The other night, I woke up at midnight (gone to bed at 8 with this stupid lung infection) and couldn’t go back to sleep. The RLA was in the living room, watching “Meat Loaf: To Hell & Back” on VH1. While it wasn’t dreadful, it wasn’t good, per se. The guy who played Jim Steinman  reminded me a lot of the actor who plays Lucious Malfoy in the Potter series*, and one thing leading, as it so often does with me, to another, I ended up on the IMDB looking for both.

Which, of course, this being the web, led me happily from site to site until I ended up at Jim Steinman’s blog. YESH! He has a blog.

Which led to another half an hour of poking into various links and sub-sites and sub-sub-sites.

(Fade to Black)

VOICE OVER:

It was long ago and it was far away, and I was living in New York City. I had a friend, of sorts, an actor by the name of Richard Dunne, who had starred in the Miami road production of EQUUS. I went to see his band play at some dive in the Village and he was all excited because he had auditioned for something exciting…a musical based on Peter Pan.

(Dissolve to present)

I never really saw Richard after that, and never heard what happened with that play. Over the years, whenever Meat Loaf made yet another return to the music scene, there would be a story about Jim Steinman, and maybe 10-12 years ago I think I heard something about a musical he had done back in the 70s about Peter Pan. I remember thinking then that that had probably been what Richard had been so worked up about.

Today, in all the digging, somewhere in the Steinman site, is a scan of the original program from the Kennedy Center production of “Neverland” and starring in the role of Baal (the Peter Pan character) was Richard Dunne. And there are even photos.

Huh. Sometimes these interwebs are amazing things, are they not?

* Zachary Throne is definitely hotter than Jason Isaacs, though when placed side by side.

You have got to be fucking kidding. That’s it? That’s the way The Sopranos ends? Not with a bang (or a Badda Bing) and not with a whimper but with a fucking Journey song? Not even a Springsteen song, or a South Side Johnny number? A fucking Journey song?

Granted, Phil Leotardo had one of the “best” deaths I’ve ever seen on film/video, and fully deserved every second of it. Granted, the tension was excrutiating. Granted, Sil didn’t die, but our last shot of him wasn’t too hopeful.

But that ending? I’ve seen science fiction b-movies with better endings. I mean, why didn’t the credits just roll “The End?”

Pathetic. I feel dirty. Used. Fuck you David Chase. That sucked. And to add insult to injury, my last shot had to be of that useless twat Meadow?

Feh.

dragged my sorry ass to the doctor yesterday. received two prescriptions, a lecture and orders to go back to bed.

that is all.

well, except that i’m moving this site to a new host because my current host is retiring from the hosting biz. this is the perfect time to break out a couple of new skins. one is coming from the wonderful girls at moxie design studio and the other is the one i’ve been dicking around with for at least 6 months.

i’d hoped to be able to work on that (and a handful of quilts) while on this vacation, but the truth is i’m lucky just to be able to type an entry. too weak to hit the shift key, tho.

The ever eloquent Keith Obermann gives one of his best. And I give it to you, as my Independence Day gift.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not Silvio Dante! Damn that David Chase. He could kill off Christafuh, no problem. Bobby Baccala? Who cares? Uncle Junior, AJ, Meadow, even Paulie Walnuts or Carm, and I would be upset, but mostly OK. Wll, upset if it were Paulie or Carm, frankly, AJ and Meadow are total dead weight. And I was happy to see Tony finally shove his shoe up AJ’s self-indulgent, whiney ass. But Sylivo? Little Steven? My pretend boyfriend? (Not to be confused with my imaginary long-time lover, The Bob, or my special boytoy, The Boss.) Silvio, ambushed in the parking lot of the Bing, hospitalized and never expected to regain consciousness? Noooooooooooooooo. This sucks. I wanted Sylvio to walk away.

I should know better of course, this has always been a morality play, and you can’t shoot a bitch in the forest, or strangle a co-worker for disloyalty and not expect to meet your just rewards. Which means last night’s Sopranos was mild compared to next week’s expected blood bath.

Still and all, I’ll miss Silvio and his hair.

And what kind of professional ethics does Peter Bogdonovich have? (not Peter, of course, his character) Telling an entire table full of shrinks that Melfi is treating Tony Soprano, a fact he only knows because he treats Melfi. So much for patient confidentiality. And then she reads that stupid article and dumps Tony, in a particularly snippy and bitchy way. Tony respects her though, and doesn’t kill her on the spot, which he would have done a few years ago, so so much for therapy isn’t working for him.

You and your baby on a Saturday night. And it was. Saturday we arrived at the summer place on the Gulf. Took our traditional first night walk down to the Sandbar for our traditional first night burger at the bar. And walking home I felt the first tickle in my throat.

Fell into bed and slept for 12 hours. Woke up to the cold from hell.

I have spent my entire vacation huddled in a double layer of sweat pants and t-shirts under extra blankets in bed. On one day only did I get in the Gulf to bullshit with the members of the Noodle Brigade. I have ventured out only under the cabana. No walks on the beach. No nights spent drinking martinis until I drool. No smoking. No dinners at restaurants.

No. This vacation has seen me sucking on lemon slices, sipping hot tea and eating very lemony/garlicky tabooli, trying to beat this into submission.

The RLA has gotten brown. Star has gotten brown. Last night another pair of friends arrived from Tennesee to check out the summer place and consider buying in, and I all but talked to them through a screen door, with a hazmat mask on.

Do I know how to party or what?

Still, I managed to drag my sorry ass over to the most fabulous yarn store I’ve ever set foot in, and picked up a pile of wonderful things. Star and I explored the snotty bead store, and found, like so much else in life, that observation alters outcome. In this instance, the owner was in the store that day and the usually thinly veiled hostility of the help was transformed into cheery greetings and warm offers of assistance.

And, the best thing of all? I has a bucket. I found it in the surf as the RLA and I walked home from the Sandbar along the beach. There it was, bobbing and rolling and looking like it would wash ashore, and then not. I waded out in my shorts and snagged it. It is purple. It is mah bucket. Mr. Walrus, eat your heart out.