Update: Elaine Donnelly Is Still Ridiculous!

You saw it here first.

What the hell would this poor old thing do without deh gayz to kick around?

OK, back to snarky.

Today I Shall Not Be Snarky

OK, usually I write snarky, gruesome or mocking things. Or I pimp my own projects.

Today, I just want to tell you how much I loved this Broadway show which I saw Sunday night.

Loved it.

Blue Coyote's Happy Endings

Two up for the new show at Blue Coyote. I'll be acting in Blair Fell's "Beauty" and Jimmy Ireland will be in my "Yes Yes Yes." Very excited about the evening, with (so far) Matthew Freeman, David Foley, Brian Fuqua, Boo Killebrew, Stan Richardson, Christine Whitley, and John Yearley.

Opening Feb 12 down at the Access, White Street's answer to the Moscow Art Theatre, the Comedie Francaise and the Old Vic. With nudity.

"Celebrity Apprentice"

OK, my friend Curtis - who's married to my friend Nancy - is a reality TV producer in Los Angeles. And he emailed last week, because he needed some shots of suspicious characters leaning against Trump Tower and Tiffany's at night.

So, the long and the short of it is, my friend Gerard and I will be on "Celebrity Apprentice" on Thurs Jan 31 on NBC, 9 PM.

I'm leaning against Tiffany's sipping a cup of coffee and glancing...slowly...down the street. I had to do it for about twenty minutes because Ikeptglancingtooquickly.

Gerard is walking down the street in a Members Only jacket. While holding a newspaper. The Post. His hair is extremely blow-dried.

Very suspicious, huh?

I anticipate a flood of movie offers. A cornucopia, even.

Elaine Donnelly: A Sad, Ridiculous Battle-Ax

Thanks to Wonkette for this. This is Elaine Donnelly. (On the left. On the right is noted Springfield busybody Helen Lovejoy.)

Elaine Donnelly is a sad, ridiculous old bag. Of course she blogs for the National Review online. She spends her days calling for this really hot gay soldier who's served two terms of duty in Iraq - to - you know. Resign. Because he's bringing morale down and all that. Oh, and she's President of something called the Center for Military Readiness. So we can sleep better at night, knowing Gladys Kravitz is protecting us from the gays.

Oh and when she's not busy educating us on 'critically important social policies which affect our morale' - or something - she's a shill for the Moonie paper in DC.

"Is He Dead?"

Saw this on TDF Wed night. Definitely one to check out, especially now since it's cold, gloomy, and we're all getting SADS. The play itself is so old and creaky, it's practically brand-new sparkly. Byron Jennings is - literally - the black-caped mustache twirling villain. David Pittu gets away with murder in a number of small roles. And Norbert Leo Butz - OK, some reviews say he's a comic genius and I don't know if I'd go that far - don't know if I'd classify him as up there with Chaplin, W.C. Fields and Dame Edna - but he is damn damn funny. He works a 'take' like I haven't seen onstage before.

He has a moment in the second act when he busts out into a furious clog on top of his own coffin, working the skirts of his big blue antebellum gown. Glorious.

I saw him several years ago in "The Last Five Years," and thought he was an excellent, charming musical actor. But I didn't know he was capable of the kind of performance he gives in "Is He Dead?"

Coming Soon...Happy Endings

Blue Coyote Theater Group is pushin’ strippers, go-go boys, porn star wannabes, hustlers and hos center stage in BLUE COYOTE’S HAPPY ENDINGS. Opening Feb 12th. More info soon.

How Not to Cash a Check

Bizarre story in the Times this morning. Two old addicts in Hells’ Kitchen – the kind the area used to be full of –lived in a building on West 52nd, had lived there all their lives. “Needle brothers,” the neighbors called them. Both in their sixties. One died, apparently, in the apartment, no foul play suspected. The other guy – and a friend from Queens- tried to cash his Social Security check. No dice. The guys at the check-cashing place said he needed to be present. So, they got a computer chair with wheels, put the corpse in it, and wheeled him down to the check-cashing place. By this time, according to the cops, rigor mortis had set in and the dead guy’s leg was bouncing off the sidewalk as they wheeled him to the check-cashing place. A cop was sitting at a diner, looked out, saw the two guys with the third guy in the wheelchair, and thought, “That’s a dead body.” The two are being arraigned today for attempted forgery.

What’s interesting about the story is that twenty-thirty years ago, it would have been – well, typical for that neighborhood. Now, with high-priced bistros, swanky lounges, stores that sell high-end baby gear, it’s a bizarre tale. An aberration. Something freakish and dark in the midst of what is now a very affluent community. A community that barely uses a check-cashing place, much less drags a dead junkie in a computer chair to one.

Stuff

Anatomy of a Murder at Film Forum. Sweeney Todd. Under the Volcano. The new Simpsons Movie DVD (with the director's commentary on the first time, the second time without...) Then, my new Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte DVD (Christmas present from my friend Wayne) with the commentary from the eminent film historian - well, about 25 minutes of it. Then, got tired of the film school bloviating on psycho-sexual imagery in Robert Aldrich and just watched the rest of the damn film.

"Have You Ever Been Carried Across the Threshold?" "Not When I Was Sober, Darling."

It's crappy weather and I don't feel like writing, so what do I do? Spend all my time at the Otto Preminger Festival at Film Forum. One thing I love about Film Forum is discovering the other half of the double bill. Last night, I trundled down to Houston Street to see "Laura" - one of the most perverse movies ever - and caught "Daisy Kenyon," with Joan Crawford, Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews. "Daisy Kenyon" is like a lot of Preminger - a genre film, in this case, a 'woman's film' with something unsettling and weird beneath the surface.

Crawford gives possibly the least self-conscious performance I've ever seen her give. You can tell the lady was a star. She can take pedestrian material about a professional woman torn between her married lover and soldier boy husband and make you care. Was she a great actress? I don't think so. But she knew everything about movies.

Happy New Year

And many thanks to Michael Criscuolo over here at NYTheatreMike for including "Oresteia" on his Favorites list of 2007.