock, because someone is still making quality TV, albeit , in England. (Though Revenge is pretty good. I'll have to write about it soon.)

Tallyho Tallulah!, the new volume of my memoirs, will be available very soon. Keep watching this blog for ordering information as soon as it becomes possible to pre-order.

As for the Wisteria Lane housewives, frankly my darlings, glad to see the back of you. Cheers darlings.

The show's stars await the next tram of tourists.