Purple Gene Reviews
"AMERICAN IDIOT"
Purple Gene's review of the Berkeley Rep's production of Green Day's new Punk Pop Play "American Idiot":
BERKELEY REP
Directed by Michael Mayer
Choreographed by Steven Hoggett
Set Design by Christine Jones
(All music written by Green Day):
It's 6:45 PM on a Wednesday night and we are finding our places in the newly appointed ($10 million) Berkeley Rep Theater…..after being seated, turning off our cell phones and looking around at the other people…the curtain went up and we were blasted with a live drummer laying out the rhythm for "American Idiot"…the stage set was remarkable…maybe 80 feet high with newspaper articles, TV screens, hanging cars, graffiti and scaffolding…magnificent lighting…then the guitar player started blasting the chords at us…the base player bumped in…then suddenly this young thrasher named "Johnny" started singing…"don't wanna be an American Idiot…." And pretty soon the stage started filling up 20 something characters chiming in the chorus…then the story line of American Idiot begins….It turns out that "Johnny" (the main persona) is an angry confused shiftless young man with 2 similar friends…Tunny and Will….this is the story of their journey through a "21st Century Breakdown"…temptation and trouble with "Jesus of Suburbia" and ultimate reunion and "Redemption" all to the original tunes of "Green Day"
I really loved the whole concept, choreography, stage sets and the music….the players were adequately energetic and sufficiently talented (Tony Vincent as "St. Jimmy was outstanding). The action was frenetic and non stop and kept my head spinning….I had a little trouble following the story line and I wasn't thrilled with the final song…it wasn't catchy and sing a longy…..I would have preferred the play ending with "Time of your Life"! But……..
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Daniel Gross: The $800 Billion Deception (slate.com)
Conservatives claim the stimulus has already failed. But it has barely started.
Frans de Waal: Morals Without God (huffingtonpost.com)
Some believers feel threatened by evolutionary theory not because the theory is right or wrong -- the evidence doesn't seem to matter much to them -- but because accepting it would mean accepting that we have been created by natural processes including our morality. The final part is what bothers them the most.
Tom Danehy: Ignorance and stupidity are leading too many people to avoid flu vaccines (tucsonweekly.com)
What I find most troubling these days in the political arena is that complex issues, many involving science, are being argued at a high-decibel level by people who couldn't even spell "science" if you spotted them the first five letters.
B.J. Hammerstein: Chatting with the always interesting Bill Maher (Detroit Free Press)
Love him or hate him, Bill Maher is a man on a mission. Maher, who hit hard on the big screen last year with the audacious critique of organized religion, "Religulous," has just completed the seventh season of his HBO series, the political-humor-driven talk show "Real Time with Bill Maher."
Wayne McGregor: Zen and the art of dance (guardian.co.uk)
Wayne McGregor is one of the world's busiest choreographers. He's also into neuroscience, Antarctica - and walking his dog on a remote African island. He talks to Judith Mackrell.
Brian Crecente: When the going gets tough ... let the game play itself (McClatchy-Tribune News Service)
Like many younger brothers I had a contentious relationship with my older brother. We butted heads, fought, lied, accused each other of unimaginable atrocities and genuinely despised one another - while secretly caring deeply what the other thought. But there was one thing that always brought us together: Difficult video games.
Adrien Begrand: "Castle Walls of Blood and Bone: An Interview with Converge" (popmatters.com)
With four landmark albums this decade alone, Converge has saved its best work for last. Vocalist Jacob Bannon talks with PopMatters about his music, his art, and his insanely talented band.
Glenn Gamboa: Def Jam at 25, works it at VH1 'Hip Hop Honors' (Newsday)
Pop culture moves on two tracks simultaneously - the fast-paced, ever-quickening one that picks stuff up, lifts it to the heights of popularity then replaces it with something new, and the one where truly significant, long-lasting artistic endeavors continually chug along.
Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Roberto Alagna, tenor" (guardian.co.uk)
'I have to take care of my voice. For me, it is like a daughter or a wife. I have to be gentle with her.'
George Varga: Making Noise About Jazz (creators.com)
Jazz has always relied on fresh, new ideas and bold, young artists to innovate and take the music forward. But is jazz itself attracting young, new audiences here and nationally? Or is the music long hailed as America's greatest artistic contribution to the world struggling to draw a new generation of listeners?
Interview by Emma Townshend: "Richard Dawkins: 'Strident? Do they mean me?'"
With his latest book, creationist-basher Richard Dawkins believes he has amassed all the evidence he could ever need to convince unbelievers that Darwin was right. Now he just has to get them to read it...
John Dickerson: The Better To-Do List (slate.com)
At Eunice Shriver's funeral, her daughter Maria Shriver told a story about her mother picking her up from school wearing a to-do list. She emerged from a blue Lincoln convertible wearing a sweater with little pieces of paper pinned to it. On each scrap she'd written one of the tasks she needed to complete by the end of the day.
Live from Daryl's House with Darryl Hall
Hubert's Poetry Corner
RICKY'S FULL OF SHIfT
FYI
I correctly 'diagnosed' the Texas governor's 'condition' several years ago!
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Nobel Peace Surprise' Edition...
WASHINGTON/OSLO (Reuters) - Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision that honored the first-year U.S. president more for promise than achievement and drew praise... (U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "His commitment to work through the United Nations gives the world's people fresh hope and fresh prospects."... Former President Jimmy Carter says (it) is a "bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment.")
... and skepticism around the world...
War and Peace Prizes | CommonDreams.org
Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize - Times Online
Do you think awarding Obama the Peace Prize was appropriate?
Send your response to
Results Tuesday
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Back to sunny and warm.
Gaza Children Deserve Better
Mia Farrow
US actress and outspoken human rights activist Mia Farrow said on Thursday that children living in blockaded, impoverished and war-wracked Gaza Strip deserve a better life.
"The children appear traumatised," Farrow told a media conference in the Palestinian enclave on the second and final day of a visit as goodwill ambassador for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
She later spoke out for the children of Sderot, an Israeli city just a few kilometres (miles) from the Gaza border that is regularly targeted by rockets fired by Palestinian militants.
Farrow, 64, travelled to Gaza on Wednesday and met children working in smuggling tunnels along the Egypt border, toured a school and a hospital and was briefed on the impact on children of the Gaza war as well as the blockade.
Mia Farrow
France's Legion of Honor
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis will receive the Legion of Honor, the highest award bestowed by the French government.
The award will be presented to the 48-year-old jazz musician in a ceremony at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York City on Nov. 6. A performance by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet will follow.
Marsalis performs annually in France.
Wynton Marsalis
$10M Donation
Gates Foundation
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $10 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture planned for the National Mall in Washington.
The grant announced Thursday will support the capital campaign for design and construction of the new museum.
Allan Golston, president of the foundation's U.S. programs, says the museum will make the stories and history of African Americans available to everyone.
Groundbreaking is expected in 2012, and the opening is slated for 2015. Construction is expected to cost about $500 million, with half the funds to be provided by Congress.
Gates Foundation
End World Hunger
Sarah Silverman
Foul-mouthed comedian Sarah Silverman has a new proposal for ending world hunger: Sell the Vatican.
In a new profanity-laced monologue making the rounds on YouTube in time for U.N. World Food Day on Friday, Silverman suggests that it's time for the pope to "move out of your house that is a city" and use the proceeds to feed the world's poor.
"On an ego level alone you will be the biggest hero in the history of ever!" she said. "Sell the Vatican. Feed the world."
The Vatican clearly has no plans to follow suit. On Thursday, a spokesman declined to comment. But the Catholic League, the U.S. civil rights organization, denounced Silverman and cable broadcaster HBO for her "obscene" and "filthy diatribe."
Sarah Silverman
Clarksdale, Mississippi Festival
Tennessee Williams
Playwright Tennessee Williams drew some of his most powerful images from his boyhood hometown in the Mississippi Delta, where an annual festival now celebrates the city's role in Williams' award-winning stories.
The name Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire" belonged to a friend of Williams' mother in Clarksdale. Brick, the alcoholic athlete played by Paul Newman in the 1958 film, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," was the name of a local boy who bullied Williams while he was student at Oakhurst Elementary.
The Tennessee Williams Festival, produced by Coahoma Community College, begins Friday and features a Stella shouting contest, acting competitions, porch plays and panel discussions about Williams and his life in Mississippi. A BBC documentary of last year's festival will be aired. Producer Carmel Lonergan said it shows links between Williams' upbringing and surroundings and many of his dramas.
The playwright - born Thomas Lanier Williams - lived as a child in Clarksdale with his maternal grandparents, The Rev. Walter Dakin and his wife, Rose. The locals say Williams would go on parish calls with his grandfather, and often heard church gossip and colorful tales in the early 1900s.
Tennessee Williams
Armani Endorsement
Megan Fox
Confirming that endorsement deals still have cachet in a recession, "Transformers" star Megan Fox is pulling down a seven-figure payday to model Armani underwear and jeans.
The 23-year-old will be the new face of Emporio Armani Underwear and Armani Jeans in 2010, the Milan-based fashion house announced Wednesday.
The actress' publicity team, managers and agents approached Armani several times over the years to build the relationship. She wore Armani outfits at red carpet events and met designer Giorgio Armani at an Armani Prive fashion show in Paris this year.
With Victoria Beckham's contract expiring and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" ballooning past $800 million in worldwide box office, a deal finally clicked. Fox also plays a possessed cheerleader in "Jennifer's Body," which launched in theaters last month.
Megan Fox
Sorry For Twitter Cleavage
Meghan McCain
Meghan McCain, one of the daughters of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has apologized for using Twitter to post a picture in which she displayed an ample amount of cleavage.
McCain, 24, who helped her father campaign for president last year and is a columnist for the website The Daily Beast, posted the photo she took of herself on Twitpic late Wednesday.
After a string of comments were posted about the picture -- mostly from apparently male Twitter users -- McCain said she was "just trying to be funny" and was considering deleting her Twitter account.
"When I am alone in my apartment, I wear tank tops and sweat pants, I had no idea this makes me a 'slut,'" she said on Twitter. "I can't even tell you how hurt I am.
Meghan McCain
Crypt Auction - Again
Marilyn Monroe
The crypt above Marilyn Monroe is going back on the auction block.
Bidding for the marble mausoleum crypt will start at $500,000 beginning Oct. 19, according to organizer Eric Gazin of AuctionCause.com. A previous $4.6 million bid for the space fell through in August when Elsie Poncher first attempted to auction off her late husband's crypt.
The new eBay.com auction will end Oct. 29 and require a 1 to 5 percent refundable deposit, based on the bid.
Gazin says he believes the crypt at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery will fetch "millions of dollars" at auction. Other celebrities including Farrah Fawcett, Natalie Wood, Rodney Dangerfield, Dean Martin, Jack Lemmon, Eva Gabor and Truman Capote have also been laid to rest at the cemetery.
Marilyn Monroe
Uncivil Servant
Keith Bardwell
A Louisiana justice of the peace said he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.
"I'm not a racist. I just don't believe in mixing the races that way," Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. "I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else."
Bardwell said he asks everyone who calls about marriage if they are a mixed race couple. If they are, he does not marry them, he said.
"I've been a justice of the peace for 34 years and I don't think I've mistreated anybody," Bardwell said. "I've made some mistakes, but you have too. I didn't tell this couple they couldn't get married. I just told them I wouldn't do it."
Keith Bardwell
Series Further Strains Ties
Turkish TV
A Turkish television drama which depicts an Israeli soldier shooting dead a Palestinian baby has strained already tense relations between Israel and Turkey, its strategic Muslim ally.
Once-close ties between the Jewish state and Turkey, a secular state with a Muslim population, have deteriorated since Israel's offensive earlier this year in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, ruled by the Islamist group Hamas.
Israel on Thursday summoned a Turkish diplomat to protest at "state-sponsored incitement" by state-owned TRT television's "Separation" series, in which actors playing Israeli soldiers and Palestinians fight street battles in Jerusalem.
The show's producer, Selcuk Cobanoglu, told Reuters: "If the Israeli government is disturbed with this, it means they are disturbed with the reality when we go there and eyewitness what is happening there."
Turkish TV
Battle Continues
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves' battle with a woman alleging he's the father of her kids is set to drag on - she is contesting the results of a paternity test.
DNA tests have conclusively disproved Karen Sala's claims that the Speed star is the biological dad of at least one of her kids - but the 46 year old is relaunching her bid for financial support, according to Reeves' lawyer.
The actor's attorney Lorne Wolfson tells Eonline.com, "Ms. Sala is challenging the validity of the DNA testing, so the case goes on."
Reeves maintains he doesn't even know Sala, who asked for £100,000-per-month in child support, retroactive from 1988, and £2 million-a-month in spousal support, effective from 2006.
Keanu Reeves
Indonesia Denies Banning
Maria 'Miyabi' Ozawa
Indonesia on Thursday denied media reports that it had banned a Japanese porn star from visiting the mainly Muslim country to film a no-nudity comedy movie.
Culture and tourism ministry official Ukus Kuswara said the film's production company had voluntarily postponed 23-year-old Maria 'Miyabi' Ozawa's visit this week due to "pressures" from religious groups.
She was due to play herself in a film entitled "Menculik Miyabi" (Kidnapping Miyabi), about a group of students who accidentally kidnap the starlet.
Executive producer Odi Mulya Hidayat said Miyabi's visit would be rescheduled, with the mainly Hindu tourist island of Bali as a possible alternative location for the film.
Maria 'Miyabi' Ozawa
Expected Kangaroos At Airport
Kristen Bell
"Couples Retreat" star Kristen Bell admitted she was disappointed no kangaroos met her at Sydney airport when she arrived for a promotional tour, a report said on Thursday.
Not only did the 29-year-old blonde expect kangaroos at the airport, she was also hoping for a welcoming hug.
"I, like every other stupid American, assumed the kangaroos would meet us at the airport and they would want to hug us as much as we wanted to hug them," she told AAP news agency in an interview in Los Angeles.
However Bell, who also appears in hit TV series "Gossip Girl" and voices a character in new animated film "Astro Boy," said the gaps in her marsupial knowledge were cleared up by a trip to Sydney's zoo.
Kristen Bell
Family Seances
Dan Aykroyd
"Ghostbusters" star Dan Aykroyd says he is often asked where he got the inspiration for his blockbuster '80s comedy. He says it's simple - his own family.
Aykroyd's father, Peter, and great-grandfather, Samuel, regularly held seances in the parlour of their eastern Ontario home in a bid to contact the dead.
Samuel recorded their experiences in pencil-scrawled notes that were found in a locked trunk after his death.
Having inherited an intense curiosity about the paranormal from his grandfather, Peter says he sought out to craft something that was part memoir and part primer on the supernatural.
Dan Aykroyd
Cable Nielsens
Ratings
Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by The Nielsen Co. for the week of Oct. 5-11. Day and start time (EDT) are in parentheses:
1. NFL Football: Green Bay vs. Minnesota (Monday, 8:30 p.m.), ESPN, 15.13 million homes, 21.83 million viewers.
2. MLB Division Series: Minnesota vs. N.Y. Yankees, Game 1 (Wednesday, 6 p.m.), TBS, 4.96 million homes, 6.6 million viewers.
3. MLB Wildcard: Detroit vs. Minnesota (Tuesday, 5 p.m.), TBS, 4.78 million homes, 6.54 million viewers.
4. MLB Division Series: Minnesota vs. N.Y. Yankees, Game 2 (Friday, 6 p.m.), TBS, 4.76 million homes, 6.48 million viewers.
5. MLB Division Series: N.Y. Yankees vs. Minnesota, Game 3 (Sunday, 7 p.m.), TBS, 4.7 million homes, 6.79 million viewers.
6. "Sportscenter" (Monday, 11:56 p.m.), ESPN, 4.09 million homes, 5.21 million viewers.
7. MLB Division Series: St. Louis vs. L.A. Dodgers, Game 2 (Thursday, 6:19 p.m.), TBS, 3.97 million homes, 5.17 million viewers.
8. MLB Division Series: St. Louis vs. L.A. Dodgers, Game 1 (Wednesday, 9:51 p.m.), TBS, 3.82 million homes, 4.97 million viewers.
9. MLB Division Series: Boston vs. L.A. Angels, Game 2 (Friday, 10:34 p.m.), TBS, 3.76 million homes, 5.06 million viewers.
10. "MLB Game Break" (Thursday, 9:23 p.m.), TBS, 3.64 million homes, 4.7 million viewers.
11. "Monday Night Countdown" (Monday, 7 p.m.), ESPN, 3.47 million homes, 4.54 million viewers.
12. MLB Division Series: Boston vs. L.A. Angels, Game 1 (Thursday, 9:30 p.m.), TBS, 3.47 million homes, 4.43 million viewers.
13. "NCIS" (Wednesday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.39 million homes, 4.43 million viewers.
14. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.29 million homes, 4.65 million viewers.
15. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.26 million homes, 4.75 million viewers.
Ratings
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