My Whole Life Has Led Up to This Moment: 9 to 5 Comes to Broadway

Like many young gays of my generation, I wanted to marry Dolly Parton when I was about 6 years old. I would be her proud house husband, also acting as her tour bus driver and wig tester.

But when I saw 9 to 5 in 1980, my goals abruptly changed: I was now more career oriented, wanting to work as a typist alongside Doralee, Violet, and Judy in an office of at least 30 stories for a company called Consolidated. We would smoke weed in the ladies room in the afternoons and go on happy hour excursions of hilarity in the evenings. I would have a special locker for my hats. (What a way to make a living.) Then after I grew weary of being a working girl I would retire to Florida and live with the Golden Girls, eating cheesecake and doing mushrooms on the lanai with Estelle Getty. In short, this was the life plan that I hid from my parents.

Of course, things haven't turned out exactly as I'd planned during those long bubble baths I took while playing with my sister's Barbie and Ken (mainly Ken). Yes, sadly, I'm not a secretary with two fed-up sidekicks. But I am a great typist. And my first love is still Dolly. Which brings me to an event that my entire life until this point has been leading up to: the adaptation of the movie 9 to 5 into a Broadway musical.

Now, I'm not a blind devotee of musicals. They can be good. They can also be just awful. (I wanted every person in Rent to die of AIDS, for example.) But if Dolly Parton is at the helm, writing the music and lyrics, then I'm all in. And if Allison Janney of The West Wing is playing Violet, then I'm in deep.

So, who's going with me?

Been and Gone: Bea Arthur

Who the hell says "thrice"?

Bye, Bea!

Shootin' It: In Which Jimmy and Tim Discuss the Pressing Issues of the Day

While watching a scene in Damages where coked-up Ted Danson is screwing some woman in a car, Jimmy and I discuss what our cat Stella gets up to during the day when we're at work.

Jimmy: She f**ks random cats in the alleyway.
Tim: She does what?!
J: Yeah, she f**ks cats in the alleyway and does a bunch of coke.
T: Shit! Now, does she do coke before she goes down to the alleyway or does she go to the alleyway for coke?
J: Oh, she has her own stash up here.
T: So she goes down to the alleyway just for sex.
J: Yes. Jesus, she's not a coke whore.
T: That's my girl.


Stella is not a coke whore.

I've Grown Tired of Watching King Henry VIII Have Sex

You know, I never thought I'd say this, but...well, I'm a kind of tired of watching Jonathan Rhys Myers—as King Henry VIII on Showtime's The Tudors—constantly engaged in acts of tireless sex all the time. Don't get me wrong; I have always admired this show's dedication to the soft core porn sex scene--and its willingness to go all gay on everybody (though not nearly gay enough), occasionally. And I 100% approve of all of the boobs. Henry, though, started getting really irritating last season when he went off Anne Boleyn and started courting some boring young trollop named Jane Seymour.

So now season 3 starts and, if the promotional poster above is anything to go on, we'll no doubt be treated to heaps more moaning and writhing from smooth, sinewy courtiers. Lots of muscled thighs and butt shots and acrobatic heaving and thrusting. But, God help me, I just can't get excited about it anymore. That's right: I'm sick to death of watching Henry VIII's butt bob up and down. How did this happen? Is it too much of a good thing? All I know is, what I want right now is for Henry to keep is damn pantaloons on.

Thankfully I don't have Showtime, so until season 3 ends up on Netflix, I'm safe. When that time comes, I suppose I'll be forced to sit through another 12 or so hours of supple, sebaceous and, sadly, mostly straight sexual somersaults.

The study of history is grueling.

Romanian Pelicans Unmoved By Susan Boyle's Singing

Well, these Romanian pelicans obviously have hearts of stone. To think that they could hear Ms. Boyle singing about the death of her dreams in such a lovely, passionate lilt and not jump to their feet and beg for God's forgiveness for not realizing that an anonymous middle aged woman that isn't even skinny can actually carry a tune. I've said it before and I'll say it again: pelicans have no insight into the human condition. And Romanian pelicans are the worst, because they're Godless vampires. This is all true.

I must say, though, I'm not at all surprised. These dumb birds are obviously emotionally stunted. Their favorite youtube clip? The one with those Chinese guys lip-syncing the Backstreet Boys. Retards.

Ostrich Tea Party Gets Out of Hand

This group of ostrich teabaggers is pissed. They are so tired of taxes, liberals, socialists, darkies, books, homos, evolution, abortions, elitists, and foreign countries they just can’t stand it, and it makes them want to eat cameramen. Of course, they’ve had their heads in the sand for the past 8 years, so you can imagine the shock to their system of all of this horrific government spending and gays having anal sex on the White House lawn.

Thankfully, these ostriches are funneling their anger and frustration into something productive: chaos and rioting. This always brings about great results, especially when the message is so cohesive and self-evident like theirs. In a word, it is: Obama was not born in the U.S. and is Hitler and loves killing babies and wants Hamas in his cabinet and is black and drill baby drill and fuck you. That will obviously fit nicely on a t-shirt at the next Republican National Convention.

Bitchez Caught on Tape

So, everyone on the planet has now seen the youtube of Susan Boyle singing her heart out on Britain's Got Talent. (If you haven't, ask your mom about it because I guarantee she will have seen it and posted it on her Facebook.) Anyway, so Susan is going to be the Next British Sadsack Who Melts the Heart of the World (following in the footsteps of Paul Potts), and that's just fine because I love this woman and her giant eyebrows and her cat Pebbles so much.

But you know who I really want to hear from? The unfortunate lass in the above screen grab who was unlucky enough to have her bitchy dismissive eye roll captured on film when Susan came on stage and announced that she wanted to be a professional singer. The entire crowd was geared up to chew Susan up and spit her out, but this sad girl was chosen by the camera man to represent the seething audience's readiness to pounce. And now Susan Doyle is a household name and this girl has been seen oh around 16 million times on youtube rolling her eyes with disdain for the new Underdog Hero of the World. That's sad. Because, really, it could have been anyone in that audience.

That's right, there were lots of bitches in that audience. Lots of mean, dreary bitches who are probably perfectly nice when they're not sitting in a giant room together hungering for the opportunity to collectively laugh at someone's dreams. But the cameraman could only choose one bitch for this particular shot, and he chose that bitch, poor thing. I feel for her. It reminds me of the time I was mouthing the words "I hate you so f**king much" to my high school girlfriend while she was checking her makeup and she looked over and busted me. I mean, it could have been anyone in that room that got busted. We were all doing it.

Polling the Future of Alaskan Derangement

We were all sad when Sarah Palin went back to Alaska, never to be interviewed by Katie Couric again. But she's back in the spotlight now, thanks not only to her daughter's baby daddy Levi dating Tyra Banks but also because Palin is a very bad politician and has just nominated someone to be Alaska's new Attorney General who you wouldn't entrust your kids with. He has three names (because fuck you), and they are: Wayne Anthony Ross.

Mr. Ross, like Governor Palin herself, is known as a gaffe-machine, but I'm not so sure, because a gaffe is a mistake and this guy seems dead serious. Make your voice heard/save our democracy by voting for the best of his psychotic twaddle below.

Thoughts on Good Friday

That's the only reason I can think of that you won't be going.

Sad.

Dunce Convention Held in Zamora, Spain

I think it's great they get their own conference. I bet those Q and A sessions will be a hoot.

Whose Fist Is This?

Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to Save Book Expo America's Annual Conference from Julie Andrews, Joe Scarborough

Well, God knows, the book industry needs a hero, so why the hell not? It may as well be Sully who swoops in to save BEA-NYC on May 30 at the Javits Center. Otherwise, who can we turn to among the other big name attendees? Julie Andrews, who has a new book out for young readers called Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies, which sounds just awful? Or maybe Joe Scarborough, whose new words-on-paper project is Up from Republicanism: How Conservatives Can Take Back America. (Hopefully with a foreword and afterward by Zbigniew Brzezinski (why so many consonants, Zbigniew? Jesus.)

Sully's memoir hasn't been ghost-written yet, so according to today's press release, he'll be "available to sign a promotional piece about" it, which sounds exhilarating, no?

After attending BEA, Sully will of course be on to his next series of heroic projects, including flying to Alaska to save Bristol and Levi's relationship and then going to North Korea to land a plane safely on Kim Jong Il's jumpsuit, for peace. Then he'll come back and take a job in the Obama cabinet, because, again, why the hell not?

This Is the First and Last Time I Will Use the Word 'Tweet' on This Blog

Is there a more odious and nauseating phenomenon on the face of the earth than Twitter? Well, there was, once, and it was the "update your status" or "poke someone" things on Facebook, but times change fast on the Internet, so now we have this New Dumb Thing, my feelings about which can be nicely summed up in the convenient animated short above.

This is how horrible Twitter is: U.S. senators are using it.

You know, I recently went to a panel event where the topic was "Book Marketing On the Web," and, God, it was irritating. One of the panelists, bless her, was beside herself with excitement about Twitter. She had out her laptop and was logged on, giving us constant updates about all the Twittering that was happening about the very event we were all at. At one point, she said something like, "Here's an example of Twitter in action: someone in this very room said it's a little hot in here and someone should open a window." Ha ha ha, laughed the audience, many of whom had their own devices out and were probably doing something equally grotesque with them. Then someone opened a window. Thank God for Twitter, because otherwise how could we humans have relayed that message?!

Sorry, but this shit is stupid.

I understand how technology is changing bookselling, book marketing, book promotion and all that. That's a no-brainer. But I'm sorry, I'm just not convinced that Twittering is essential to this process. Twittering is essential to no process. It is masturbatory uselessness in action.

My favorite part of the panel event, actually, was at the very beginning. The moderator was asking the audience how we all had heard about the event. She named off different methods: LinkedIn (a few hands), Facebook (a few hands), Twitter (a few hands), websites/newsletters (a few hands), and, lastly, "old-fashioned word-of-mouth." At this, the majority of hands in the room went up.

Twitter that, LOLCATS.

Why Doesn't Madam Tussaud's Barack Obama Wax Figure Get a Nice Sash and Tiara?

This is so racist and reverse-sexist. Like a black man can't wear a baby blue sash and a glistening tiara and still look like a world leader?