Opening this Friday!

Big Idea Theatre presents An Evening of Christopher Durang

April 4 thru May 4

Two absurd one-act comedies by the award-winning playwright, featuring
Jessica Lynn Berkey - Roger Clark - Christina Crapotta Beth Edwards - Shannon Mahoney - Gregory Smith
Directed by Ed Gyles Jr.

The Actor's Nightmare

A man has a dream about having to perform in Private Lives, Hamlet, Endgame, and A Man for All Seasons... with no rehearsals, no script, and no idea what he's doing.

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You

A cheerful and loony nun teaches you everything you need to know about religion, until a group of former students puts on a pageant making fun of Sister Mary. (This play contains mature subject matter.)

2 faces of Pixie

So, Easter Sunday at my Sister's house Pixie made a new friend, Cheryl's black lab puppy named Cocoa. They spent the better part of the afternoon playing like crazy. Here is Pixie's normal countenance (can you see she's actually smiling?)

In the throes of wrestling however, the Devil Dog emerges -


If you want to see more pictures of this wrestling match, check out the "Views From the Canine World" photo album on my MySpace Page. Also you can check out the Easter pictures of the family, including a great flower picture my niece Amanda took with my camera - with Photoshop enhancing by yours truly.

I am in the final stages of rehearsal for my latest show, an Evening with Christopher Durang - two one act shows that are truly hysterical: The Actor's Nightmare & Sister Mary Ignacious Explains it All to Us. Those of you who are in a position to see it, please come and support your local theater and yours truly. It really will be an evening of great laughter. The link above tells you all you need to about location, times, dates, costs, etc...

I wish I could take credit for writing this...

Exceedingly well done!

Don’t you forget about John Hughes
He’s back, sort of, with ‘Drillbit Taylor’; here’s hoping he stays

COMMENTARY
by Adam Wahlberg
MSNBC contributor
updated 12:51 p.m. PT, Mon., March. 17, 2008

“I bet you didn’t know Candace Cameron played the youngest sister?”

“Of course I knew that. Everyone knows that. Do you know who played the father?”

“Don’t mock me. John Ashton, Taggart from “Beverly Hills Cop,” the third finest bald character actor of all time. Can you tell me the name of Mary Stuart Masterson’s character?

“For the love of god. I mean really. You actually think I wouldn’t know Watts? What is the matter with you? I was Watts. Tell me, who did Scott Coffey play?”

“The fact that you would even ask me that is ... completely … insulting … and … uh ...”

Scott Coffey?

That was the moment I fell for Margie; when she stumped me in a “Some Kind of Wonderful” throwdown on our first date. (For those of you decaffeinated types like me, Coffey played Ray, the square-faced meathead who likes Watts).

Up until that point we had exchanged boilerplate get-to-know-you banter — “you have a sister? That’s amazing. So do I!” — but had yet to break through. Then somehow, lord knows how, we stumbled upon SKOW — one of Margie’s favorite acronyms — and boom, we were off. We became a couple for a while and it was great. All thanks to Hughes.

What ever happened to John Hughes?
And it got me thinking about him. Whatever happened to his career? Is he still writing movies? And how is it that a teen film of his from 1987 was able to bring together two lonely hearts in 2006?

So I went looking for an update. Didn’t find much. When it comes to interacting with the public, he’s gone the way of that other Hughes, Howard. He doesn’t give interviews and is content to live quietly with his family in Wisconsin.

One thing I did discover is that he has a story credit in a movie coming out on Friday, “Drillbit Taylor,” which is his first involvement in anything since 2003’s “Beethoven Fifth.” This one is back in his wheelhouse: high school nerds hire a bodyguard, played by Owen Wilson, to protect them from bullies. He didn’t write the final script — Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen did — but still, it’s John Hughes and bullies. I’m there.

It’s high time that Hughes career is re-evaluated. Putting aside his teen movies for a minute, just consider his straight comedies: the “Vacation” series, the “Home Alone” series, “Mr. Mom,” “Planes, Trains & Automobiles,” “Uncle Buck.” That’s a lot of good stuff. (He also wrote a lot of crap — see: “Beethoven” I through V — but he succeeded more than he failed.)

But now add in his stunning achievement from 1984 to 1987. In those four years he wrote and often directed not one, not two, but six smart, poignant teen films — “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Weird Science,” “Pretty In Pink,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Some Kind of Wonderful” — five of which are pretty good (sorry, Kelly LeBrock) and three that have made a deep impact in our culture (“Club,” “Pink” and “Ferris”).

Is it me or does that get more impressive every year? I can’t think of another filmmaker who ever caught fire like that within a genre and within a compressed amount of time? Woody Allen maybe, in his “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan” days. That’s about it. And we don’t exactly put Hughes on Allen’s level, do we? Allen has received 141 nominations from major film organizations for his work; Hughes has received one: in 1991, producer of the year by the ShoWest Convention. Talk about home alone.

Formula movies, memorable characters
Granted, his movies mostly do tend to follow a formula: weirdos feel weird, girl likes boy, boy likes girl, parents are lame, rich people suck. But where he excelled was in creating lasting characters: Ferris, Farmer Ted, Duckie, Blane, Andie, Miss Amanda Jones, Cameron, Chet. If one measure of art is the level in which it stays with us, Hughes’ characters hold up.

Hughes never accepted the limitation that important drama couldn’t be told about adolescents. He tells Kevin Bacon in an extra released on the “Wonderful” DVD, “I’m just really true to those feelings. Amidst all your problems to have someone say, ‘When will you be home for dinner?’ Or not being given credit for the scope of the problem. ‘In three years you’ll laugh about it.’ Well, you’re not laughing about it now.”

Exactly.

Think of the transcendent moments he’s delivered: Estavez’s Andy expressing deep remorse over taping Larry Long’s buns together; Ringwald’s Andie feeling shame about her house and refusing to let Blane see it; Ruck’s Cameron deciding to literally put his foot down and kick his dad’s Ferrari in Ferris. That’s the scene that still gets me. Alan Ruck’s triple chest pound to punctuate the words “never say anything” is as charged and shocking as the best work of Pacino, and I’ll stand on David Denby’s coffee table and say that.

You want another measure of Hughes’ achievement? How many thoughtful teen films have come out since he stopped making them? I can count four, and that’s generous: “Heathers,” “American Pie,” “Superbad,” “Juno.” And is anyone going to be arguing over the credits of “Superbad” in 20 years?

I don’t know if he has more teen stories to tell, or any stories for that matter. But if he wants to grab his Trapper Keeper and tell us what Farmer Ted or Cameron or Blane, or guys like them, guys like me, are up to, I’ll show up.

He deserves to be thought of as not just the maker of nice, lightweight comedies from the ’80s, but the maker of some of the best movies of the ’80s. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient of definitions, I’ve always considered him cinema’s equivalent to Brian Wilson, the pop genius who once called his music a “teenager symphony to God.” I can’t think of a better definition of Hughes’ hugely influential ’80s movies than that.

Adam Wahlberg thinks this essay has been “very hot! very hot!” He is the executive editor of Minnesota Law & Politics (“Only Our Name Is Boring”). You can reach him at redshoes32@earthlink.net.

OK, how many jokes are there...

for this story I found on MSNBC -

Woman sits on boyfriend's toilet for 2 years
Girlfriend was physically stuck to the seat — her skin had grown around it

Associated Press, updated 12:05 p.m. PT, Wed., March. 12, 2008

NESS CITY, Kan. - Deputies said a woman in western Kansas sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years, and they're investigating whether she was mistreated.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said a man called his office last month to report that something was wrong with his girlfriend.

Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

“We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.

“She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was “somewhat disoriented,” and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

“She said that she didn’t need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave,” he said.

She was taken to a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled....

In case you wanted to know who was better...

Animal or Buddy Rich:

Today's Chuckle...

Thanks Rob!

I found this really interesting...

Thanks Paul.

Read this article on someone without a clue...