Tag Archives: Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride

A Noxious Bestowment

17 Nov

from December 12. 2008

Hi kids! I was at a poetry slam today! Yeah, they’re all the rage. SLAM! See? You’ve just been slammed! Deal with it be-atches! Boo-yah! Big poetry style!

Whatever.

I do this thing at CSI: CSI (Crime Scene Investigation: College of Staten Island.) Thursday afternoons after work. Every single week it has been wet and cold. Welcome to life on Staten Island. I know for a fact that it was 75 and sunny on the other side of the VB (Verrazano Bridge) today. Anyway, DI (Discovery Institute) held a PS (poetry slam) in the darkest closet of an “experimental theater” I have ever been in. My previous experience with “experimental theater” came from the movie The Boys From Brazil, in which Gregory Peck played Josef Mengele. The plot revolved around Mengele’s attempts to raise an army of Hitler clones in his “experimental surgical theater” deep in Brazil.

Here is an excerpt of Gregory Peck’s third act soliloquy:

Home? I have no home. Hunted, despised, Living like an animal! The jungle is my home. But I will show the world that I can be its master! I will perfect my own race of people. A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! *

The film also starred Sir Laurence Olivier and Steve Guttenberg. Insert your own Police Academy Arrests Hamlet joke here. (HINT: The name “Polonius” is good for a laugh. Break it up into “pole” and “anus.”)

So I entered the experimental theater expecting something quite unlike what I saw- a lot of artsy-fartsy high school kids in a room the size of Jolanta Rohloff’s brain. And almost as dark.

There was one tall high school kid wearing a black turtleneck and a beret. I swear I am not making this up! There was an Asian kid who ran through his poem so fast no one understood a word. There was a short girl with glasses the size of Montana. There were assorted poetic stereotypes- the aforementioned beret, the kid with a journal hanging out her pocket, the Goth kid (or do they call them Emo now? Or Elmo? I think it’s Elmo.) mumbling about death, the gay and /or lesbian (I could never quite tell the biological gender of that one) yelling about his or her uterus, and the teachers with patches on the elbows of whatever they were wearing- tweed sport coat, turtleneck, t-shirt.

I walked in toward the end. I had been held up leaving work, hit traffic, and, with no shot at being on time, rushed all the way to 7- 11 for a Big Gulp (75% Diet Pepsi, 25% regular Pepsi) and a tuna sandwich. I ate it sitting in my car listening to my iPod, then went to CSI. (Hey, late is late.) I walked in after thrice- yes thrice- walking past the entrance, which was cleverly hidden as a closed door marked “room 108 at end of hall.” I was just in time to hear a girl, who looked both nearly in tears and ready to burst out laughing, somehow, intone “I don’t want the noxious bestowments you are trying to bestow on me!”

I walked back into the hall, wrote that one down, and went back in, girded (yes, girded) with the remains of my Big Gulp to hide my laughter. Good plan, but at one point, to stifle a laugh, I took a sip and nearly chocked. I looked across the tiny room, spotted some other teachers from my group, and the facilitator looked at me and shook her head, sadly, and then just closed her eyes and hung her head. It was that bad.

The “poets” left the room while the judges deliberated. When the winners were announced, they all said “this was soooo close” and I expected this to turn into one of those “everyone gets a trophy” things they do at kindergarten and summer camp. It didn’t though, and the winner was a girl who had giggled all through her poem about her sad life. And she was wearing a tin foil shower cap under her baseball cap.

All in all, Gregory Peck had a better time cloning Nazis in Brazil than I did at the poetry slam today. About the only thing that got slammed today was those kid’s dignity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

Yes, Gregory Peck blatantly stole that soliloquy from Bela Lugosi’s opus Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. The man knew genius.

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A Day In The Life of Tony Danza’s Agent

16 Nov

from December 6, 2008

Tony Danza. The only actor who must play a character named Tony:

TONY DANZA’S AGENT: Hey, Tony baby, I got some news for you. A real meaty script just came your way.
TONY DANZA: Huh, yeah?
AGENT: It is set in the early 1980’s. Cold War stuff. You play a former Soviet spy being pursued across the Iron Curtain because you have the key to the West German defense plans and you are going to sell them to the highest bidder.
DANZA: Oh wow.
AGENT: Here’s a copy of the script. I’ll read with you. I’ll be Piotr, your former superior. I’m calling you on the phone to try to get you to give up. You are Vladimir, the spy. Ready?
DANZA: This is so cool.
AGENT: Here we go. “Vladimir, you must give yourself up. Come in on your own and I promise you that your wife and children will come to no harm. Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: I said “Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: Tony, you OK?
DANZA: Yeah, how you doing?
AGENT: I’m waiting for your line.
DANZA: What line?
AGENT: Your line in the script.
DANZA: You started that?
AGENT: Yeah, I cued you twice.
DANZA: You were talking to me?
AGENT: Tony, there’s no one else in the room.
DANZA: I thought you were on the phone.
AGENT: I’m not on the phone.
DANZA: You were talking to some guy named Victor.
AGENT: Vladimir.
DANZA: How’s he doing?
AGENT: How’s who doing?
DANZA: Vladimir.
AGENT: You’re Vladimir.
DANZA: Nah, nah, I’m Tony. Tony Danza. From Taxi.
AGENT: I know, I’m your agent, I got you that job.
DANZA: Cool, when do I start?
AGENT: You already started!
DANZA: I”m late! I better get to the set. (Get’s up to leave)
AGENT: The job’s over! Sit down!
DANZA: Hey, when do I get my check?
AGENT: You got it years ago. Look, Tony-
DANZA: Aw geez, I got it years ago and I didn’t keep any receipts. What about my taxes?
AGENT: Tony, Tony, look, there’s this script.
DANZA: Cool! Who do I play?
AGENT: (Deep breath.) You play a spy. Named Vladimir. You. Are. Vladimir.
DANZA: I’m Vladimir?
AGENT: Right. Now here’s your cue. Do you have the script?
DANZA: That’s my cue?
AGENT: NO! I mean no, I just want to make sure you have the script.
DANZA: Yeah, right here in my pocket.
AGENT: Take it out. Here we go. “”Vladimir, you must give yourself up. Come in on your own and I promise you that your wife and children will come to no harm. Vladimir, you must do this.”
DANZA:
AGENT: TONY!
DANZA: You off the phone now? How’s Victor?
AGENT: You are Victor! I mean Vladimir! You are Vladimir!
DANZA: No, I’m Tony. From Taxi. I sing too and I cook and I used to box.
AGENT: I know! I know!
DANZA: So what about this new script you said came in? I can’t wait to read it.
AGENT: I’ll mail it to you.
DANZA: OK, thanks for stopping by.
AGENT: This is my office!
DANZA: Oh, I thought maybe I changed the furniture.

So what started this? This started this: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2008/12/03/2008-12-03_former_club_boxer_tony_danza_does_a_bout.html

Scroll to the end and you find this nugget: “I’m always looking for a job, just like everyone else in this country, this industry is tough,” he added, saying he’d like to do a remake of “Columbo.”Over my dead body. If you don’t know me, know that my man-love of Columbo is legendary. I love Columbo. Best. Show. Ever. He took down both Patrick McGoohan and Johnny Cash. (And George Wendt but the less said about that the better.) What other cop can boast that?

Tony Danza as Columbo would be the ultimate in miscasting. But what else would rank up there? Here are a few “suggestions.”

Vince McMahon as Sam Malone on Cheers.
Star Jones and Kirstie Alley in Sex and The City.
Gary Coleman as Magnum PI.
Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State (Am I bitter much???)
William Shatner in 24.
Carrot Top as Londo in Babylon 5.
John Lithgow in 3rd Rock From the Sun
Anyone on any Bravo reality show.

Any other ideas? Send me your own. Like I have anything better to do than sit around and read emails at work. Whatever you do, don’t bother sending anything to Tony Danza’s agent unless the part calls for a punchy semi-actor named Tony who has trouble remembering lines. And phone numbers. And his birthday. Tony Danza would be perfect for the part.

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