February 2008 Archives

Sick Day Revelation #21:

I hate Maury Povich.

More updates forthcoming.
Love
Dan

Perhaps there's some sort of connection between my terrible bronchitis (bronchitis?  probably, yes, bronchitis) and my current obsession with Elaine Stritch.


Love,
Dan

I am so, so sick.  Bronchitis, perhaps.  Or the flu.  My mom thinks it's pneumonia. 

I've tried working on the play, but emotional writing is just exhausting.  So I've been watching a lot of TV, movies, and movies on TV.  Including:

-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-Barbershop
-Conspiracy Theory
-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
-The Faculty
-the last half of a live recording of the revival of Company

After the last one, I went on line to find this video clip.  Watch it and know: This is how I feel ALL THE TIME:


Love,
Dan

ps: Max, I'm not kidding.  Bring over the new Breeders record - I wanna hear it - I think it might cure my illness!

I've been corresponding with two unrelated journalists, for two unrelated feature stories.  Yesterday, one of them told me that his six-year-old child thinks I look like Voldemort.  Soon afterwards, the other one wrote that his five-year-old thinks Fishback is "a cool name."

What strikes me, more than anything else, is that I'm being interviewed by people with CHILDREN.
Love
Dan

How lovely, to wake up in the morning and discover that Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia!

Good news is so rare.  Do you get the sense that it will get less rare?  I do.


Love
Dan

I keep writing blog posts in my head and then forgetting them.  Here are some things I've written and forgotten:

1. How I cried while watching Maya Angelou on a PBS special about the genetic background of African Americans.

2. How my toilet sort of exploded, and the plumbers left all sorts of inexplicable objects in my bathtub.

3. How I've decided to paint my bedroom pink in April.

4. How Boston (the band) officially asked Mike Huckabee to stop using "More Than a Feeling" as his campaign anthem.

5. How I bought tickets to see The Breeders.

6. How I planned on spending Valentine's Day doing my laundry, cleaning my room, and going to bed early.

7. How I actually spent Valentine's Day at Menahan Tree, and stayed up all night with Yoko, gossiping about things that happened in 2004 and 2005.

8. How I saw some cops hanging out, with some kids lined up with their hands on the wall, and how everyone involved seemed to be having a genuinely good time.

I think that's it.  I played a really fun (and really LATE) set tonight at Dizzy.  I talked to some sweet people who had never heard my music before.  That felt really good.  But there's something about leaving a gay dance party - like the physical act of LEAVING - after three in the morning, after most of your friends have already left, after taking too long to find your jacket, after getting paid, after thanking the sound guy, after looking behind you at a nearly empty bar, and then walking out onto the street, where even your three pairs of socks don't really protect you from the cold air...there's something about it all (especially when you're still psychotically alert from two cups of Yerba Mate) that always makes me a bit lovesick. 

Have I written yet, on this blog, about how Matt Katz and I were talking about love, and I told him:

katherine once said to me

Six Suggestions To Musical Theater Writers:

1. Please don't make your actors belt and/or wail unless their characters really mean it.

2. Please don't write characters who really mean it ALL THE TIME.

3. Please don't try to write rock music if you don't know anything about rock music.

4. Please don't write bad music.

5. Please write at least one melody per act that I'll remember five minutes later.

6. Please don't write a musical unless you REALLY NEED TO.


Last night, after the first act of a terrible musical, I zoomed downtown to the Anti-Hoot, desperate to hear moderately-talented people like myself play really, really good songs.  My favorite act was a guy from Staten Island, who spent his first three minutes on stage tuning his guitar.  Most of the song consisted of really clunky rhymed couplets, but the guitar part was really cool, and he was honest and unpretentious.  Domino played a great song called "Bathroom People," which was self-explanatory.  A guy from Portland sang a surf-influenced eulogy to a spider he accidentally washed down the drain. 

The Anti-Hoot makes me feel good. 

On a side note, as the means of cultural production become more democratic, more of my friends become music video stars.  I'd like to share with you a sampling of anti-folk video greatness:

Schwervon: "Groundhog"


Huggabroomstik: "Mushroom Clouds"


Slow Hand Motem: "Super Hans"


Love
Dan

Today I got to watch two of my friends live out their feminist role-model fantasies.

First, we spent four hours turning Dave into Bea Arthur for the big Golden Girls night at Stonewall.  For the record, that's a party devoted to a TV show about sexually active elderly feminists, located at the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, which began when a group of drag queens and transgender people rioted against the police.  Dave, in FLAWLESS Bea-titude, sang "Sophie," a song about his childhood dog (whom he named after Sophia Petrillo). 

After his triumphant performance, I ran over to Cakeshop for a set by Partyline, featuring Allison Wolfe of BRATMOBILE fame.  Max was go-go dancing on stage.  Allison had written across his stomach "PxRxDxCxT," i.e.: "Punk Rock Dream Come True."  Before they even started the first song, our lady Allison was playfully railing against a guy who had sexually harassed her earlier in the evening.  For those of us who listened to Bratmobile and other riot grrl bands as kids, but had never actually been to a show, watching her LAY DOWN THE LAW as such was, in no uncertain terms, a PxRxDxCxT.  They rocked super-hard, and Max danced accordingly, with between-song looks of "I Cannot Believe This Is Happening."  When Allison lost her voice at the end of the set, she Just Stopped Singing, which I found super-empowering. 

After the show I went backstage to get my coat, where Max and Johnny Darling and I got to hear late 90s alternative rock band gossip.  Yet another PxRxDxCxT.  I also got to find out who "1...2...3...Many!" was written about.  PxRxDxCxT, again.

As I was leaving, Johnny said, "Where are you going?"  I said, "To my bed."  He said, "Where you belong!"  I couldn't agree with him more!



Earlier in the day, Cole and I went to Sam and Julie's house to film a new video for Joyce Conner.  It should be on YouTube as soon as I edit the footage together.  You will see a side of Joyce that you always assumed was there, but never actually saw for yourself.  You might need a tissue box.  And a warm towel.

Before the shoot, I read 30 pages of "Faggots" by Larry Kramer, a book I should have read around 26 years ago.

Love
Dan

This is the "Vote Here / Vote Aqui" sign outside my polling location:


This is the fallout shelter sign outside my polling location:


This is the "Vote Here / Vote Aqui" sign inside my polling location, across the hall from a bunch of adorable elementary school kids doing some sort of fun-looking assignment:


This is what my ballot looked like before I voted:


This is what my ballot looked like after I voted:


As I left, I heard kids giggling, and a teacher saying, "This is why we share!"

I forgot to get my picture taken with the hilarious Obama volunteer on the corner, who was screaming, "Go Obama!  Woo!" at the top of his lungs.

As I was walking back home, a woman ran up to me, excitedly, and went, "IS THAT WHERE THE VOTING IS?"  I said, "YES!" and suddenly remembered that my great-grandfather was born under the Tsar.

Love
Dan

Reposted from (the essential) Feministing.com:

Here's your horrifying news of the day:

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

To sign a petition to save Kambaksh, click here.

Love,
Dan

I had the sneaking suspicion that I wasn't registered to vote, so I double checked.  I called the Board of Elections, typed in my zip code, typed in my last name, and the voice said, "Your first name is spelled D-A-N-I-E-L."  Then it told me my voter number, and my polling location.

I've never been happier to have a number.

I've never been happier to vote.

Every vote of my life has been a vote against, instead of a vote for.  Until tomorrow morning.

Love
Dan

The Lisps do it again. 


Love
Dan