did you see the madness?

if not, i'm sure you'll be able to catch it numerous times this weekend, and for many months afterwards — that is, assuming you actually have MTV.

i don't consider myself a prude or old-fashioned, but i was blown away by the kiss(es) — shocked and awed, as it were.  go, madonna!  go, britney!  seeing the fab five in the audience, i was able to live vicariously through them for the briefest of moments, and i thought, "wow, this is the heights that out gay men can now achieve!"  i am inspired.

by the way, is it just me or were madonna and company making a statement endorsing gay marriage?  i think this message got lost amidst the lesbian make-out session and the shot of justin timberlake's reaction.  then again, i do have a tendency to read too much into mindless entertainment.

i may post video clips later on.  let me know if i should; i may not bother if no one is reading this...!

p.s. — in case you didn't know, my ass is like whoa!

midday snack

labor day approaches.  summer soon ends.  how did this happen???

i just went down to heavenly delights and picked up some peanut butter frozen yogurt and dark chocolate coated espresso beans for myself.  mmmm-MMMM!

so much for my atkins induction.

i bought my gustatory goodies to ameliorate my irate and belligerent mood.  wherefore my crankiness?  might be the weather.  could be restlessness from a slow workday, or maybe the espresso beans themselves.  perhaps it has something to do with the proximity of mars to earth.  who knows?

regardless, i decided to work through my aggression by updating my friendster profile.  the results aren't particularly hostile, but i was tempted to e-mail someone and berate him for his "too cool to have a friendster profile" friendster profile.  then i thought better of it.

am i not praiseworthy? 

suzy makes a call

trying to kick-start my comic book drawing again.  i just pencilled and inked the foreground figures for the first three panels on this page. 

since the background repeats six times, and i'm lazy, i'm going to draw the background separately and add it digitally.  same goes for the lettering and word balloons — which means, unfortunately, that no one besides me will know what's going on here until i post the finished pages...

hey, it's a start.

note to myself:  after experimenting with various inking styles, i definitely prefer the crisp clean edges that a brush gives me.  dip and rapidograph pens are nice, but they tend to bleed on me.  for whatever failings i may have with a brush, i like what it gives me and i'm stickin' with it.

p.s.  i reserve the right to change my mind...

what is lashonhara?

lashonhara productions was founded in 1995 by three college friends, all performers and aspiring artists, who also had an interest in studying, critiquing, and commenting upon popular theater, music, television, and film.

our first production, in february of 1995, was forbidden a cappella, a series of original skits and songs parodying the williams college a cappella sub-culture.  since then, we have, together and individually, directed several plays, written scripts and screenplays, drawn a comic book, designed numerous websites, and created a small library of music compilations on cd and cassette.

collectively, this body of work is our attempt to express our insights, entertain an audience, and rule — i mean, enlighten — the world.  lashonhara.net is my continuation of that dream.

the name lashonhara is an idiomatic expression for gossip which, literally translated from hebrew, means "evil tongue."  while our creative objective never has been to cultivate slander or ill-will, certain projects have originated from such conversations.

lashonhara.net, begun as a personal website, aims to provide a space where people can come together to discuss and promote projects or interests which share and inspire the ideals of humor, wit, and intellectual curiosity...or productions that simply involve people we know and like.

pretentious, you say?  may-ay-be! 

anyway, stay awhile, read, and enjoy.  let's have some fun!

teen titans review

apologies for the lame post last friday.  while i'm still home sick today, i hope to make it up to you with a couple posts today.

first off, even though we all know illness sucks, one of the perks is having an excuse to be a couch potato for a couple days.  as a result, i finally had a chance to check out the new cartoon series teen titans (cartoon network, saturdays, 9 pm), which i'd been meaning to do for quite some time.

i have to say, i think the creative team behind this one finally got it right.

ever since batman: the animated series, warner bros. has been trying to re-create its success.  batman was the first warner bros. cartoon series based on a mainstream comic book superhero to use a mixture of simplified character design, fluid animation, and seriously written storylines.  these qualities won the series great critical praise and captured a wide audience, both children and adult.

since then, warner bros. has attempted extract those aspects of the series and mechanically reapply it to superman, batman beyond, and the justice league  the results have been mediocre, nowhere near the level of success they had with batman.  while these later series were all technically equal, they lacked the magic of the original series:  a high-tech, brooding hero set against an early 20th century art deco backdrop where the sky is always red and it's always night.  outside of such a specific setting, the concept quickly becomes just another cartoon.

with teen titans, about a younger generation of super-heroes, the producers have kept their formula but have finally given it a contemporary twist to successfully addresses its teen- and college-age audience.  the characters are drawn in the bruce timm style but, departing from the established formula, are animated using popular animé conventions, such as hovering plewts and exaggerated facial distortions.  today's mainstream cartoon-viewing audience, having grown up with sailor moon, pokémon and yu-gi-oh!, already understand and embrace these story-telling quirks.  the icing on the cake is the series' theme song, which sounds as if it were composed and performed by shonen knife, adding the series' japanese influence a tinge of legitimacy.

(by the way, the three animé series listed above have all aired on kids wb and the cartoon network over the past five years, so you'd think warner bros. would have caught on sooner...)

personally, i think teen titans is pop-culture gold.  on the other hand, i have also fallen in love with two stupid dogs, super secret secret squirrel, and clone high, so what the hell do i know...

sick

apologies for the delayed update.  today, i am sick at home in bed.

well, i'm not in bed right now, but i have been for most of today.

anyway.  i'm sick.  that's my update.

Re: my two cents...

that's the subject line of about twenty e-mails in my inbox, thanks to billy and this crazy queen.  the three-way correspondence began with my contribution:

i say — shania is a big ol' country poseur. she's not southern, she's canadian!

and that guy from boy meets boy already has a life partner — his fag hag!it quickly devolved from there.  sean's latest missive (to me) is as follows:
that's right, Velma Kelly — have another caramel, bitch!while billy sits back and observesI LOVE it when Cats fight!!!!!!!!!!!!let's see if i can move the discussion over here, shall we?

and, sean — colin will be MINE...

a blog is born!

movable type says he-e-ey!

and you thought i was kidding.

all previous content is still here — just look in the archives (check out the nifty calendar on the left).  i'll be making template changes and adjustments soon.  for now, we're settling for the defaults.

i'm high-tech, baby!!!

looking for a change?

sorry.  no visible update here today.  i have, however, made some behind-the-scenes changes.  i've begun installing moveable type and hope to have a blog up-and-running on this site by next week.  more soon.

writing by candlelight

i shouldn't make promises i can't keep, i guess.

as i write this, new york city is experiencing "blackout 2003," and, while there is no electricity to be had in the five boroughs (or, at least, in brooklyn), i am typing away by candlelight and good ol' powerbook lithium battery power.  having internet access and a fully-charged cellphone battery is another story.

i walked home from columbus circle (57th and broadway) in manhattan, over the manhattan bridge and into fort greene brooklyn earlier this evening.  hoping that the outage was just in midtown, i walked to sixth avenue only to realize that everything — uptown, downtown, and crosstown — was out, so i huffed it.  i left my office at around 4:30 pm and didn't arrive at my door until after 6:30 pm.

oh, how i wish i'd taken the day off...

well, at the very least, the radio is reporting that the outage is not terrorist related.  thank goodness for not-so-small favors.

now, i sit and wait until i have air conditioning again.

in the meantime, here is a picture that i took with my digital camera, god bless it.

and if, by chance, i do manage to post this tomorrow, you won't hear from me again 'til monday...

watching the clouds go by

just another new picture for today.  been busy getting myself set-up — i made a bunch of new purchases recently and am only now ready to start using them, though not in time for today's posting.  more on that soon.

the picture was on the drive across masschusetts from provincetown to upstate new york.  as you can tell, it was a beautiful day.

i'll have more for you friday.  promise.

friday night's all right for fighting...?

BRENDA WITHERS as Matt (at door) and MINDY KALING as Ben in Matt & Ben.  Photo by ROBERT ZASH.

after a visit to the dentist last friday, i met up with joe and his friend carlos to see this one-act play.  joe had heard good things about it from last year's international fringe festival, and his company was able to score us some free tickets, so attending was a no-brainer.

the theater was a small black-box, and we sat in the second row (of three), house left.  all the action played out barely ten feet in front of me.

towards the end of the play, the two main characters, matt and ben (see the picture above), get into a fight.  the scene ends with ben punching matt in the face and then storming out of the apartment.  that night, when the punch was thrown, i distinctly heard a strange sound that wasn't the usual stage combat stomp or clap.

in the ensuing silence, i sat amazed and bewildered.  how they had created that weird crunching noise?  and why were they bothering with the fake blood i now saw dripping from the actress' face?  the crimson liquid was so bright, i concluded it couldn't be real — the actress must have broken a capsule in her hands after the punch and had somehow stuck it to the side of her nose, letting it steadily drip out onto the couch cushion, staining it.

though i appreciated the attention to detail, this all seemed a little much for such a light-hearted show.

a reporter from the new york times happened to be in the audience that night.  you should read what he had to say.

...by the way, the show itself is great.  the writing is sharp, and the two leads are outstanding.  they are able to capture some very true-to-life nuances of a friendship by taking the characters seriously and not treating them as exaggerated caricatures.  the fact that these two actors perform their own material is all the more impressive to me.

see it if you can — just don't expect to witness the same fight scene i did...

a new picture!

thanks for noticing! 

the sandals pic above was taken on the beach in provincetown on july 23rd of this year.  it's sort of a portrait of my pal, joe.  for pictures of him (and other cute gay boys), please visit my earthlink site.

so, what's new?  well, the links above, for starters.  you'll notice i've added a guestbook and links to my other three sites, all of which have a few pictures.

lastly, sean and i were surfing the web last night and came across this, which had us in hysterics.  if you hate this canadian "diva" as much as i do, or just enjoy a catty website, then this is definitely for you.

so go look already!

my dear audience

(all three of you, at this point.)

just so we're clear, don't expect daily updates to this site — at least, not just yet.  this is all very new, and i'm planning on starting slowly.  right now, i hope to add something new here three times a week — mondays, wednesdays and fridays.  (i may post extra if i find or experience something interesting.)

in the meantime, i'll be working on getting the back-end up and running.  eventually, if all goes according to plan, the content on this site will be dynamically generated and i won't have to bother with tedious html coding and individual file updates.

if you have questions or comments, you know how to reach me.

and, yes, sean, i'll get a guestbook soon. 

felicity takes the C train?

this morning, as my train rolled out of 23rd street, i looked up from reading angels in america and saw keri russell, eyes closed, sitting opposite me.  my thought-process was as follows:

wow, she looks amazingly like that girl from felicity.

is that really her?  would it be inappropriate of me to say something?

excuse me, but are you keri russell?

she must get that a lot, whoever she is.

has anyone else noticed?

yes, those girls standing by the pole are looking, too.  they think that's definitely her.

oh my god.  that is keri russell.

i should say something.

what the hell am i going to say?

hi.  keri, right?  i really like your work.  you're great.  are you in anything right now?

hm.  i dunno if she'd appreciate that.

perhaps i should be more formal, address her as "miss russell."

or maybe i should go the opposite direction.

hey, there!  you don't remember me, do you.  i'm jason, good to see you again.  what's going on?

she must meet so many people.  i could pull that off.

maybe i should be the clueless fan.  wow!  i'm just wild about felicity.  remember that time ben dumped you and then you cut your hair?  that was swell!  can i have your autograph?

better yet, what's it like to make out with scott speedman?  are you two still going out?  i loved him in that gwyneth paltrow movie.  he is so hot!

or worse, what's it like to work with amy jo johnson?  the pink ranger was always my absolute favorite!

cooler than thou?  i met justin timberlake!

she's just sitting there with her eyes closed.

what's her problem?  is she sleepy?  maybe she doesn't want to be bothered.

i guess making eye contact with staring people can be unnerving.

oh, how cute, she's stretching her neck.  she has such good posture.

then again, she should.  she's an actor; her body is her livelihood.

god, i'm totally slouching.  alexander technique, alexander technique...

my stop's coming up.  here's my chance.  maybe i'll say something on my way out.

oh, wait, she's getting ready to leave, too.

hm, nice capris.  i wonder how much her sandals cost?

my goodness, she's petite.  why are so many actresses incredibly tiny?

that's a nice backpack she has on.

oh, look, that other woman coming the other way just totally stared her down.  how rude!

i could totally tap her on the shoulder.  should i?

last chance...!

and there she goes, up the stairs and to the street.

good-bye, felicity porter!  say hi to ben for me!

hm.  i should write about this...