OSCARS, DINNER THEATRE & THE L WORD: Before I get into Sunday, let me back up to Saturday for a moment. I had an enjoyable dinner with Cleo Creech, a fine poet and the editor for the next edition of the Georgia Poetry Society's anthology Reach of Song, at the Heaping Bowl & Brew in East Atlanta. Back in the lean days when I worked for another newspaper, I worked a second job as a host at this restaurant for about four months, as well ad dj'd for their Sunday trivia nights. Back then, the place was poorly run and I wound up doing a lot more work than seating people and rolling napkins. I was bussing tables, delivering food, getting drink refills, etc. and none of the wait-staff thought I should get any tips. One night I told them all to go fuck themselves and never went back. That was also the night I lost a ring I had bought in Ireland somewhere in the restaurant. It was never recovered, and I'm still a little pissed about it. Anyway, the restaurant is under new management and is much more enjoyable. I digress...
Cherryl Floyd-Miller and I are helping Cleo pick the poems that will appear in the anthology submitted by members of GPS. Most of the anthology is devoted to the poets who won the numerous contests, but we're also picking around 20 or so submitted poems. Out of 75 entries, I whittled the stack down to 18 entries that I thought were printable. I won't lie - there was some horrible stuff submitted. Horrible is being kind, actually. Cherryl and I are judging blindly, which is probably a good thing. Some of this poetry has made me want to put my eyes out. However, about 10 of those 18 I selected are excellent...a couple are just brilliant. One is so good it deserves to be published elsewhere for a wider audience to see. I can't wait to shake the hand of the poet who wrote it. Cherryl told me Saturday she had also selected about 18 poems, so I'll be very interested to see what she selected. Cleo will take our scores, average them with his own and make the final choice. The book should be out this spring. GPS is jumping on the technology bandwagon and having this anthology published POD by iUniverse. The look and content of the book will probably shock some of the members...but that's a good thing. It's time to move forward.
Okay, jump forward to Sunday. I went to see my friend Merci last night for the final show of the dinner theatre production she was doing in Douglasville. It was held at a surf and turf restaurant at the mall and I sat at table full of delightful lesbians. It was like being on an episode of The L Word (more on that show in a moment), but with real lesbians. The dinner theatre show was beyond corny...it made little sense and the actors were running between tables trying to shout their dialogue as the audience tried to eat it's prime rib or talapia. As with any theatre production, last night was plagued by mini-disasters. Dialogue was dropping left and right, an entire conga line scene fell by the way-side and some destructive brats stole one of the actresses dresses out of the bathroom and put other costumes in the toilet. One of the actors was late and the director had to step in. This, folks, is why I no longer do theatre. It looked the cast was having a good time and hamming it up shamelessly, so as long as they had fun...great. One of the loverly lesbians at the table reminded this was theatre "outside the Perimeter" (Atlanta's version of the beltway that separates intown from the suburbs), and she hit the nail on the head. I met some great people, and the turf was pretty tasty.
I got home in time to catch most of the Academy Awards. What a predictable yawn. Once again, voters went with the "safe," obvious choices. Sideways was totally robbed, esp. Virginia Madsen. While I love Cate Blanchett, I can do just as good a Kate Hepburn imitation as she can. Hillary Swank certainly did not deserve another Oscar, especially when she was up against the magnificent Annette Benning for Being Julia. I grew so bored with the show, I switched to The L Word on Showtime. I do love this show, but I've always had a soft spot for lesbians. This is one of the best acting ensembles ever put on television, including my girl Pam Grier. Although every woman on there is absolutely gorgeous ( a little unrealistic), the storylines seem to be grounded more in reality than it's...ummm...sister show, Queer As Folk (which is about to enter it's fifth and final season...thank god. Talk about taking a great idea and totally fucking it up...the British version is classic television; the American version should have ended two seasons ago). The L Word ended just in time to see Million Dollar Baby do it's sweep. Yawn.
Cherryl Floyd-Miller and I are helping Cleo pick the poems that will appear in the anthology submitted by members of GPS. Most of the anthology is devoted to the poets who won the numerous contests, but we're also picking around 20 or so submitted poems. Out of 75 entries, I whittled the stack down to 18 entries that I thought were printable. I won't lie - there was some horrible stuff submitted. Horrible is being kind, actually. Cherryl and I are judging blindly, which is probably a good thing. Some of this poetry has made me want to put my eyes out. However, about 10 of those 18 I selected are excellent...a couple are just brilliant. One is so good it deserves to be published elsewhere for a wider audience to see. I can't wait to shake the hand of the poet who wrote it. Cherryl told me Saturday she had also selected about 18 poems, so I'll be very interested to see what she selected. Cleo will take our scores, average them with his own and make the final choice. The book should be out this spring. GPS is jumping on the technology bandwagon and having this anthology published POD by iUniverse. The look and content of the book will probably shock some of the members...but that's a good thing. It's time to move forward.
Okay, jump forward to Sunday. I went to see my friend Merci last night for the final show of the dinner theatre production she was doing in Douglasville. It was held at a surf and turf restaurant at the mall and I sat at table full of delightful lesbians. It was like being on an episode of The L Word (more on that show in a moment), but with real lesbians. The dinner theatre show was beyond corny...it made little sense and the actors were running between tables trying to shout their dialogue as the audience tried to eat it's prime rib or talapia. As with any theatre production, last night was plagued by mini-disasters. Dialogue was dropping left and right, an entire conga line scene fell by the way-side and some destructive brats stole one of the actresses dresses out of the bathroom and put other costumes in the toilet. One of the actors was late and the director had to step in. This, folks, is why I no longer do theatre. It looked the cast was having a good time and hamming it up shamelessly, so as long as they had fun...great. One of the loverly lesbians at the table reminded this was theatre "outside the Perimeter" (Atlanta's version of the beltway that separates intown from the suburbs), and she hit the nail on the head. I met some great people, and the turf was pretty tasty.
I got home in time to catch most of the Academy Awards. What a predictable yawn. Once again, voters went with the "safe," obvious choices. Sideways was totally robbed, esp. Virginia Madsen. While I love Cate Blanchett, I can do just as good a Kate Hepburn imitation as she can. Hillary Swank certainly did not deserve another Oscar, especially when she was up against the magnificent Annette Benning for Being Julia. I grew so bored with the show, I switched to The L Word on Showtime. I do love this show, but I've always had a soft spot for lesbians. This is one of the best acting ensembles ever put on television, including my girl Pam Grier. Although every woman on there is absolutely gorgeous ( a little unrealistic), the storylines seem to be grounded more in reality than it's...ummm...sister show, Queer As Folk (which is about to enter it's fifth and final season...thank god. Talk about taking a great idea and totally fucking it up...the British version is classic television; the American version should have ended two seasons ago). The L Word ended just in time to see Million Dollar Baby do it's sweep. Yawn.
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