#and josh is just…… can i say it? his sweeney FUCKS

[opera-ghost]

notes:

annaleigh ashford was on her hands and knees desperately begging for josh groban’s sweeney to listen to her, you can hear the sound of her slamming her hands on the stage as she says “could that thing have cared for you like me?” it was such an intense thing to watch

josh groban is practically spitting as he says “eminently practical and yet appropriate as always,” again the energy and his emotions are incredibly intense

i’m not super familiar with other sweeney todd productions, but in this one it seems that mrs lovett knows what’s coming. ashford keeps glancing toward the oven as groban spins her around, but it seems she wants to keep deluding herself into believing him, she wants to see the version of sweeney she creates in “by the sea.” she sounds frantic in her signing, like she’s trying to convince herself what she’s saying is true as well. or, she knows what’s coming and just doesn’t care, she’s resigned to death. either way, it’s an amazing performance by ashford

[can-of-w0rmz]

“Aaron Tveit is a tenor he shouldn’t have been cast in a baritone role”/“Sondheim is rolling in his grave rn”/“He sounds too cute and unthreatening.” Genuinely shut the fuck up oml how does it feel to be boring asf 😭 He played the role extremely well, the songs sounded great in his vocal range, he WAS extremely threatening, and y’all are just being petty and puritanical about this shit. I’m a hardcore fan of Josh Groban and Len Cariou’s interpretations of the character, but Aaron Tveit did just as good of a job playing Sweeney Todd as anyone who came before him.

Sweeney Todd is a show that is and always has been continuously reinterpreted and played around with, while still keeping its core characterisation, plot and themes, which, just saying, were way clearer under Tveit’s portrayal of the character than for example, some of the “classic” baritone portrayals like George Hearn (iconic as his performance was, totally rewatching my 1982 proshot DVD on loop over here). He captured the sympathy and tragedy of the character whilst still being feral, aggressive, passionate and threatening, he’s a great actor and apart from the very mild set-back of his vocal range just being higher, he’s probably the best portrayal of Sweeney Todd I’ve ever seen. And even then, his vocal performance was far from bad — I’d totally stick it on in the background if he had any songs professionally recorded. He just doesn’t have the deep oomf that Josh Groban had, but if we’re going to talk about Tveit’s Todd being too “cute”, I’d totally say the opposite — as much as I absolutely love Groban’s interpretation of the character to bits, he arguably kind of lacks the feral aggression other actors who’ve played Todd have.

And, as for “Sondheim is rolling in his grave”, excuse me?? Sondheim has always been explicit about wanting an actor that can sing over a singer that can act. He reworked the structure of “Send In the Clowns” specifically for Glynis Johns because “she couldn't sustain notes,” his words. Not that either Johns or Tveit can’t sing, but you get the picture — yeah, no, Sondheim would absolutely not be rolling in his grave because a tenor played a baritone role he wrote extremely well and opted a couple notes higher than they were originally written.

Also, while I’m on the subject, listen, ok, I love the original 1979 cast recording so much that Angela Lansbury was my top artist (😭), and Annaleigh Ashford is actually my icon oml I absolutely adore her, but bsfr the hate on Sutton Foster was wayyy out of order. I’m not really a fan of a lot of the stuff she does (no harm to her or anything, just a personal preference 🤷‍♀️), and I think her portrayal of Mrs Lovett was a LITTLE bit surface level at times, (imo she didn’t REALLY have the same super strong characterisation that Ashford brought to the table tbf?), but for the most part she was actually really really funny and her chemistry with Tveit was on point, and she was still really good during those serious scenes too.

And don’t get me started on that one time I read a comment that said “Sweeney Todd is not a comedy”….bro… some of these people don’t even know what the fuck they’re talking about 😭

[demonbarbers]

ok i spent sunday drinking with oomfs and then monday mourning i’m Ready to Share what i can i remember from sunday

the energy was so electric! and not just for josh and annaleigh there was so much love in the room for everyone it was really beautiful

josh and annaleigh were, as always, on point but they were also just giving it their absolute ALL. final sequence was absolutely insane there was such a sorrow and fury to everything… i did cry

it looked like maria was crying during green finch which is a choice i’ve never seen her make so that made me emotional. ruthie also cried in character but in a place she usually doesn’t cry and that destroyed me

delaney westfall did a very funny “NOOOO” instead of her usual gasp during pirelli’s miracle elixir

nik chris was going the fuck off he brought the house down as pirelli as usual but he had such an intensity that night it was making me cry with laughter

after killing pirelli sweeney let out this like little pathetic heartbroken cry and josh usually does that but this one was the saddest noise i’d ever heard

right before pretty women when lovett is bringing toby into her back parlor annaleigh and daniel knocked the bench over and annaleigh had to fix it in character and it was hilarious and the audience ate it up

josh and annaleigh’s last a little priest… so funny so ridiculous annaleigh got on all fours and just moaned at one point and it made josh genuinely actually break which made her break. it was very sweet and the audience picked up on it and loved it

when sweeney and lovett kiss in by the sea people genuinely cheered and hooted and hollered it was so funny and Real

john rapson and annaleigh were going HAM during parlor songs. funniest they’ve ever been

josh’s final “BENJAMIN BARKER” was insane. and so hot

i just need to say it again again the final sequence from the minute anthony and johanna arrive at the shop to when sweeney dies it was just perfect. everyone broke my heart. it was so human.

jo shouts “NO” when she runs in on toby killing sweeney and i’m gonna be thinking about that choice for a very long time. maria was cooking with that.

also just wanna shout out daniel marconi! his physical intensity was insane. this was only my second time seeing him and ugh i really love his toby i’m so sad he’s leaving soon. he plays toby with a little limp and leans into the disabled young man characterization toby usually gets but does it with so much dignity.

ok parasocial corner time

when i tell you the entire ensemble was weeping during josh and annaleigh’s speeches… you can see in the video the sweeney insta posted that 3 of them are crying but it was truly the entire ensemble. i went back and watched my own video and it was just so moving to see the respect and love on display. there’s soooo much love in that company and you can really feel that in the bones of this production.

ruthie was running around taking pictures of josh and annaleigh during their final bows like a mom and it was so cute. love her

overall just so grateful i got to watch this production with this cast and make some wonderful friends through it :’)

[jerzwriter]

Hi I know you mentioned you love Broadway in the past. I am going to visit New York this summer. Can you recommend some plays? Thank you.

Hey Nonny!

Yes! I am a Broadway Baby! I love, love, love theater - not only Broadway, but Broadway is the mecca. lol I'd love to help you - but maybe you can tell me a little more about what you like, then I may be able to hone in more on what you like.

But here are some suggestions.

Wicked - I've seen it five times, and I love it. I've taken many out-of-towners, and everyone has loved it. (Little secret: if you go to the in-person, day-of lottery, you have an excellent chance of getting deeply discounted tickets). I highly recommend this show.

The Lion King - it's still super popular. Personally, I am not a fan of the "Disnification" of Broadway (not even a little). But I must admit, this one was a very good production - but once was enough for me. I know many people who have won this lottery too.

Sweeney Todd - Disclaimer. I do not like this play... at all. I would never go see it. lol, But many people do, and Josh Groban is in the lead. I was almost tempted to go (but I won't, lol).

Parade - This revival has gotten smashing reviews. I'm going to see it soon, and I can't wait. It is HEAVY and SAD material, not exactly a feel-good musical. Ben Platt is the lead, and, honestly, the man is Broadway gold. I saw him in Dear Even Hansen (which, sadly, just closed) three times, and I'd pay to watch him sing the Yellow Pages.

Hamilton - It is a fucking masterpiece. There is no other way to put it. I had literal chills and honestly said, "Wow!" out loud without realizing I was going to say it. It's that good.

Aladdin - Disclaimer. NOT my thing (I do not like the Disnification of Broadway), but if you're into Disney, you'd probably like this. It is a great production. I'd just rather it not be on Broadway. lol If you like plays (not musicals) too, let me know, and I'll give you suggestions. I love plays, but not everyone does. I can also give you lots of tips on how to get discounted tickets. DM me if you're interested. I'm happy to help out! :)

[imaginingthebands]

More Than You Know Chapter 2

PERSPHONE’S POV

We parked and got into the elevator. It was a twenty minute drive to the hotel, but we had stopped for food before hand so it was pretty late now. “Hey! Lets go swimming!” Rose said. As we walked down the hall to our room I was trying to figure out which swimsuit I wanted to wear. I dug through my bag and found the black and purple bikini I was looking for. It was very sexy, it looked like lingerie almost with the bits of lace on it. I was in the mood to feel good about myself. I hadn’t thought about a single bad thing all day and I wasn’t about to start now. We quickly changed and walked down to the elevator. “I love the detail in yours!” I said to rose who had an almost matching set, but red with slightly different lace. Just as the doors were about to close we heard a voice say, “Hey can you hold that?” We stopped the door from closing and as it opened I tried not to gawk. It was Chris, Ryan and Vinny. All wearing swim trunks. They grinned as they recognized us and Ryan whispered something to Chris, which made Chris shoot him a glare. They stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the main floor. Rose grinned at me then quickly turned to them, “Y’all are going swimming too?” she said smoothly. They nodded and Vinny and Ryan quickly struck a conversation with her. Chris and I stood near each other and I tried to think of something to say. Vinny elbowed Chris, who almost fell into me. “Aw, Chris, was it your turn to fall?” he said with a smile. Chris rolled his eyes and turned to me, “Sorry, they do this all the time.” I just smiled and said it was okay.

The doors opened and Ryan looked over his shoulder at us, “Last one in pays for dinner!” We all raced to the pool and laughed when Vinny slid and fell on his ass. Ryan jumped in first, Rose right behind. Chris and I stood there laughing. I stopped and pointed behind Chris, “Oh my God!” I cried. He turned around quickly and I jumped in the pool, leaving him the last one to jump in. He turned around and crossed his arms, playfully glaring at me, “That was cheating!” I giggled and said, “Hey Ryan didn’t say we couldn’t.” Ryan shrugged and took Rose’s hand, gently pulling her towards the deep end of the pool towards Vinny. It was becoming almost too weird that they kept leaving me and Chris to talk. I wasn’t going to complain though. I just hoped I didn’t make a fool of myself.

Chris pushed his wet hair out of his face that was now makeup free. God, I could get lost in those eyes forever… He smiled somewhat nervously and said, “So what are you guys doing after this?” “Heading back home tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a bit of a drive,” I said. He nodded, “Good call with the hotel then. Especially since our show ran late with the extra songs.” Chris ran a hand through his hair and looked over to where everyone else was. “Where’s Justin?” I asked, “He passed out almost right after we got back,” he chuckled. I nodded and bit my lip nervously.

It's not every day you can say you got to meet your idol, have him catch you and then go swimming with him.

The hotel was like a ghost town and we were the only ones in the pool area. Ryan splashed water at Rose who shrieked and splashed him back, laughing. Chris and I swam over and we decided to play a game. “Marco!” Vinny yelled, eyes shut and arms stretched out in front of him, trying to find us. “Polo!” we said quietly. I tried to quickly sneak away to the shallow end but bumped into Ryan who grinned and playfully shoved me right into Vinny. I groaned, “That’s cheating!” “No rules,” Chris smiled. I rolled my eyes at him before shutting them. I could hear Chris to my left and swam towards him. I reached out and felt somebodies smooth chest. I opened my eyes and it was Chris. He smiled down at me and whispered, “I suppose I’m it now?” My heart started to beat loudly. He reached out and touched my hand that was still on his chest. I pulled it back quickly, embarrassed for touching him for so long. He grinned and tackled me, “This counts right?” he yelled. I giggled and held on to him so that I wouldn’t go underwater. I could feel the muscles in Chris’ arms and I never wanted to let go. My legs were wrapped around him as he held me up. He carefully let me go so that I wouldn’t drop into the water. Looking down at me he smiled. This had to be the best dream I ever had. Any minute now I’d wake up in my hotel bed and have to leave. But the feeling of Chris grabbing my hand to led me to the others proved I was very much awake. I had to be the luckiest person alive.

After about an hour, we all got out of the pool and dried off. Chris walked to the bathroom with Ryan and Vinny stayed with Rose and I. “You guys are some of the coolest people we’ve met. Would it be weird if we got your numbers?” he asked. I was screaming inside and hoping that he couldn’t tell. I did not want to come off as some crazed fan. “Yeah that’d be awesome,” I said, trying to hide the shakiness of my voice. Vinny put his number in both of our phones and we put ours in his. Ryan and Chris came out and Vinny waved his phone, “I got their numbers. I figured next time we’re around we could try and hangout.”  They grinned and we shared the elevator up to our floor. As soon as I shut the door to our room Rose grabbed my shoulders. “This was single handedly the best decision of our lives to come here! Oh my God this is crazy! They have our phone numbers!” she gushed. We flopped onto our beds in exhaustion and happiness.

 The next morning, I woke up to Rose screaming happily. I quickly sat up and said, “What’s going on?” She showed me the text on her phone from Ryan. “HE SAID I’M CUTE BITCH!” She held her phone to her chest and closed her eyes grinning ear to ear. My phone went off and I could hear Chris’ voice. My heart stopped as I read the text.

Hey Persephone, it’s Chris. I hope it’s okay that I got your number from Vin. Have a safe drive back home!

“ROSE, I AM GOING TO LOSE IT,” I shouted. I threw my phone at her and she giggled, “We are the luckiest girls ever.”

I quickly text him back and thanked him, wishing him a safe drive to the next city. Putting my phone in the pocket of my pajama shorts, I stood up and began to pack with a smile on my face. We played music all morning while we packed and loaded Rose’s car. It was my turn to drive on the way back so I hopped into the drivers seat and put on Melanie Martinez.  We sang along as Rose text Ryan happily.

Half way back with only an hour to go, Rose said, “Girl guess the fuck what!” “What?” I questioned, turning to look at her for a moment. “Ryan just said, ‘Chris thinks Persephone would think it’s weird to hang out when we’re off tour. Would she?’” She smiled at me as she quickly text him back reading it aloud, “No she wouldn’t, in fact she wants to have se-” “ROSE!” She rolled her eyes, “She’s driving right now, but said it wouldn’t be weird.” She hit send and turned towards me with a sassy look on her face, “Better?” I nodded. “Just trying to get you your goth daddy,” she shrugged. I about choked on my water and laughed. “Whatever, he wants to be friends and that is literally the best thing in the world. I could’ve never imagined this happening, like this only happens in those dumb stories I used to write in high school,” I said.

When we arrived at Josh’s house, we brought my suitcase in and all decided to hang out and have a game night.

We pulled two tvs out to the living room and all hopped on our playstations to play different games. I had choose Skyrim to play and sat down in the middle of Rose and Josh who were playing Grand theft Auto and Kingdom Hearts. Just as I left Belathor’s shop, my phone rang. Josh grabbed my phone and said, “Who is Chris?” I grabbed my phone back from him and said, “No one!” I quickly answered before it sent him to voicemail. “Hey,” I said with a smile, though he couldn’t see it. “Hey, we just got back from tonight’s show it was awesome! What are you up to?” he asked. “She’s hoarding cheese like that meme!” Rose yelled. I blushed and shoved her, “Shut up!” I hissed. She grinned and Chris said, “Hoarding cheese? What?” he chuckled. “You know that meme about that room of cheese in Skyrim? Yeah, well uh, I got really bored one night and started collecting a lot and just threw it in this room..” I trailed. He laughed, “That is awesome. You have to send me a picture when you’re done.” “THEY GAME?!” Ryan said in the background. “Ryan wants the gamertags,” Chris laughed. Rose’s phone rang and Josh threw his hands up. “Why do no boys call me?” “Because you’re lame?” I said. He feigned a hurt face.

After about twenty minutes, Chris had to go so we hung up. I went back to my game and threw all the cheese into my followers room as Rose laughed, “I still can’t believe you started this.”

Over the next two weeks, I had gotten to know Chris more, and he was so down to earth and sweet. We had a lot in common when it came to music, games and books. I was currently nose deep in a book he had suggested when he called. “Hey! How’s tour?” I said happily. “It’s going great! I’m so excited to get back to my own bed though. Only two more shows and we’ve finished a whole month of touring!” he said. We weren’t able to talk long since they had just arrived at the venue. “So when I come home, what do you think if I took a little road trip and you showed me around where you live?” I laughed, “Aren’t you tired of driving?” “True, well come to me then.” “I can do that,” I said with a grin. “Good, I’m excited to see you. We can even have a movie night and watch Sweeney Todd because I know that’s your favorite.” I couldn’t help but giggle, it was cute that he made a point to remember that. “I’ll text you later, I have to go, Vinny is yelling at me to hurry up,” he laughed.

When I set my phone down I looked up with a smile and saw Josh standing in my doorway with his arms crossed. “Seph,” he said. “Yes?” He came in and sat on my bed, “I know you have had a thing for him forever, but don’t forget to take time to actually feel and reflect what’s going on here.” I nodded and said, “Chris and I are just friends I swear. And I have been, it’s all finalized now and I’m pretty over it.” “Okay, well I hope you have fun when you go see him. Tell him I need a man if he knows anyone,” he said with a smile. I laughed as he walked out of my room and lay back down under my blankets. I couldn’t wait to spend more time with Chris. He really is such an amazing person and I couldn’t wait to get to know him more.

[thisdayinfavrd]

November 16, 2009

Obama says he doesn't tweet because his thumbs are too clumsy. Which is a polite way of saying he has a real job.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 154

Missing tweet #5750649539   @zolora (Theresa Couchman) – 132

I think the most exciting part of sex is when I turn on the light and the couple finally sees me.   @plaid_lemur (Nick Alias Plemur) – 111

Can anyone recommend a therapist who won't "freak out" when you get naked and cuddle with them like you do with your uncle?   @fireland (Joshua Allen) – 99

I wonder if turtles ever get confused while pooping and squeeze their heads off.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 79

Out-of-context phrase your wife can say while on the phone with her mother that can make you pay attention:  "Marriage of convenience"   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 77

I think it's pretty clear who wears the pants in this family, though be it reluctantly and only because my wife tells me I have to.   @MrBigFists (Jonathan Sloan) – 77

I've heard you can dip a nipple in whiskey to soothe a colicky baby. Mine's pretty hairy, but it's worth a shot.   @thedayhascome (Josh Hopkins) – 75

Drove through Real America today. Those people like their Jesus, and have trouble avoiding animals on the freeway.   @joeschmitt (Joe Schmitt) – 70

ATM machine - Machine that makes ATMs.   @FakeAPStylebook (Fake AP Stylebook) – 66

If Life hands you a bowl of lemons, you look it right in the eye and say, “Fuck you, Life. I’m not your lemonade Wench.”   @Beef_Tongue (Comic Dick Cheney) – 61

Yes, fat girls need love too, but more importantly; fat girls need FOOD.   Write that down.   @ruthakers (ruthakers) – 60

I don't see race. That's why I don't like NASCAR.   @aedison (Avery Edison) – 59

The neighbor called the cops on me because he was so jealous of my new lawnmower and how good I look pushing it, wearing nothing but gloves.   @Zaius13 (Damn Dirty Ape) – 58

Caveman advertising:  COME THAG'S ROCK EMPORIUM. OUR ROCKS ARE ROCKIEST. YOU FIND BETTER ROCKS, ME SMASH YOU IN HEAD WITH ROCK.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 58

Do not combine a dash & a colon. It will open a portal to the Lost Tomb of Colonel McCormick. Also, it looks like a tiny dong.   @FakeAPStylebook (Fake AP Stylebook) – 55

OK, just one thing left to do on the pre-move checklist: "Put everything we own into cardboard boxes."   @scottsimpson (Scott Simpson) – 55

"I don't need more friends. You got friends and all they do is ask you to help them move. Fuck that. I'm old. I'm through moving shit."   @shitmydadsays (Justin) – 53

To reduce the risk of people talking to me, I like to carry around a cover of "Dianetics" to place over the books that I read on the bus.   @MrBigFists (Jonathan Sloan) – 51

My son said the F word but I forgive him because at his age he is too young to realize Friendster is gay.   @roughdiction (RoughDiction) – 50

[bemusedlybespectacled]

10 Songs in Lyrics

Objective - write down the next 10 songs on shuffle and choose my favorite lyrics. If I hit a song with no lyrics I skip it to the next song (which is most of my music because my main stuff is soundtracks). 

I was tagged by @disease-danger-darkness-silence!

Protest the Hero - “Underbite” (from Volition)

An illusion seldom spoken. An understanding between you and I that the ground that you stand on is somehow less than mine. An allusion to a broken home, left on the street and chilled to the bone.

I don’t generally listen to this album (my favorite is Kezia) but it’s still a jam. I love their mix of eloquence and vulgarity, plus the prog elements. Also Rody Walker is an actually decent singer who doesn’t resort to growling for fucking everything, which is nice.

Zedd - “Push Play (feat. Miriam Bryant)” (from Clarity)

Close enough to see your hands sneaking out of his embrace Paper thin, whispering, breaking in

Okay, to be perfectly honest, I only downloaded this album because it was free on Amazon Prime Music and I wanted “Clarity.” I’m actually not a huge fan of Zedd because I’m not a big house music person and his songs tend to be pretty repetitive. 

Liz Callaway - “Journey to the Past” (from Anastasia)

People always say Life is full of choices. No one ever mentions fear, Or how the world can seem so vast On a journey to the past.

I love this soundtrack! I just... gah. Love this movie, love this soundtrack, so pissed that they cut “Dark of the Night” for the musical.

Russell Crowe - “Stars” (from Les Miserables)

You know your place in the sky You hold your course and your aim And each in your season Returns and returns And is always the same

I honestly did not mind Russell Crowe’s singing in Les Mis. Like, okay, it was really nasal, but a lot of singers are too nasal for my taste. He’s a rock singer, not a Broadway singer. And I do really like this song.

Josh Groban - “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (from Josh Groban)

Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring Soar to uncreated light

This is a song I care more about for its tune than its lyrics, to be honest. I can (and have) listen to this with no lyrics and be perfectly happy. I like Bach AND I like Josh Groban.

Jason Weaver - “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (from The Lion King)

No one saying, "do this" No one saying, "be there" No one saying, "stop that" No one saying, "see here"

Does this one need an explanation, honestly?

Panic! At The Disco - “The Good, The Bad, and the Dirty” (from Death of a Bachelor)

If you wanna start a fight You better throw the first punch Make it a good one And if ya wanna make it through the night You better say my name like The good, the bad, and the dirty

This is another one of those “I downloaded it because it was free on Amazon Prime Music” albums. I wanted “Death of a Bachelor” and “Impossible Year.” But I’m starting to get an appreciation for Panic! At The Disco, like, ten years later than most people.

Evanescence - “What You Want” (from Evanescence)

Stand and face the unknown (Got to remember who you really are) Every heart in my hands like a pale reflection

LOOK, YOU ALL KNOW WHY I HAVE THIS ALBUM (hint: it’s My Immortal). But I actually like Amy Lee as a singer, even if I think her lyrics in this album are a little simplistic.

Jamie Campbell Bower  - “Johanna” (from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)

I'll steal you, Johanna, I'll steal you. Do they think that walls can hide you? Even now, I'm at your window. I am in the dark beside you, Buried sweetly in your yellow hair.

Okay. OKAY. I do like this musical, but I can’t listen to this song (or make banana bread, actually) without being like, “I’ll peeeeeeeeeel you... banaaaaaaanaaaaaa... I’ll peeeeeeel youuuuuu...”

Cast - “This is My Idea” (from The Swan Princess)

Odette: I see him smiling and my knees start buckling I see inside him and my doubts are gone Derek: She started out as such an ugly duckling And somehow suddenly became a swan Odette: So happy to be here Derek: 'Til now I never knew Odette & Derek: It is you I've been dreaming of

Honestly, I love this whole song. I will sing this whole song. With the parts. I love this whole movie. It’s not a fantastic example of 90s animation but I like it anyway and you can suck it.

Okay, I’m tagging: @sicktodeathoflogic @lilacandgray @queer-trans-amazon @takiki16 and @zrayak and that’s it!

[investigatingregionalscenes]

story about music #8

Winter-Spring, 2013: In order to graduate, I needed a capstone. I chose to do deep reporting project I’d been threatening to do since 2009, and looked into the noise and experimental scene of New England. I recorded seven interview with experimental artists about their lives and work. These are five of them. They were taken in a variety of locales in the Boston area: Cambridge, Somerville, Lowell, and Salem.

In the last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about this period and these conversations as I ask myself, why keep doing this?

above: Ron Lessard, as Emil Beaulieau, performs in someone’s basement in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Music

Music for this episode was created using the following household objects: a desk lamp, a can of beer, a record player, a radiator, and a vacuum cleaner.

With the exceptions of “Fog in the Ravine” by Lejsovka and Freund as well samples from their songs “From Royal Ave” and “Nothing, Just Looking at the Moon” and the song “Blue Line Homicide” by Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck.

The soundtrack was created with advice from musician Jacob Rosati. It will be made available for download later in the summer. For more info please subscribe to the podcast, tumblr, or follow us on twitter.

Links

Crank Sturgeon still performs and tours regularly. He also builds contact microphones and other circuit bent sundries, one of which was used in the production of this episode. A full recording of his set used in this episode is available here.

Crank Sturgeon, 2012, from Wikimedia.

Shane Broderick spent most of his twenties making music with his friend Ted (and later, their friend Josh Hydeman) under the name Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck. Their music is a good example of the subgenres Grindcore and Power Electronics. The name is also exemplary of those subgenres. The performance video which is referenced in the documentary, taken in the mid-00s, has been removed from Youtube. A video from that period is visible here, uploaded by the band’s Ted Sweeney. (contains nudity)

Shane Broderick, from Existence Establishment

Ron Lessard still runs RRRecords in Lowell, Massachusetts. He previously performed under the name Emil Beaulieau. A collection of performances, including the one used in the documentary, can be seen in the video compilation below. 

Emil Beaulieau: America’s Greatest Living Noise Artist, from Youtube

Andrea Pensado still makes music and performs live. She composes in Max/MSP. Her most recent release is a pair of live collaborations with Id M Theft Able. Her former project, with Greg Kowalski, is QFWFQ. 

Andrea Pensado live performance, 10-13-13, from Youtube

Angela Sawyer owned Weirdo Records until it closed in 2015. She now performs comedy and experimental music around Boston. 

Angela Sawyer, from her personal website.

The interview with Andrea Pensado was recorded along with my friend Samira, who was producing her own documentary of Boston’s experimental music scene, below. It includes footage from the Andrea interview as well as her own separate interview with Angela Sawyer. 

“The Noise” by Samira Winter, from Youtube

Luigi Russolo’s manifesto is The Art of Noises

Luigi Russolo and the Intonarumori, with his asst. Uglo Piatti, from Wikimedia

Transcript

Brendan: Would you mind telling me about the show at [withheld] , from six years ago, down the street?

Shane: Yeah, um, I was setting up a show with some old-school Detroit noise dudes. When we showed up, the owner was there instead of the doorman, and he was just upset cause he was there on, like, a Tuesday night. 

So what ended up happening was is, uhh, two bands played and he came up to me a said, “show’s over.” “Well there’s still two bands to play,” and he’s like, “I don’t care, the show’s over.” I’m like, “the show’s been booked for two months.” Just because you want to go home and, like, jerk off into a kleenex or whatever it is that you fuckin’ do. It has nothing to do with me. And he got upset, and I was like, well listen dude, how about the last two bands play at the exact same time.” So that’s what we did. Warmth and Twodeadsluts collaborated. It lasted about fifteen seconds, and the owner came over and kicked a table with everyone’s gear on it. So the only logical thing for me to do as a Bostonian–– and I have pride being a Bostonian–– is I just looked at this guy and I was like, “I don’t care how big he is, or how Italian he is, I’m gonna wind up, and I’m gonna punch this guy right in the fucking face.”

Brendan: And what happened?

Shane: That guy hit me back––I-I lost a little bit of time there. He’s a lot bigger than me. Uh, clocks went still. I kinda woke up, I was on the ground, and he was smashing everyone’s gear. Cops came in, they put me in a car, they, y’know told me to leave and blah blah blah.

Brendan: Is that the only time cops have been called on you?

Shane: No. Not even close.

music: “Blue Line Homicide” | Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck

You’re listening to Stories About Music, a podcast on the subjects of music, journalism, and memories, and how the line between those three things is often not as clear as I’d hoped.

My name is Brendan Mattox, and this is story about music number eight, “Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise?”.

Room 1 (Crank Sturgeon)

Cars pass by on Massachusetts Avenue, seen out the front window of Weirdo Records in Cambridge. It’s night time. A few young men in their twenties sit on the floor of the small storefront, waiting as Crank Sturgeon sets up in a corner.

Crank: Cool. So, do you think this is our show? Shall we wait, or?

Angela: I think…What time is it? It’s not eight-thirty, that’s probably most of our show. Let me turn that off.

Crank: Not that uh, four’s a wonderful audience, I’ve played for two. One of them was my brother who never saw me before that point…and Id Em Thft Able and I had some very bizarre sexual ritual in front of my brother, involving instant powdered milk and a plastic poster from 1970 of this naked woman holding a stuffed animal…And I had a penis helmet at the time… but alright, well I will perform for you hello, my name is Crank Sturgeon everybody… (6:37) We could do a performance where I have everyone sing introductions of themselves to each other. Everyone up on your feet. 

Crank: Hello! My name is Craaaaaaannnk Sturrrgeon!

Angela: Hello! My name is Angela Sawyyyyyeerrrrrr!

Crank: All at once now!

Brendan: And I am Brendan Mattox!

Crank: Hi Brendan Mattox, my name is Crank, it’s a pleasure to meet you, you have a really firm handshake. And this man in the corner, what’s your name? Andrew, another Andrew, Brendan, Angela.

Angela: Wow, we’re nearly phonemes.

Crank: Ahh, phonies…

Crank Sturgeon sits down behind his instruments: a few tape recorders, a sharpie, and a loudspeaker full of tacks and jelly beans.

Crank: First Piece, oh, wait. My brand new fish helmet, so I can lose even more water to my body. There we go. First piece is improvisations with the letter D. Delirious, Delightful, Delicious, Dumb, Dumbfounded, Dimwit, Diplodocus, Dinosaur, Diana, Dagnasty, Dagnabbit, Diddling, Dawdling, Doodling, Dude Ranch (buzzing noise) Dick, Doofus, Dammit, Darn, Dangle, Drink, Drunk, Dank, Dork, Dusty, Dunce, Distinguished! Development! Duplicitous.

Crank is wearing a black garbage bag over his head, adjusted so his face and white goatee peek through the hole he’s cut in it for air. On either side of the bag are two enormous fish eyes, drawn on card stock, with marker. 

I’m here tonight reporting a story about a couple of loosely associated experimental musicians from Boston, a story whose meaning is starting to exceed my grasp.

Brendan: How would you describe Crank Sturgeon?

Crank: In uhh, a sentence? Brendan: I have no idea. How would you describe the experience of being Crank Sturgeon?

Crank: Well it’s, uh, it’s not a party.

Angela: It is so.

Crank: It is a party. It’s funny because, I’ve survived for awhile, through the many phases of experimental music.

Brendan: What do you mean the many phases?

Crank: The many phases. You’d go to a show in 1996 in a basement in Allston and it was like, a tough guy scene. 

Angela: People sitting on the floor, like indian style, and a dude looking at his belly button going “doonk-doonk-doonk.”

Crank: (laughs) Very true…

Angela Sawyer, the owner of Weirdo, jumps in. She and Crank know each other going back to the nineties, when they were at the beginning of the path that has led to the three of us standing in a circle in her record store.

Brendan:  what’s the trick to growing old with grace within the experimental community?

Crank: Oh that’s a really fun question, because I’m still figuring it out. I think…did you want to say something?

Angela: Well I feel like no one– when I was twenty, or eighteen, and I met people who were much older than me, it never occurred to me to look at myself from their point of view, ever. So I only ever thought, “oh, that person is as old as my mom and my dad, but they’re doing what I want instead of what my parents are doing. Once you get to be–– I’m in my forties…then is when you’re like, oh, I have been there so many times and they have no idea where I am. So that’s when you start to feel marginalized a little bit

Room 2 (Shane Broderick)

The TV in Shane Broderick’s living room is on mute. A weather man gestures in to a map of New England in shades of blue and purple. At the top of the screen is a red banner with the words “Blizzard Warning.” It’s mid-afternoon. Shane and I are drinking cans of beer that Shane brought out of the fridge.

Shane: I was always playin’ music and stuff since I was a little kid. Even when I was, like, twelve years old I’d be up late smokin’ weed and messing with drum machines and stuff like that.

Brendan: Where’d you get your hands on a drum machine at age twelve.

Shane: Uhh, Christmas present.

Brendan: Christmas present?

Shane: Yeah.

Brendan: That’s pretty cool.

Shane: Yeah, I had my beginner guitar and a drum machine. Y’know once I was like, fifteen and stuff I got a job, started collecting equipment…I thought I’d make a career out of it but I ended up just being, like, a lifelong mailroom guy.

When he was 19 years-old, Shane dropped out of college in Florida and moved back to Massachusetts. He started making abrasive music with a friend he knew while working at a gas station in high school. 

Shane: We worked together and every time we finished a shift it would be like a hundred and something dollars under, and I was like, what the fuck this kid man.

They called themselves Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck.

Shane: We joked around on the internet about how we were going to start the most extreme band ever and how the first record we’d just put a bunch of contact mics in a blender and throw a rabbit in it and whatever it sounded like, that was the first LP. Which we never did. [music in]

Brendan: But what instead came out of it was…

Shane: I stuck my boner in a blender. Which was a demo that we did which was me and him coaching eleven of our friends, we were just trying to make circus music with grindcore parts.

Shane: We got reviewed in something like Metal Maniacs, that was like a magazine that when I was ten years old and my mother would drag me to CVS to grab things, I would sit in the aisle and look at, like, pictures of like, Slayer looking sexy and stuff like that, so I was like “oh shit, I’m in this magazine now.” After that, me and him decided to keep the name and go forward with it.

Shane is in his early thirties and he still makes music, although Twodeadsluts hasn’t been active for awhile. He also still plays shows sometimes, though he doesn’t really enjoy it.

Shane: I don’t know I think it’s just, like, nerves. It was easier with the other guys because we were more like a wrecking crew. Y’know, get blind stinkin’ drunk and it didn’t really matter what happened.

Brendan: What would one night at a TDS show end up being like?

Shane: It would start off sloppy and then I wouldn’t remember then end of it. 

(Indiscriminate yelling)

Shane: We’re Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck from Boston, and we need the drum machine way fucking louder. Get that shit way the fuck up.

Brendan: When you guys got onstage, there seems to be sort of a pattern. You start off with some harsh feedback, and then it progresses into stuff getting knocked over.

Shane: There was definitely a lot of feedback and definitely a lot of things knocked over.

They were also usually naked. 

Shane: I think we were probably more performative over substance, to be quite honest. In those early shows we were just using five or six microphones, a bunch of fx pedals running back into each other, and just whatever sounds were happening, were happening

[music]

Shane: Either people really liked it or found it very entertaining, and on the flipside– we’d have people picket our shows, feminists thinking that we were, like, um, promoting sexism… Just that band name wipes off at least 70% of the population from even giving you a chance. It’s probably a higher percentage than that…

Brendan: So the choice of the band name then, was it to…

Shane: It was kind of like, a filtering mechanism and also it was like an inside joke that just kept going and going, and no one was really in on it but us. The band wasn’t supposed to last ten years either.

Shane: I can’t even give you any rationale behind it…it really might look pretty forced, but it was actually pretty natural for the people involved in the band.

Brendan: Why was it so natural?

Shane: I don’t know. That’s a question for a therapist. I don’t know.

I sip from my can of beer even though it’s empty. Shane plays with the pull tab on his. On the television, the weatherman predicts a foot of snow is going to cover Boston over the next two days. Shane, still dressed in scrubs from the hospital where he works, says,“I got to work tomorrow no matter what.”

There’s a half-open ironing board against a wall. In the bathroom, the sink is plastered with shavings. Next to the un-flushed toilet sits a stack of musical notation paper. I stare at it, because it says something specific about the person I’m speaking to. I can’t figure out what, or why.

Brendan: If you could maybe, like, point me in the right direction of some people in the area to talk to…

Shane: I think you should definitely talk to Ron in Lowell. He runs triple-R records. He’s kind of, America’s greatest living noise artist. Like a godfather type…

Room 3 (RRRon)

I walk out Shane’s front door and into Ray Robinson’s café in downtown Lowell. Ron Lessard waits for me in a yellow booth along the window. Through the rain on the glass, the world outside is a blur of different shades of gray.

Brendan: Where should we begin?

Ron: (chewing noises) So. Today is Wednesday. I’m eating lunch. I’m almost through with my fries, soon I’ll be starting on my burgers. Fuckin’ awesome.

Ron is the noise expert, one of the engines driving America’s experimental music scene since the 80s. Ron has released about 1000 recordings on Triple-R’s in-house label.

Ron: I was the source. And everybody who ever learned how to play a tape backwards or make feedback decided to send me a demo. And man, I heard so much crap like you wouldn’t believe…I mean, how many Rock’n’roll bands are awesome, and how many suck beyond belief?

Ron first got into noise music around 1981, after he left the Air Force and came home to Lowell.  

Ron: There was a mail-order outlet out of Colorado called Aeon A-E-O-N. When I got their catalog, I couldn’t believe the stuff they had listed. They had, like, Whitehouse albums, New Blockaders, Maurizio Bianchi, and it’s like who the fuck are these guys? So I started buying that stuff  and I was like, woah, this is what I’ve been looking for all these years. The guy that ran it became a survivalist kind of guy, y’know, living out in the woods with his gun type of thing and, actually, he eventually sold me his entire inventory, I bought him out.

Ron: When I first opened I tried to specialize in all the really weird imports, bizarre bands and that kind of stuff, y’know. But at the same time, I knew enough to know that pedestrians, your average everyday person, has no freakin’ clue. They just want to listen to a Barry Manilow or whatever the fuck they like, y’know.  

His store, RRRecords, opened in 1984.

Ron: After Aeon, I was the guy that was thoroughly obsessed, and I just devoted myself to it…Day in day out noise, morning, noon, and night. Listening to tapes, checking out bands all day every day. At that time Heavy metal wasn’t heavy enough, punk rock wasn’t extreme enough, Noise did it for me, it really did.

Ron started performing noise music himself under the name Emil Beaulieau. Footage from from the nineties, like this, show him using vinyl records and their accessories as instruments. 

This is another way to look at noise music: instead of using something like a trombone, or a tuba, a guitar, or a piano, you take whatever you can find, whatever objects appeal to you, and you refashion them into something expressive. The screeching noise you hear is coming from a modified turntable, which Ron stands behind with a goofy look on his face, pretending to polish record.

Ron: Remember to always, always use the circular motion when cleaning your records.

From that perspective, noise is a positive, creative philosophy, and I can see how people get so obsessed with it.

Ron:A lot of people, y’know, they can’t play guitar, they can’t play the drums–– but twisting knobs and screaming your brains out, getting out that primal scream, whatever it is…it’s inside everybody.

Brendan: And speaking of which, what’s your personal experience with it.

Ron: (Darkly) What do you mean?

Brendan: I mean with Emil Beaulieau.

Ron: Yeah.

Brendan: Well you just said that Noise music was this personal experience. How did you get stuff out through Emil Beaulieau?

Ron: I–I’m not sure where your leading, as far as recording or getting the name out?

Brendan: Why did you start Emil Beaulieau?

Ron: ––you know, I just wasn’t any good at sports (laughter).

The uncomfortable moment sticks in the back of mind for the rest of our interview. Though Ron’s eloquent and energetic, as I was warned he would be, he’s also a little guarded. Maybe that’s because I showed up looking for someone to answer the criticisms of noise music or its culture, which he brushes off with a simple:

Ron: Lately? Lately I’m out of it.

Brendan: When was the last time you were in it?

Ron: Seven years ago (laughs)

Brendan: So let’s go back seven years, because this is something that keeps coming up in interviews with people. Seven years ago, things were very…

Ron: Active.

Brendan: Active.

Ron: Wicked, wicked, wicked active.

Brendan: What’s happened?

Ron: The bands that are making noise today sound like the bands that were making noise ten years ago, that sound like the bands making noise twenty years ago, y’know they sound exactly the same, they’re doing the same freakin’ feedback, they’re still screaming the same lyrics, y’know, it’s just the same thing over and over and over and over again. Which is fine, y’know, punk rock exists for a reason, y’know. The young people, they’re totally into it because it’s new for them. It’s like wow this is freakin awesome these guys are screaming their brains out! They’re talking about killing people! But then ten years later it’s the same thing all over again…I mean do you want to listen to that same band for freaking ten years in a row? I mean do you still want to hear Aerosmith? No you don’t (laughs).

He seems tired in a way that I’ve not seen before. As we talk, I get the sense that what Ron and I are doing has become an exit interview.

Ron: I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do and just to keep doing it because somebody else wants me to? Wrong freakin reason. That’s how bands start to suck. So fuck that y’know.

Y’know there was a time when I couldn’t wait to get on stage and scream my brains out. It’s like, well I mean y’know, you ever had a girlfriend? You make out with her it’s like the best! And then one day, you don’t want to make out with her anymore. It’s no different.

I mean, it’s been seven years. I stopped performing seven years ago, March of ’06. It’s now March ’13. It’s seven freaking years that I’ve stopped. Chances are you’re not doing the same thing you were doing seven years ago. And I’m willing to bet, seven years from now, you’re not going to be doing the exact same thing you’re doing now. People change, they move on. Been there, done that, why do it again?

music: “Fog in the Ravine” | Lejsovka & Freund

The scene dissolves. In the darkness, I think of the question that I wish I’d asked. This isn’t just some thing Ron was doing, it was the thing – what can you do when you lose touch with the something that was core to your identity?

Room 4 (Andrea Pensado)

Andrea: I think it’s very important to not to be scared of being in a place of not knowing. To be in a place of uncertainty, is excellent! Even if it is uncomfortable. Honestly, I don’t want a comfortable life. 

I’m sitting in a cozy loft apartment in Salem, while my friend Samira chats with a small, owlish woman in her late 40s named Andrea Pensado.

Andrea: Well if you feel it at twenty than you cannot imagine in your forties.

Samira: I just taste it and I’m like, ‘wow, I’m just feeling all the sugar.’

Andrea: I ate a lot of chips, it was a bad idea. With beer, y’know, not good.

Samira is working on her own documentary about experimental music.

Andrea first got interested in music when she was a little girl, growing up in Buenos Aires.

Andrea: Eh, I was living in an apartment building, and a friend of mine, she started taking piano lessons. She showed me her music and I saw the notation, ehh, and I was fascinated. Honestly I was not aware of such a rich experimental music background until when I was in Poland… 

She left Argentina to study composition in Krakow as an adult. But the music she composed on paper was so complex, that she often had trouble finding people to play it. Andrea likes to think about timbre–– the color of sound, what differentiates one instrument from another.  To wring out some really interesting timbre with traditional instruments, you’ve got to do some out there stuff.

Andrea: Like, I don’t want to be just writing for the drawer.

And then, Andrea went to the Audio Art Festival, a meeting of the minds held in Krakow every November. The festival focuses on objects used to produce sound: musical instruments, but also computers. 

Inspired, Andrea taught herself to program and began using electronics in her work.

Andrea: So I create a wifi for myself just to avoid latency, you can work with any wife…So my controllers are! An iPod–– I say, I look like an apple merchandise stand, which is quite depressing, but you know, what can I do? So this is an iPod with a special application I use to… [iPod click]. Well, first I have to set up the wifi, I show you…

Andrea is wearing a a headset like the kind people use to play video games. She’s sitting at her computer with an iPod Touch in her right hand. 

Andrea: This is a simple wave, just a simple low tone. So if I move it like this, I change the pitch. And then if I do like this, the distortion is the direct result of– 

She twists and bends her arm manipulating the sine wave into a complex pattern.

Andrea: And I can do the same if I had my voice…

Then she flicks on her mic.

Andrea: Hey, hah, that’s my voice! (noise) hello! Hah! (pause, noise ends). So you know it’s quite dramatic.

Andrea: Maybe for somebody who is not a lot in music, this seems harsh. I don’t think this is harsh at all, this is just the way new music is going. I do believe that, even though I don’t think what we do now is better than what was done in the Renaissance, ok, I do believe that there is constant change, and that artistic languages keep having a need of refreshing themselves, ok?…yeah?

Brendan: (18:49) Why do you think music is shifting in that direction?

Andrea: To explore timbre…Because now, thanks to the technology, we have access to it. It’s easier to manipulate. We are like kids, we are, like, playing. (12:26) I compare it to the beginning of the baroque, where they became aware of chords, of verticality, and then for 300 years, they explore that.

Andrea’s grandiosity reminds me of the document that first inspired me to pursue this project. In 1913, a young painter named Luigi Russolo wrote a letter to a composer he admired. The two of them were part of an Italian movement known as Futurism. Russolo’s letter ended up as one of the movement’s major manifestoes, The Art of Noises. 

In The Art of Noises, Russolo laid out a framework for the music of the new industrial world, in which the city itself is both the inspiration and the instrument. 

For centuries life went by in silence, at most in muted tones…Amidst this dearth of noises, the first sounds that man drew from a pieced reed or stretched string were regarded with amazement…and the result was music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real one…

We Futurists have deeply loved and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. Now, we are satiated and find far more enjoyment in the combination of the noises of trams, backfiring motors, carriages and bawling crowds than in rehearsing the “er-O-i-ca” or the “Pastorale”.

We cannot much longer restrain our desire to create finally a new musical reality, with a generous distribution of resonant slaps in the face. Discard violins, pianos, double-basses and plaintive organs…

I am not a musician, I have therefore no acoustical predilections, nor any works to defend. I am a Futurist painter using a much loved art to project my determination to renew everything. And so, bolder than a professional musician could be, unconcerned by my apparent incompetence and convinced that all rights and possibilities open up to daring, I am able to initiate the great renewal of music by means of the Art of Noises.

It is, and I am one to talk, very pretentious. And yet, I kind of sympathize with the guy. When I started making a podcast, I was intent on remaking a whole sector of journalism with my own bold incompetence.

A man of his word, Luigi built these giant boxes called the Intonarumori, whose purpose was to make a bunch of noise. A photo of them often accompanies The Art of Noises, and you can see Russolo standing behind one, this thin guy with a mustache, a hand placed on the crank handle at its back. 

Like most manifestoes, The Art of Noises says very little about its writer, except what he wanted to be: a great destroyer come to remake the world in his image. If you’re a certain type of young person, that idea is very attractive, and you can embrace it without really thinking about what other things you might put to the side to achieve that.

Samira: What’s your, I know you’ve done a lot of work with visual, audio and visual.

Andrea: Well that’s with my ex-husband (laughter). Greg, whom I met in Poland, he comes from video, from cinema. We had a duo, eventually, I stopped doing my own to work for our duo, which we worked together for ten years. Greg did the images and I did the sound. And we work on interactivity. Then we split, so now I work just with sound.

Brendan: How is your music different working with your ex-husband, than after?

Andrea: The main goal of our duo was to have real time interaction between images and the sound. So if there was something onstage like a movement or, whatever, it had simultaneously a result in both. It gave some rigidity. So now that the interaction isn’t so important, I have much more freedom to just to improvise. It’s like much, much more freedom.

Room 6 (Angela Sawyer)

Angela: One of the first people I ever met who was interested in experimental music was Ron Lessard. 

I’m standing at the counter in Weirdo Records one afternoon, talking with Angela Sawyer again She’s telling me how she first got involved with the experimental scene, just after she started at U-MASS LOWELL in the early 90s.

I had never been to New England at all, I just flew here on a plane from Denver and I wanted to meet some people, and I didn’t really know what to do, and I heard some other kids saying that they wanted to join the college radio station. They said at the meeting to join up, you have to show up and volunteer…I went back the next day, and there no one was there.

Brendan: How long were you there for?

Angela: Probably an hour (laughs). Finally someone came by…I was just like, “hey, hey, I’m here to volunteer, what should I do?” And they just looked at me like I had three heads. They were like, “why don’t you clean something?” So I found a vacuum and I just started vacuuming…

And I went through all the rooms, and finally I got to a room that I hadn’t been in yet, and there was a person in there, and it was kind of dark in there…So I waited for him to notice me. I said hi, I’m trying to vacuum. I had no idea that it was the air studio and, um, Ron, of course, he’s like a firecracker going off. So he’s like, “OH YES COME ON IN,” he was mic-ing the vacuum cleaner, and I’m just like “oh hi,” and he’s like tell me about yourself, who are you? And uhh, he was really awesome to me

As we walk down memory lane, Angela starts talking about a world that I was once very interested in, the network of noise and experimental artists who connected in the early days of the internet, after decades of being little feudal kingdoms.

Angela: There was definitely a feeling at one point of there being a first-world wide, at least, community, if not worldwide, of people who were listening to the same releases, and they were seeing the same bands, they’d heard some Throbbing Gristle records, and they had a common language and finding out about cool stuff and figuring out how it worked, and they knew what happened when you stuck a clarinet underwater and put delay on it. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Angela said at the Crank Sturgeon show, about choosing to live on the Island of Misfit toys without thinking about it very hard. Because I feel, in a lot of ways, that that’s become my life. I’m more devoted now than ever to completing the work I set out for myself, but I’m also deeply unhappy, and more isolated.

Angela: Every town has the person who is like, I’ll become the nun, I’ll sacrifice myself and do all this work and…y’know, I have a store, that’s what I do.

Brendan: Can you talk a bit about sacrificing–– about becoming a martyr for the scene?

Angela: I’m not trying to do that, I actually really dislike that. 

Brendan: How did you fall into the role?

Angela: If you have some job related to underground music, that’s what you’re doing. ‘Cause there’s no money. But that’s one of the only ways you can spend your whole life surrounded by it. 

music: “Fog in the Ravine” | Lejsovka and Freund

Angela: Everything I know about politics and geography and sociology and psychology, and how to sort of figure out how to deal with the world at large, I mostly learned them from records. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a conversation about anything else. I’m a very narrow person outside of records. Basically, records are sort of my defense system and or window for everything, I think of every record as like a pair of of tinted glasses, and you can look at the whole world through that and see it in a new way, and each good record has a slightly different shade on it, so you never get done figuring out how things work and enjoying new wrinkles in how things are. The bad news is that if you take the glasses off things look terrible, then you have to function like a regular person. And that’s not something I’m very good at.

If I’m being honest, neither am I. I’ve agonized over these interviews for a long time, afraid of saying the wrong thing about the people in them. To call it a “cautionary tale of loving something– an idea– that cannot love you back,” sounded unkind, both to them and to myself. I can’t help but feel at the end that that’s exactly what it is.

I avoided revisiting these interviews for almost five years because they held up a mirror to the shaky logic I built ambitions on. They pointed out, in no uncertain terms, that art cannot save me. It can help me find a way to save myself, by learning to communicate things that I feel deeply in a way that’s truthful, accurate, and honest. But that’s all that it can do. 

And it took losing someone I loved very much to understand that. 

Room 7 (Somerville Ave)

Shane Broderick and I stand on the sidewalk of Somerville Avenue on a cool spring evening. Shane’s arm is in a cast. He’s just finished telling me a story about the time he punched a club owner at a venue up the block. As we’re talking about the reputation that Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck had amongst Boston’s club owners, some of Shane’s friends emerge from the bar where he’s just finished a gig.

Shane: it’s funny because we never actually gave any of the venues our actual performances, it was more like basement parties and shit like that that they were scared of, that they’d heard about.

Brendan: I can’t remember if I got this on tape last time, would you mind describing what the actual performances were?

Shane: Can’t really do that, I don’t know, you can ask these guys.

Friend 1: What’s that?

Friend 2: You gotta lighter? I just realized I left my backpack down there, I got good beer in there but whatever fuck that shit.

Brendan: Would you guys mind describing to me what a normal show by Twodeadsluts Onegoodfuck was like?

Friend 2: Is this an interview? I wasn’t ready for an interview man I can’t do that! My voice cannot be heard on tape.

Friend 1: (makes jerk-off motion) It’s like this.

Friend 2: Can I get a lighter from somebody?

Shane: (shouting) It’s like looking at something, and gettin’ so excited and just BAM! And then it’s kind of like aww fuck.

Friend 1: I don’t have a lighter!

Friend 2: Do you have a lighter?

Shane: We need to go home. Need to hide under a blanket.

Friend 2: Do you have a lighter buddy?

Brendan: Nah, I’m sorry.

Friend 2: Motherfucker! How can you do an interview without a lighter? (distant) Fuck! Amateur!

Brendan: So, just so I don’t take up the rest of your time, there was something you said during the last interview. You said that, for TDS, there was this joke that you guys…when the joke stopped being funny, you guys were like, ‘alright, I’m gonna do something else.’

Friend 1: The joke didn’t stop being funny.

Shane: Well ok I’m not sure the joke ever stopped being funny but…

Brendan: So, what, in your opinion what was the joke?

Friend 1: The band was the joke.

Brendan: What specifically about the band was the joke?

Friend 1: I don’t know…

Friend 2: (strike lamppost) Do a funny voice c’mon what the fuck! We’re supposed to be entertained by this shit.

Shane: Alright, you can cut my voice here.

Friend 2: It doesn’t matter what you say so long as it’s in a funny voice it’s cool.

Shane: There are a lot of Boston noise bands and people from Jamaica Plain and Allston and they want everyone to be like, onboard with, ‘hey, we’re all friends, this is a scene! come down to our house play a show blah blah blah.’ And what Twodeadsluts was more like, was just like, ‘We’re not even invited. We’re playing a show, we’re trashing your fuckin’ house.’

Brendan: Do you ever miss it?

Shane: Yeah, of course I do. It is what it is.

Brendan: I feel like that’s a pretty good place to end.

Shane: There you go.

I walk off into the night. A block away, I come to a stop on a concrete island in the middle of Somerville Avenue and look back at Shane and his friends. They were still down by the bench we were sitting on, drunk, being loud, but their noise is drowned out by the cars flying past me, headed for the outskirts of Boston.

Standing here, it occurs to me that need room tone, the sound of the place I’m in. Room tone helps smooth out transitions in editing, makes a radio documentary sound more natural. I’ve forgotten to get it for almost every other interview with the noise artists. But that I remember now seems significant to me, an promise to myself that someday I’ll figure what made this experience worth telling.

Credits

Today’s episode was produced with help from Wes Boudreau and Samira Winter. Editing help by Kyna Doles and Jon Davies. Special thanks today to Lejsovka & Freund, Jacob Rosati, Sean Coleman, Elissa Freeden, Brittany Rizzo, Tyler Carmody, and Birgit from Denmark. 

Visit our website, investigating regional scenes dot org, for more episodes and, this summer, some bonus materials. You can find Stories About Music on your local podcast provider. Please leave a review to helps us find new listeners.

From Philadelphia, I’m Brendan Mattox, back soon with more stories about music.

[capitanogiorgio]

ultimate q&a for theatre kids : tous les nombres pairs :)

2. favorite character in your favorite musical? 

WELL, to be fair I’d have to choose just one (1) favourite musical to answer that. Let’s choose Notre Dame de Paris and that’d be Gringoire.

4. favorite character in your favorite play? 

Cyrano obviously

6. what’s a role you’d like to play that you’d never be able to? 

Hmm... Given my built I usually end up with roles of soldiers/fighters, someone who fights basically and I’d like a more layered role than just the “muscles” “fight before think” roles.

8. do you like hamilton? 

Yes I do

10. how do you feel about hyped up shows like hamilton, les mis, and rent? 

I love the three quoted above and I’m fed up with people saying people who are utter fans of “hyped up” musicals are “fake fans”. You don’t have to know or love an obscure show that most of fans don’t even have access with because classismTM to be a real fans and this mindset needs to stop asap. Of course I’d like shows like Hadestown or The Secret Garden or Chess or LOTR (yes) to be more loved, to be more known. But at the end of the day we’re all musicals fans here whether you prefer the most recent, modern, rock/pop musicals or you prefer Golden Age musicals.

12. what award should there be that isn’t? 

Actual french awards for musicals and not just “best musical” at the Molières. There is the Trophées de la Comédie Musicale but people barely know about it and we need something like this in France to promote musicals.

14. have you ever been paid to act onstage or on camera? 

I got a chocolate box once to fill in a additional role an hour before opening but otherwise no. Only amateur

16. favorite stage actress? 

Uuuuuuuuuuuugh I don’t know... I can’t choose

18. favorite show currently or recently running? 

Does Chess counts since there was a production of it at the Kennedy Center in Feb ????? Nah kidding. Well I LOVED Great Comet. I know it exists since 2013 but it’s Broadway production was very recent so that’s why I put it here. And like Josh Groban def need to be on Broadway more often. For very recent musicals I haven’t seen them but I really like the songs I heard from Eugenius and The Grinning Man. I would have loved seeing them ! Y’all should give them a listen !!! Also for french musicals, I really liked Oliver Twist le Musical, give them a listen

20. who should host the tony’s next year? 

It was announced Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles would be the next host. I love Josh and I’m really curious how he’s gonna handle it. I don’t know much about Sara Bareilles though. So for next year ? Idk. Hugh Jackman ? Julie Andrews for the pure fabulousness of it ?

22. what’s your opinion on movies turned into musicals? 

Depends on how it’s done ? I’m excluding the Disneys here because they were already musical movie. Sooo... For example, the Billy Elliott musical is just utterly brilliant, I love it. Or same for Tanz Der Vampire but it can sometimes prove hard to turn a movie in a good musical.

24. do you have an opinion on american psycho? 

I was asked this question the last time I reblogged it I think and my answer is still the same : none. I haven’t read it, I haven’t seen it.

26. what role would you like to see your favorite actor play? 

AHAHAH !  Again I’d have to chooose only one (1) favourite actor. Tbqh, when will Jeremy Secomb be principal Phantom ? Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

28. dramatic plays or comedies? 

Both ?

30. neil patrick harris or james corden? 

Josh Groban

32. create a show mash-up and explain the plot (ex: legally todd = sweeney todd + legally blonde) 

The Sound of Chess : Widow Freddie Trumper meets Anatoly Sergievski, the new governess of his kids. Though strict with the education of his kids (doing exactly what his father did with him) Freddie is soon won over by Anatoly through his connection to the kids thanks to Chess and learning russian. They love each other, they’re gay, the end, thank you.

34. how do you feel about musicals using other artists’ music? 

Why not ? It can be an easy introduction to musicals for peolpe who are not really musical fans ? Like for example my dad just loves Mamma Mia! and it’s one of the only movies we both like, having different tastes and he tries to understand a bit more of my passion to musicals thanks to it.

36. favorite show you’ve been in? 

Dunsinane, by David Greig. I played like ten different roles since there were a lot and we were like 13, so it was stressing but I loved it, it was nice to have different characters to play, having fun with costume changes and finding tricks to change my appearance. And also because our director was very talented and also very demanding and I learned a very great deal with her.

38. television or stage acting? 

They’re completely different. But I prefer the thrill of the one-chance-every-night-is-different that stage acting gives.

40. if you could see one show on broadway or west end, what would it be? 

Great Comet (I’d need a time machine for that). Otherwise Hamilton, so that I can finally see it live.

42. are musical sequels okay? 

Well, Love Never Dies pretty much made it clear why they shouldn’t

44. have you ever had a crush on a character from a show? 

LMAO happens all the time x) !

46. did you like grease live? 

I did. It was quite nice. Nothing to die for but a funny and enjoyable “production”.

48. what show do you desperately want your school/community to do? 

Well for that, we’d need French schools to actually give a fuck about dramatic arts and just arts in general. Otherwise, since I’m an assistant in England, I’d like to see Be More Chill ? That could be fun.

50. would you rather design the set, direct the show, or help with effects? 

I’m rubbish at drawing and stuff so designing is out of the question. Either direct or help with effects.

THANKS FOR THE QUESTIONS

[bisexual-in-every-gender]

survey

[Family]

My brother’s name starts with D. Neither of my grandfathers are alive. I look more like my mother than my father. Both my parents are in a serious relationship. I am the youngest of three children. I am the only girl. My mom’s mom is NOT your typical grandmother. I don’t really like my cousins. I have less than five cousins. I’ve shown up at a family party while under the influence.

[Religion & Politics]

I was raised Christian. But I’m no longer a Christian. I believe in God. But I think the Bible is bullshit. My beliefs aren’t influenced by people around me. My dad is religious. My mom tries to be, but who is she trying to fool? I hate church. I wouldn’t have voted in the last election even if I was old enough. I hate politics more than anything.

[Food]

I honestly never stop eating. Chocolate + peanut butter = orgasmic. I only eat Cains mayonnaise. I’ve never eaten a fruit I didn’t like. I love cooked broccoli but not raw broccoli. I love raw peppers but not cooked peppers. I’ve gone a day or more without eating. I crave chocolate on my period. Pizza Hut has the best pizza around. Cookies & Cream ice cream is one of my favorites.

[Sex, Love & Relationships]

I’ve been told that I was a nine out of ten at giving head. A guy has cheated on his girlfriend with me. I’ve never been cheated on. I had my first kiss when I was fifteen. I lost my virginity in the woods. My best friend lost her virginity a week after me. In the same place I did. I’ve been in the same room as someone having sex. I would rather be on the bottom.

[Music]

I download my music from LimeWire. I love country. I love old school rap. I love alternative. I have All Time Low’s new CD Nothing Personal. And I love it. I love to sing, but I suck horribly at it. I cannot play a musical instrument. I want to learn to play the drums. I used to take piano lessons.

[School]

My GPA is between 2.0 and 3.0. I took Algebra 1 in 8th grade, and again in 9th. I’ve passed a class with a D-. I don’t do my homework at home. I prefer mechanical pencils. I always do projects the night before they’re due. I’m really smart but don’t always apply myself. I text in school. I’ve gotten my phone taken away in school.

[Beauty & Hygiene]

I straighten my hair often. On lazy days, I scrunch my hair to go out. My only make-up necessity is mascara. I like to wing my eyeliner. I’d rather take a shower than a bath. I’d rather use body wash than a bar of soap. I’d rather use a bath scrunchie than a washcloth. My solution for make-up on lazy days: sunglasses. I use the same routine every day in the shower.

[Smoking, Drinking & Drugs]

I smoke cigarettes. I’ve gotten drunk within the past month. I’ve smoked weed when by myself. The first time I got high was on a holiday. Marijuana should be legalized. I have never and would never drink and drive. I hate light beer. My lighter is purple. My favorite cigarettes are Turkish Silver or Camel Crush. I’ve quit smoking but started again.

[Random]

My nails are pink right now. Going to bed at midnight is very early for me. I could never date a guy that didn’t make me laugh. I have a jar of peanut butter in my room right now. I wear sunglasses a lot. Gogurt is really good in the freezer. I’ve been in Hollister, but I don’t own anything from there. Purple is my favorite color. There is no such thing as an ugly color. I need more pens. ______________________________________________________________

I like where I’m at right now. My feet are freezing. I hate feeling awkward. I love driving on country roads. I love driving fast, too. I currently have a cold. I have a crush. No, it’s more than a crush. I always wondered what it’d be like to start over, where no one knew me. I go on Yahoo Answers. I get nostalgic every once in awhile. I really don’t like my father. My mother is one of my best friends though. I don’t mind when people stare at me. No, it’s annoying as fuck. I can’t stand people who are extremely selfish. A Change Of Pace is a good band. I have gotten a new phone within the past month. I want to go to Florida soon. Peach snapple iced tea is theee best. I wrote books when I was younger. I’m really creative, especially when I apply myself. I use Facebook a lot more than I used to. I’m constantly told I’m beautiful, but I still sometimes don’t believe it. One of my friends came out as gay this year. I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t have someone. I’m way too quiet, and I wish I could change. I need to party. Music and books are my favorite. I love everything about the fall. I always smell really good. My hair looks nice today. I have long fingernails. I’ve kissed a Ryan, Mike, or Justin. I’ve been in love with a Josh, Christian, or Scott. I envy no one. I’m going to an amusement park soon. For a halloween-related thing. I don’t like beer. I don’t like soda. I’ve worn a turtle neck in the past year. I wear them often. Outspoken is something I’m not. I express myself through quotes and lyrics. Photography is beautiful. There’s beauty in everything, you just gotta find it. I ordered a pizza recently. Tonight, actually. I wish I could have a whole new batch of friends. Even though I do love the ones I have now. My nose is stuffy. I like orange juice. And sandwich wraps. I love cozy nights at home. I like playing Hebi. Apples to Apples is fun. I have to start applying for jobs. I really need one. Ahhh life is changing fast. I tend to drive a little bit over the speed limit.

My razor only has two blades. My keyboard is black. I use my friends as arm rests and pillows. My favorite number is odd. My favorite number is a single digit. I love having butterflies in my stomach. The last make up I wore was eyeliner. I’d love to have a winter wedding. I’m really ticklish. I have a facial piercing. I’d only get a tattoo that has significant meaning to me. My boyfriend wife is taller than I am. My school has a shitty football team. I play Pet Society on Facebook. All politicians are the same, in my opinion. I can’t eat sushi with a fork or else it feels awkward. I’ve never been to New Mexico. I’d definitely consider adoption if I couldn’t have my own children. I like plain-colored t-shirts. Horror movies don’t really scare me. I have a decent vocabulary. Lord of the Rings doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t play any sports. I prefer orange juice to apple juice. I like my toast with butter and jelly. I love cream cheese. I have a celebrity crush. I get frequent headaches. I can play a little piano. My boyfriend drives an Asian car. And so do I. I WANT MORE PIERCINGS. My favorite fruit is a type of berry. I miss somebody right now. Some of my friends live far away. I can burp out the alphabet. I love breadsticks. I can count to ten in at least two languages. I’d love to have a pet owl. I prefer dogs to cats. I only wear actual perfume on special occasions. But I wear body spray on a daily basis. I have pictures of my sibling/s on my phone. ______________________________________________________________

What I have…

Purse/bag

Notepad | Altoids | Advil | Wallet | Book | Pencil pouch | Gloves | Earphones | Camera film | Eraser | Pens | Trash | Button | Spare change | Ticket stubs | Tea bag | Plastic spoon

Closet

Cardigans | Sweaters | Jackets | T-shirts | Coats | Tank tops | Button-up shirts | Shoe hanger/caddy | Vans | Hiking shoes/boots | Oxfords | Heels | Shoeboxes with misc. things | Nail polish | Keepsakes | Costume stuff from previous Halloweens | Yarn | Looms for knitting | Backpack for backpacking | School backpacks | Old computer | Photo prints | Video games | Stuff I need to sell | Oil heater

Bedside Drawer

Pills | Coins | Jewelry | Diary | Hairbands | Hair clips | Bobby pins | Comb | Notepads | Chargers | Lighters | Book marks | Light bulbs | Pencils | A pack of playing cards | Pencil lead | An old birthday card | Earphones | Passport | Miscellaneous screws

DVD Shelf

28 Days Later | Amélie | Blade Runner | Catch Me If You Can | A Clockwork Orange | The Darjeeling Limited | District 9 | Doctor Zhivago | Donnie Darko | Ed Wood | Edward Scissorhands | Everything is Illuminated | Fright Night | Full Metal Jacket | The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly | The Harry Potter series | In Bruges | Inception |Jurassic Park | The King’s Speech | Lolita | The Nightmare Before Christmas | Run Fatboy Run | Snatch | Sweeney Todd | The Truman Show | Wall-E | Doctor Who | Pushing Daisies | True Blood

Yard

A sad, sad lawn | My car | Shed | Flower pots | Garden | Barbecue | Chicken pen (with chickens) | Wood shed | Trees | Rose bushes | Dandelions | Daffodils | Tractor | Gravel | Pathways | Bed for my kitty | An old truck | Bushes

iTunes (I’ll say my phone since I don’t have an iPhone)

AC/DC | ADELE | Amy Winehouse | Arcade Fire | Arctic Monkeys | The Beatles | Beck| Beyoncé | Billy Idol | The Black Keys | Canned Heat | Cyndi Lauper | Daft Punk | The Dead Weather | Dropkick Murphys | Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes | Ellie Goulding | Feist | Fiona Apple | Fleetwood Mac | Imagine Dragons | Jack White | Jimi Hendrix | The Kills | Lady Gaga | Lily Allen | Macklemore | Marina & The Diamonds | Mew | Nirvana | Pink Floyd | Portugal. The Man | Queen | Rage Against the Machine | Red Hot Chili Peppers | Rihanna | Sea Wolf | Simon & Garfunkel | St. Vincent | Tears for Fears | Tegan & Sara | Tool | Vampire Weekend | Weezer | The White Stripes | Yeah Yeah Yeahs | ZZ Top

[keeping-tabs]

not to be rude but the soundtrack for the new Beauty and the Beast movie does not sound... good

like I have nothing against Emma Watson but she just can’t sing, her voice is autotuned to a point where she doesn’t even sound human anymore, especially in Belle. not only that she sounds so uninterested, there’s no emotion behind her singing, when Paige O’Hara has such a lovely, expressive voice

in fact, all the townspeople in Belle sound completely flat and bored and it’s such a stark contrast to the original where everyone sounds distinct and expressive. it sounds so sad

Beast’s voice is also fucked up in Something There, again it sounds like they got a vocaloid to perform it, only this time they added a really shitty filter to it and it sounds almost sped up? idk, but it almost sounds like something from youtube poop lmao

Ewan McGregor and Emma Thompson actually sound decent though, nothing special but better than Emma Watson and Beast at least. I don’t like the slower tempo of Be Our Guest but it still sounds nice. weirdly enough, Thompson sounds nearly exactly like Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd, they have that same light, airy type of voice and the accents are similar. It sounds nice but also a little on the weak side. It’s funny because Thompson’s also played Mrs. Lovett before

Gaston and LeFou are easily the best part of the soundtrack for me tbh, and Gaston’s song and the Mob Song are the highlights of the soundtrack. Josh Gad can actually sing and isn’t just phoning in his performance like the leads, and while Luke Evans’ voice isn’t as deep as the original Gaston’s voice but he manages to make it work for him. he hits a pretty nice high note during Gaston and I was impressed. I actually liked the new lyrics for the Mob Song too, Gaston’s line like “in times like this they’ll do just as I say” and LeFou’s “there’s a beast running wild, there’s no question” work really well and it sounds to me like LeFou is realizing Gaston ain’t shit

like I really don’t mean to be that “they changed it so now it sucks” fan, but the original BatB soundtrack is so damn good and easily one of the best Disney soundtracks, so it’s hard to listen to this new soundtrack because it’s just so flat and unemotional. I don’t know why they didn’t cast actual singers in the lead roles. the movie would still do well with unknown actors, Disney!!

[kairuy]

DIVERSITY IN SEATTLE THEATRE, MAY-JUNE 2017.

You know the drill.

1. The People’s Republic of Valerie, Kristen Kosmas, dir. Paul Budraitis, OTB. This is not so much a play as a white woman struggling to make sense of the murders of black men by police officers and men like that piece of shit who murdered Trayvon Martin five years ago last February. It was performed by Kristen Kosmas and an ensemble of actors spread across a range of race and gender, each inhabiting her words with their own voices. The talkback was led by Ijeoma Oluo, and it was interesting and thoughtful and also a bit constrained inside the white echo chamber that is OTB’s audience most nights.

2. Midsummer’s Night Dream, Shakespeare, dir. George Mount, Seattle Shakes. They often cast across race and gender, as they should. I will add that I had a little trouble telling the actors who played Demetrius and Lysander apart. Sheesh. White guys.

3. The Wolves (staged reading), Sarah DeLappe, dir. Keiko Green, NCTC/Pipeline. All-female characters, diversely cast, although one girl is specifically Armenian, I think. This was spectacular, I hope someone in Seattle produces it soon, and properly, with a female director, preferably Keiko Green.

4. Chitrangada, Rabindranath Tagore, dir. Moumita Bhattacharya, Prathidhwani/ACTLab. This is a classical Indian dance epic by Tagore about Chitrangada, a warrior princess who is raised as a man, but reinvents herself as a woman when she falls in love with the hunter Arjuna. He falls in love with her womanly beauty (the two Chitrangadas are played by two different dancers) but eventually falls in love with her warrior side as well.

5. Pilgrims (workshop production), Claire Kiechel, dir. Emily Penick, Forward Flux. As far as I can tell, not written to be race-specific. Diverse casting.

6. Money & Run, Wayne Rawley, dir. Wayne Rawley, Theater Schmeater. This is actually three separate plays (”episodes”) with three completely different casts, and diverse as fuck. This was a deliberate choice, and thoughtfully done.

7. Acme, Andrew Shanks, dir. Mary Hubert, Annex Theatre. As far as I can tell, non-race-specific. Diversely cast.

8. Grand Concourse, Heidi Schreck, dir. Annie Lareau, SPT. I suspect this play is race-specific, and cast accordingly. It’s also site-specific -  the “Grand Concourse” is the main thoroughfare that runs through the Bronx. ETA a friend just corrected me, the play is not race-specific. Casting a black actress as the lead is a deliberate choice, and it worked beautifully.

9. Hanford Invasion! (staged reading), Matt Smith, dir. Ryan Higgins, Macha Monkey. I remember this as being a pretty white cast.

10. Lydia, Octavio Solis, dir. Sheila Daniels, Strawshop. Race-specific, casted accordingly. Site specific, set in El Paso. There was one cast member who seemed slightly less fluent than everyone else during the Spanish-language bits of the script, but this was flawless. Unbelievable. This is a tricky play, because five of the characters are teenagers; Sheila Daniels came to the play with a cast already in place, current and former students from Cornish. The amount of love and trust between the actors and their director was something palpable. This is a play about borders - between countries, between cultures, between six members of a single family, between the living and those who have come back from the dead.

11. The Realistic Joneses, Will Eno, dir. Paul Budraitis. Non-race-specific. Interjection: as an obviously Asian woman, I rarely comment on whether an actor looks half-Asian or not, I don’t think it’s up to me to define how they see themselves.  I don’t want to say that someone has been cast as “white” or “Asian” or if they can “pass” as either. That’s up to them and their sense of identity.

12. Sueño, José Rivera, dir. Jane Jones, UW Drama. This is based on Calderón’s Life is a Dream, set in 17th century Spain, and diversely cast as often happens with UW Drama productions. In college you get to do shit like cast two black grad students as the king and his best friend/advisor/enabler and the white undergrads get to play the servants. I live for this kind of stuff.

13. Barbecue, Robert O’Hara, Malika Oyetimein, Intiman. This is race-specific and cast accordingly and that is all I can say about this play because it was so good you had to be there. And if you weren’t there too bad.

14. Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim, dir. Mathew Wright and Eric Ankrim. I mean, it’s Sondheim, and they fucking went to TOWN. They cast a black man as the Beggar Woman. They cast a mixed-race girl - I think she’s still in high school - as Johanna, her frizzy curls bleached blond, the song with the line about her ‘golden hair’ sending a shiver down my spine. I think a number of cast members are Filipino, including Ben Gonio, who was gloriously terrifying as Sweeney Todd.

15. String (workshop production), Sarah Hammond/Adam Gwon, dir. Brandon Ivie, Village Theatre. Probably not race-specific, diversely cast.

16. Welcome to Braggsville, Daemond Arrindell/Josh Aaseng from the novel by T. Geronimo Johnson, dir. Josh Aaseng. Race-specific, place-specific. Oh, this one hurt.

17. LAAFF Fest, SIS Productions, multiple plays by Asian-American women, directed by Asian-American women, starring basically all the Asian actors in Seattle right now. That was awesome.

18. Blackbird (staged reading), David Harrower, dir. Danielle Franich, NCTC/Pipeline. Non-race-specific, white.

19. The Legend of Georgia McBride, Matthew Lopez, dir. David Bennett. I don’t think this play is race-specific and it is often cast diversely from what I can tell by looking at other productions (when I say diversely, I usually mean they cast black actors because actors only come in white or black *eyeroll*). Matthew Lopez is best known for The Whipping Man, whose publisher sent a cease-and-desist order to the creators of THATSWHATSHESAID, performed by Erin Pike, written by Courtney Meaker, and directed by HATLO. The Whipping Man was represented in THATSWHATSHESAID by a sound that I could not at first identify, until I realized it was the sound of pages flipping over. Because, there WERE. NO. WOMEN. IN. THIS. PLAY. So, Georgia McBridge has one woman in it. Progress!

20. Somebody Else’s Hoi Polloi (staged reading), Y York, dir. Mark Lutwak, dramaturg Andrew Lee Creech, Seattle Rep Writers Group. This is a play about blackness without being a play about blackness. The characters’ blackness is essential to the language of the play, but it is not essential to the story. There is a specificity to it. Note: the playwright is white, her director is white, her dramaturg is black.

21. Angel Fat (staged reading), Trista Baldwin, dir. Anita Montgomery, Seattle Rep Writers Group. As far as I can tell, not race-specific.

22. O Cascadia! (staged reading), Ramon Esquivel, dir. HATLO, Seattle Rep Writers Group. Race-specific, cast accordingly.

23. Gorgeous (staged reading), Keiko Green, dir. Timothy McCuen Piggee. Race-specific, cast accordingly.

[enivube-blog]

TOP 100 Vines - 2016#52 (December 26 - January 1)

#1 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: When My Friends Speak Bad About Themselves 🚫 (W/ taylor shrum) - http://enivube.com/v/1425302273000669184 #2 lmao jack (ig: @jack.wmv): one more time :,) - http://enivube.com/v/1426425435104940032 #3 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: If I Was in a Workout Vid � (W/ Camden Foote) #Fitness4You - http://enivube.com/v/1425686346260992000 #4 guy with wifi: best left unanswered - http://enivube.com/v/1425984760467054592 #5 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: Hanging Out With Stitch is a Struggle 🌅 - http://enivube.com/v/1426033963713052672 #6 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: Narrating People's Lives: At the Arcade! 🎮 (Ok, but this is really fun to do XD) - http://enivube.com/v/1427115291627913216 #7 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: Musicals in Real Life: Sweeney Todd! 💈 - http://enivube.com/v/1426404360962867200 #8 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: What a weird place... 🔓 #Toddleberry - http://enivube.com/v/1426766679530201088 #9 Instagram: @Purpdrank: There's never enough sauce... - http://enivube.com/v/1426093131337736192 #10 instagram/twitter: @kurtisconner: I want this to be my last vine - http://enivube.com/v/1425317570772365312 #11 yup anthony:  - http://enivube.com/v/1425191317687963648 #12 Kenny Knox: When you realize you weren't drinking apple juice #Actiongram #HoloLens - http://enivube.com/v/1425690128164225024 #13 insta: sarahschauer_: I was waitressing and accidentally stepped on this guys service dog..... omfg - http://enivube.com/v/1426767673643114496 #14 Aaron Doh: Trying to be inspirational to kindergarteners - http://enivube.com/v/1426794292218859520 #15 Matt Post: Not this shit again. - http://enivube.com/v/1425205815287144448 #16 yup anthony: (ib: current vibes, zikachu) - http://enivube.com/v/1425915933356072960 #17 Aaron Doh: Hungry Russians - http://enivube.com/v/1425701874039943168 #18 lol adam | youtube: adam hau: feliz lavidad 🎅🏾❤️ - http://enivube.com/v/1424981797036544000 #19 chocolate vanilla swirl (kxy.lx): okay but friends by chase atlantic is a bop - http://enivube.com/v/1426689522665693184 #20 lol adam | youtube: adam hau: LMAOO "when there's no milk" #tb - http://enivube.com/v/1425566333243924480 #21 YouTube.com/ThomasSanders: #ShoutoutSunday goes to Zen: @its just kristin, Kristen Kish, Kristin!, Kristen Alexis, Kristin Stone & every "Krist(e/i)n" to exist!! 🎵 - http://enivube.com/v/1424982329750904832 #22 Aaron Doh: Spoiled children - http://enivube.com/v/1426062084281663488 #23 IG: no chill, Adam: Rain Drop.. Drop Top.. 😂 Part 1 (Instagram: @nochillAdam_Original) - http://enivube.com/v/1426385642803343360 #24 IG: wellingtonboyce: Retiring The Man Bun... #LastVine - http://enivube.com/v/1427082216982360064 #25 Instagram: John_LoPriore: Sponge Shady - http://enivube.com/v/1425598435670761472 #26 Nolan Roseborough: Criminal - http://enivube.com/v/1426447784382468096 #27 lol adam | youtube: adam hau: 😩‼️💢 (follow me on twitter: @_adamhau) - http://enivube.com/v/1426391969118203904 #28 •Matt Smh•: @ 2016: Stop Taking The           People We Love

{ #2016 #ripcarriefisher } - http://enivube.com/v/1425639499832123392 #29 yt: thats so ramzi:  - http://enivube.com/v/1425231972988522496 #30 snapchat: jcyrusvine: when Netflix runs out of ideas. 😂 man I'm gonna miss vine - http://enivube.com/v/1426877709891600384 #31 ig/yt: mielmonster: goin out in style (featuring my #1 vine fan, my dad) - http://enivube.com/v/1426121594476081152 #32 IG-LilCali02: 😂😂😂 (my favorite vine) #tb #ripvine - http://enivube.com/v/1425313412577136640 #33 IG-LilCali02: Wait for it...😂🐶🐱 #tb #jumpscare #ripvine - http://enivube.com/v/1425627762101772288 #34 christian leave: this is my last post on vine. woah. lol well guess its time christian "left" - http://enivube.com/v/1426963652661137408 #35 Aaron Doh: The ugly duckling try's to change his name - http://enivube.com/v/1425320213104222208 #36 Aaron Doh: Baby doesn't like politics - http://enivube.com/v/1424993095572930560 #37 nochillnovia: leia organa aka the cutest — for you #ripcarriefisher i love u - http://enivube.com/v/1425631558458556416 #38 IG; br.edits_: 🐟 - http://enivube.com/v/1425964984030097408 #39 yup anthony:  - http://enivube.com/v/1426278326196162560 #40 IG: @SamuelGrubbs1: Nobody is safe #kyriechallenge 😂😂 #officialteamnike - http://enivube.com/v/1427077155711492096 #41 Koon alex 名: Thank you for changing my life, goodbye. - http://enivube.com/v/1426742726807982080 #42 crucio grimes: 1956 – 2016. [ #ripcarriefisher ] we lost a legend today. rest easy, princess. ~ cc celestial / ac & rm duh grimes my heart hurts. - http://enivube.com/v/1425752680525103104 #43 ig: multi celeb vine: a tribute.

~ becca 🌿 - http://enivube.com/v/1425992915636879360 #44 Aaron Doh: Definitely not staying home for the new year - http://enivube.com/v/1426464928490991616 #45 IG: @mistachrish: Seeing your ex in public. IG: mistachrish to see full version! - http://enivube.com/v/1425653578642690048 #46 kageyama ゴミ(bio): too many husbands ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(ac below) - http://enivube.com/v/1425989638681686016 #47 Aaron Doh: Pick up lines.. - http://enivube.com/v/1427145500615942144 #48 yt: CAPTAIN SOLO✨ (#RIPCarrie): 1956 - 2016 — #RIPCarrieFisher - http://enivube.com/v/1425611291069952000 #49 Josh Darnit (IG: @joshdarnit): They don't walk anymore 😂 #xmas2k16 - http://enivube.com/v/1425283502601023488 #50 yt: void granger: ❤️ ac: ultraheda - http://enivube.com/v/1425625566358454272 #51 Matt Post: & it's just fucking do it. Thank you, Jonasty Drawz . You've changed Vine. You've changed me. #SHTuesdays will live on. I promise. - http://enivube.com/v/1425736974001672192 #52 Youtube.com/michaelpersad1: Failed Freestyle winstagram: @ericvdunn_  #tb (Twitter/IG: mrmichaelpersad / Snap: michaelpersad) thanks for all the support over the years! - http://enivube.com/v/1426782021430202368 #53 Suga! ig: yatoxkami: levi's thought process when he enters a room ac/ib - Suga! KingKirito. - http://enivube.com/v/1425980980442869760 #54 ig. scorchedstiles: dylan o'cutie !! – remake of my old edit – cc tmrduh | ac idk - http://enivube.com/v/1426313413826588672 #55 ☾towryt: N-N-NUUTTT😩 Happy Birthday Levi, Victor got nothing on you 👀 (Ok I love victor too tho 😂) ac: miss terious - http://enivube.com/v/1425000773187719168 #56 waifu bbmai: my favorite blondie!! - http://enivube.com/v/1426378843031220224 #57 Lil Gute: #art - http://enivube.com/v/1425411057798766592 #58 myparentsarestydia: my precious baby ↳ib/ac; starlight - http://enivube.com/v/1425287412594167808 #59 myparentsarestydia: 〝ive learned a lot, ive been thru a lot, and i can go thru more but i hope i dont have to〞  ↳ ac; frootland

may the force be with you C.F. - http://enivube.com/v/1425980787932700672 #60 snapchat: jcyrusvine: coming soon to hulu - http://enivube.com/v/1426878068341002240 #61 Tabby's editss ; bio: put some respect on the King Of Teen Wolf  🔥😩

Cc: sunnyvids - http://enivube.com/v/1425649252603957248 #62 christian leave: thank you to you all beautiful people ( instagram - christi2n twitter - @christianleave spotify - christian akridge) - http://enivube.com/v/1426817682887548928 #63 ˢᴵᴺoblivion.⊛: badass deadly ghouls

rm: ccxnfused - http://enivube.com/v/1425970366114856960 #64 Sired To Damon: — power couples • dt. ayat and nic - http://enivube.com/v/1425838160914583552 #65 IG/Snapchat: Drea_KnowsBest: When bae says get comfortable 😂 - http://enivube.com/v/1426134241447673856 #66 sēxual edits: you forgot the first rule of remakes. don't fuck with the original - http://enivube.com/v/1426057681235513344 #67 myparentsarestydia: my favorite old married couple ↳ cc; celestial - http://enivube.com/v/1426795435934257152 #68 CracJokaine: Rain Drop... Drop Top  I.B IG: no chill, Adam Voiceover: CracJokaine - http://enivube.com/v/1427002194711949312 #69 Aaron Doh: Puns for days - http://enivube.com/v/1427478148748075008 #70 @Logeydogey IG/Snap: Asking MJ for the time    LOLL - http://enivube.com/v/1426415567543369728 #71 ig: @coupsvine: Thank you for everything, I love you all so much😭💕

 ~final vine~ - http://enivube.com/v/1427123165586423808 #72 ❆ (bleh) kystterr: colorlessful. - http://enivube.com/v/1425571407068291072 #73 Instagram: @TheFunnyDepartment: That Moment In A Zombie Movie And You're Waiting For Them To Open The Door - http://enivube.com/v/1426299013224927232 #74 nochillnovia: ❝ i am a jedi, like my father before me. ❞ luke & anakin — fortress - http://enivube.com/v/1425231995495133184 #75 ɗɑɱɑɠe ɭiʈʈɭe™: When u try to hit that #sia high 😂😂 - http://enivube.com/v/1425651683941343232 #76 Senan Byrne: Thanks for the last two years Vine 👋🏻 - http://enivube.com/v/1426282754756222976 #77 ig: @EsaFung: Hey guys keep up with me on Instagram! @EsaFung (following everyone back) - http://enivube.com/v/1425183998480670720 #78 crucio grimes: — now that's what i call leader material. [ ac. arkhams / ib. winter stark / cc. celestial ] ~ for kt, alice, emma, lauryn, sofie & camila. - http://enivube.com/v/1426210258854006784 #79 Tabby's editss ; bio: Stiles ❝Meme❞ Stilinski

CC:sunnyvids Follow my insta: dylanobrien.tv - http://enivube.com/v/1426735792251920384 #80 BAN†KAI: I never made an edit of kaneki before 🤔🤔

AC:kyakun of citric - http://enivube.com/v/1425273908743004160 #81 WindowsXP_Vines: Old meme. #windowsxp #windows #Ismelllikebeef #oldmeme - http://enivube.com/v/1425766186808913920 #82 Real Yung French Fry on Insta: Fucka uber 🍹#yungbratz #crash #meme #vine #rip catch me on IG 4 longer shat - http://enivube.com/v/1426838015057207296 #83 IG: whatupitsthegoat: Nighthawk - http://enivube.com/v/1425698676348747776 #84 xyzam: my luv - http://enivube.com/v/1425295117073424384 #85 hawkward / ig: h.k.w.d: I nurture my skin - http://enivube.com/v/1426052539471810560 #86 ig: kara.edits: R.I.P Carrie Fisher, an inspiration to me and many others. You will be greatly missed. ❤ cc: deceiviing - http://enivube.com/v/1425633547921817600 #87 kageyama ゴミ(bio): thank you so much for everything, I appreciate all the support from you guys ❤

 - final vine - http://enivube.com/v/1427083252673478656 #88 BAN†KAI: When i have 0 inspiration 😭😭

If you think I overuse my shakes, I won't stop using them because i love my shakes - http://enivube.com/v/1425642639637807104 #89 userless: 💓 - http://enivube.com/v/1426772288468062208 #90 Suga! KingKirito.: for my fav levi stan :') | this'll probably be my last edit on here - http://enivube.com/v/1426752105212977152 #91 stilesass: teen wolf is ending, so is vine — last edit & rm frootland - http://enivube.com/v/1425973785667969024 #92 myparentsarestydia: 〝you start to wonder why your here not there〞  ↳ ac; sammies edits - http://enivube.com/v/1426388128888938496 #93 youtube: NW TWD: i feel sick - http://enivube.com/v/1425613990888878080 #94 Sired To Damon: — forever a legend - http://enivube.com/v/1425124147352231936 #95 Emilia's Bastard: the reason I'm still watching season 6

ib ig: stunningswan – ac regal parrilla - http://enivube.com/v/1425638059428466688 #96 ig: sakigamivn: my final vine edit

- i've had the time of my life, thank you 💞 - http://enivube.com/v/1426377674481393664 #97 sevendinosaurs ate my pizza: And don't try nothin funny you sneaky seal🔫 - http://enivube.com/v/1427068056382930944 #98 pastatute (all @sydneyrachel): Thank you for everything, vine. - http://enivube.com/v/1427154587940491264 #99 CracJokaine: I.B sevendinosaurs ate my pizza 😂✊🏾 - http://enivube.com/v/1425749302776590336 #100 nain | ig: naincos: thanks for the memories (': - http://enivube.com/v/1427065664732049408

[thisdayinfavrd]

July 20, 2009

The word "tsunami" is not in my phone's T9 dictionary, so if you ever get a text from me that says "Trumang!", get the fuck off the beach.   @sloganeerist (jtdobbs dur) – 114

Whoopi thinks the moon landing was faked? I hope this doesn't damage all that credibility she built up as the center square.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 107

Ugh I have to write an autobiography?? STORY OF MY LIFE.   @baileygenine (Bailey Siewert) – 97

First rule of Seal Club is no crying when we say "club".  This means you, Jeremy.   Second rule of Seal Club is no walruses.  *Jeremy*.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 83

I only use extra virgin olive oil. Unsaturated fats really shouldn't have a sexual history.   @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 76

"I just bought a pedometer."  "Cool. So how many child molesters are near you right now?"   @abigvictory (Michele Catalano) – 73

Well SOMEBODY used a scrapbooking knife to cut my face out of all our wedding photos.   @fireland (Joshua Allen) – 70

Everyone thinks Canadians are so nice and polite.  Excellent.  Stage One is complete.  Initiate Stage Two.  Release the Moose Commandos.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 68

I like the idea of liking the idea better than I actually like the idea.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 66

I can't dance, I love mayonnaise and I just maxed my Banana Republic credit card.  These Whitestrips must be working.   @gordonshumway (Jelisa Castrodale) – 65

1) Wake up 2) Brush teeth 3) Feed fish 4) Take meds 5) Notice pill in fishbowl & bad taste in mouth & wonder if I screwed up 3&4.  Again.   @tj (Fun Size Bytes) – 61

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. And every time you have sex, this one angel gets his binoculars.   @aedison (Avery Edison) – 61

Gnats are super attracted to me today. I'm a magnat.   @awryone (Josh Donoghue) – 59

My weekend did not contain nearly enough weekend.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 58

Q: What's the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom?  A: The pitbull doesn't blame the media for all its problems.   @joeschmitt (Joe Schmitt) – 56

Reading comic books in bed by flashlight.  Still pretty awesome.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 53

My son told me how nobody at school would play with him last week. My pride swells to see him grow up in my own image.   @roughdiction (RoughDiction) – 53

Wife: "I'm pretty much as girly-girl as a girl can be. Except for drag queens. But then me."   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 53

FACT: The chances a large meteor will hit Earth is much less than the chances that another movie will be made about a large meteor.   @joeschmitt (Joe Schmitt) – 51

Today at the Zoo I saw a Lion & a Giraffe & a Rhino & a Zebra & an Elephant & at least 5 Cougars that my Wife wouldn't let me pet.   @OverlandParker (Michael Pierce) – 49

[thisdayinfavrd]

November 26, 2009

Neat! If you shake your head REALLY FAST, you forget calculus!   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 92

It's important to stop and remember sometimes that Coolio was an actual living, breathing human being and not just a salutation.   @lonelysandwich (Adam Lisagor) – 85

It's as though people on the west coast have never seen someone smoking and jogging before. Fucking hippies.   @poeks (Poeks) – 83

I would be grateful for the little things, but I'm not with that boyfriend anymore.   @debihope (Notorious d.e.b.) – 80

I'M ON A GRAVY BOAT!   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 77

I don't know why people think Lady Gaga is unattractive.  He is very good-looking.   @damselesque (Beth) – 72

Thanksgiving is a time for coming together with family and pushing old people down at Walmart for a good deal.   @thedayhascome (Josh Hopkins) – 69

After I feed my cat, he goes off and ignores me for hours. If that worked for people, I'd keep sandwiches within reach at all times.   @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 69

It took a while, but I finally convinced my nephew that West Virginia is not a state. Being an uncle is hard work.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 67

Ever look back on an ex and think, What the HELL was I thinking? Post-Traumatic Yes Disorder.   @debihope (Notorious d.e.b.) – 65

Jim missed the exit for a major highway, adding 2 hours to the trip. To be fair, his PhD was not in Knowing Where The Fuck I'm Going.   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 64

Missing tweet #6065578399   @luckyshirt (Unavailable) – 59

A spider crawled across the floor. I called my 9yo in from the next room to kill it because I couldn't reach it while standing on my chair.   @MrBigFists (Jonathan Sloan) – 59

Tonight, we're having turkey and 'turkurkey', which is turkey made entirely of turkey.   @lonelysandwich (Adam Lisagor) – 59

Happy "(Delete Browser History And Caches) OK Now You Can Use My Laptop" Day   @biorhythmist (matt) – 53

Happy Thanksgiving, America!  If you are American, stop reading now.  Ok, the tryptophan has kicked in. Let's go play with their toys!   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 53

At a loss for gratitude?  Consider that you have a computer, web access, and the freedom to say ANYTHING you want.  Then, maybe try again.   @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 52

The great thing about the battle against staying home and masturbating is that whatever happens, you're still a winner.   @aedison (Avery Edison) – 48

Missing tweet #6072498480   @luckyshirt (Unavailable) – 46

Missing tweet #6069460610   @carrmah (Unavailable) – 45

[thisdayinfavrd]

September 2, 2009

And would it kill today's rap artist to put on some colorful pants? Some of us really liked the colorful pants.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 70

I bet if moths could talk they'd still be really creepy.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 69

"It's just a fucking june bug, calm down. Jesus Christ, what happens when something bigger than a testicle attacks you?"   @shitmydadsays (Justin) – 68

It took an irate assistant manager with a trunkload of 400 cold burritos, but now I'm convinced that new Chipotle iPhone app is not a game.   @scottsimpson (Scott Simpson) – 67

Obama is going to address the nation's schoolchildren? One good fart joke and the Democrats control Congress for 60 years.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 66

There's something to be said about unlocked hospital medication carts, but I don't have time for that now because WHEEE!!!   @thedayhascome (Josh Hopkins) – 65

Hate the little changes my wife makes when using my car. My nav system just asked if I was really going to wear this shirt with these pants.   @smilinbjones (Chris Pinckney) – 61

I like my men like I like my Nintendo cartridges: a little blow job will fix most problems.   @abigvictory (Michele Catalano) – 59

In sum: I mention that my ass got grabbed, and 10,000 developers I love pull out a white earbud and yell, "But, what were you WEARING?"   @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 56

The thing about angrily flipping off that asshole driver is that the only people who use this road are my coworkers.   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 56

Coming home to see my family made pie, but ate all of it, is like coming home to a bunch of people that are dead to me.   @lukeinvan (Vancouver's Luke) – 55

Three-year-old niece interrupted my cooking with a phone call to tell me about the moon. I let dinner burn.   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 54

Forgetting my wallet- that's my problem. Forgetting my deodorant- that's the world's problem.   @CranberryPerson (N/A) – 53

He said he liked ranch dressing. So I put on a cowboy hat, vest, and skirt. Apparently he doesn't like it as much as he thought he did.   @JeeNeeBee (Jeannie B) – 53

Some arguments can be settled with logic, reason, and mutual respect. Other times it's just easier to buy a shovel, a tarp, and some lime.   @Tony_D (Tony Delgrosso) – 52

I'm so happy to be in London, the most perfect city in the worl- IS THAT A STAND-ALONE CROCS STORE? I WILL BURN THIS CITY TO THE GROUND.   @katefeetie (one katie please) – 52

All this Snow Leopard backlash almost makes me glad I don't have a Mac anymore.  ...Vista says he only beats me because he loves me.   @aedison (Avery Edison) – 51

Oh my God. How do you people argue about software all the time? It's like being locked in a hobby shop full of men with no hobbies.   @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 48

I put the 'anus' in 'I began using your toothbrush inappropriately'.   @Zaius13 (Damn Dirty Ape) – 47

For the record, a man on his deathbed has many wishes. Deathchips. Maybe some deathdip. The deathremote to the deathtv.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 46