'TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Minnesota Fringe Festival 2006 Part III
By Baron Dave Romm
The Reutrn of the Podcast!
Shockwave Radio Theater
Podcasts
for iTunes and iPods, with pictures
Let me know if it's not working,
and drop me a line if it works!
The Minnesota Fringe Festival is over. I wound up seeing 52 previews, 31 performances, devoting three Shockwave Radio Theater programs to the event (so far) and doing six iPod interviews on the fly. Whee!
Many Fringe shows travel the US and Canada, and you may encounter one or more of the shows I saw at a Fringe Festival near you. Hence I feel it a public service to review shows from the Minnesota Fringe, even the site-specific ones that may not travel.
Note: Oops, got fooled in the excitement. Mars' close approach to Earth was from 2003. It was pretty spectacular, as bright planets go, but that was three years ago. This year at this time, Mars is over yonder and will be dim, if not behind the sun. What caused the excitment is a realignment of the solar system. We may have three new planets to talk about.
Borderlines
Four and a half stars
Bureaucracy vs. Love Supremely silly. An exaggerated and
stylized (yet oddly familiar) bunch of bureaucrats are asked to
change the seating arrangement for the show. Oops, sorry, gave away
the plot. I'm not sure why this show works, but it does.
American
Drama: Pocket Edition Four and a half stars
Energy, not subtext Five American plays, ten minutes each,
condensed by different writers, performed with energy and wit. The
playlets are ribald and salty, as befitting the originals. I'm not
sure I understand any of the plays better, but I appreciate them a
bit more.
H.P.
Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" Four Stars
Florid Lovecraft gets a good reading Half the fun of reading
Lovecraft is his fusty Victorian prose. Very dense, rather icky. I
went with a major Lovecraft fan, who explained the story afterwards,
which helps. Tim Uren reads the entire story, and reads it very
well, though he seemed tired in spots. I was a bit disappointed in
the Mill City space, which is tall enough for a crypt but not really
rocky enough to be evocative. The DVD will be worth it, if it has
liner notes.
Deviled
Eggs Four and a half stars
Sad and wonderful Gods and devils have human failures and
foibles as they blithely kill billions of mortals for their own petty
games. Loads of fun. I didn't learn anything, or have any great
questions answered, but the script is hilarious and the acting
superb.
Corncobs,
Hotdogs and other Dirty Secrets Three and a half stars
Thumbing Through Memphis Three vaguely related stories about
hitchhikers and hitchhiking, featuring Southern accents, hillbilly
cooking and mildly perverse sex. The last story is the best, and
best told.
The
Cat Came Back Two Stars
More chanteuse, please The show starts off with some okay
bantering with the audience, card tricks and a nice song from the
chanteuse/cat/prostitute who's adventures form the link to the rest
of the sketches and her songs. The skits have a few chuckles, but
mostly don't have any energy. The adult subject matter and attempt
at a hard-edged ending make it unsuitable for children, despite the
children's song it's based on. An interesting idea with only a few
good bits.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
--////
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Interview by Sharon Linnéa: The Inspired Teacher (beliefnet.com)
No Child Left Behind is a nightmare. It's sucking the education system dry of passion and creativity. You need to focus, not on how high test scores are, but how much progress was made.
Dena Ross: The Best Way to Give (beliefnet.com)
How one online charity is making a difference in public schools, one pencil at a time.
Donorschoose.org
A Way to Give to Schools.
Craig Young: Documentary Takes On The Elephant in the Room (afterelton.com)
For those of you who, like me, may view the term "gay Republican" as an exercise in contradiction akin to "straight-acting," but are still a bit curious about gay Republicans, Logo's new documentary The Elephant in the Room seeks to satisfy your curiosity. The documentary follows three gay Republicans, each of whom is quite different in terms of how their political beliefs inform their lives.
From our family to yours (advocate.com)
The Calhouns are a hard-working gay Georgia family who refuse to accept anything less than absolute equality.
Toni Collette (out.com)
Michael Musto uses his sixth sense with the actress to talk about her two queerish new flicks, gay adoption, and why drag queens have been very kind to her.
Shauna Swartz: Gay Without the Spin: Elvira Kurt (afterellen.com)
But love was Kurt's main reason for moving back to Canada. Last September she married her partner of five years. "I call her my Doctor Smarty Pants," Kurt says of Chloe, who is a professor at York University. "She tells me, 'Now that we're gay married, you know, there's no gay divorce, so you can't divorce me.'"
ROGER EBERT: E-mail from Roger
I have always believed in full disclosure. When I announced that I had a recurrence of salivary cancer that required surgery, I had no idea when I went into the hospital on June 16 that I would still be here on August 16.
Steve Turner: John Lennon: A New Jesus? (beliefnet.com)
Only after the Beatles started experimenting with drugs did they begin to talk openly about belief in God.
Snakes on Claire Danes (Video)
On Quitting Smoking
Avery Ant
Hubert's Poetry Corner
THE MISCHARGE OF THE STRYKER BRIGADE
DESPERATE TIMES, DESPERATE MEASURES AND EVER MORE DESPERATE MEN PRODUCING DESPERATE CONSEQUENCES!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Red Sox Charity
Jimmy Fund
Donald Trump, Ben Affleck, Billy Ray Cyrus, Jon Cryer and other celebrities have helped raise more than $2.8 million in a radio-telethon for the Jimmy Fund, the children's cancer-fighting charity favored by the Boston Red Sox.
The all-day fundraiser on WEEI-AM radio and New England Sports Network cable television station passed its goal of $2.6 million by 12:30 a.m. Saturday and was continuing to accept online donations through the weekend.
Others participating in the telethon were "Fever Pitch" filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly, and Massachusetts Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry. Gov. Mitt Romney also sent in a donation.
The Jimmy Fund, established in 1948 to support cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been the primary charity for the Red Sox since 1953.
Jimmy Fund
Sues To Get Former Elvis Home
Uri Geller
Celebrity psychic Uri Geller and two partners claim in a federal lawsuit that the former owners of Elvis Presley's first house breached an eBay contract to sell the home.
Geller, who gained notoriety in the 1970s for seeming to bend spoons through telekinesis, and his partners are seeking to rescind the sale of the property to Nashville record producer Mike Curb.
A former lieutenant governor of California, Curb is chairman of Curb Records and head of the Mike Curb Family Foundation, which describes itself as a "philanthropic organization dedicated to preserving music history and promoting music business education."
A Curb spokeswoman said in June that the foundation was negotiating with a Memphis college to operate a music education center at the former Presley home. She declined to name the college.
Uri Geller
Honeymoons At Oxford
Hugh O'Brian
Actor Hugh O'Brian, a newlywed at age 81, finds himself philosophical about marriage, so much so he and his bride spent their honeymoon studying philosophy at Oxford University.
"I think, quite frankly, an active mind is as important as an active body," O'Brian said of the unusual honeymoon destination.
O'Brian and 54-year-old Virginia Barber wed in June at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in what they quipped was a "wedding to die for."
It was the second marriage for Barber and the first for O'Brian, who is likely best known as the iconic lawman in the 1950s TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. The couple dated for 18 years.
Hugh O'Brian
Opens Tour In Germany
Tehran Symphony Orchestra
The Tehran Symphony Orchestra played Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Frank Zappa Sunday at the start of a weeklong visit embraced by Germany and Iran as an exercise in cultural diplomacy.
The 80-member ensemble, which included more than a dozen women playing in bright-red headscarves, got a standing ovation from around 1,400 people as it opened the Orient Festival in the western German city of Osnabrueck under conductor Nader Mashayekhi.
The orchestra, which has modest funding and recently faced criticism from Islamic conservatives, played with verve in performances including Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, American rock musician Zappa's "Dog Breath Variations," and "Persian Suite" by contemporary Iranian composer Hassan Riahi.
Tehran Symphony Orchestra
Arraigned On Assault Charge
Busta Rhymes
Rapper Busta Rhymes was arraigned Sunday on an assault charge after he was reportedly accused of attacking a man for spitting on his car. The New York Police Department released few details about the arrest, saying only that the incident occurred Aug. 12.
A lawyer for Rhymes, Scott Leemon, said the charge should have merited only a desk appearance ticket.
Police arrested Rhymes Saturday evening after he performed at the AmsterJam Music Festival on Randall's Island. The New York Post said police believe Rhymes beat a man who spat on his car near Gramercy Park.
Busta Rhymes
Uncle Arrested
'Viva La Bam'
Reality television's Vincent "Don Vito" Margera, uncle of "Viva La Bam" star Bam Margera, was held without bond Saturday on a charge of sexual assault on a child.
Margera, 50, was arrested Friday night after a skateboarding event at a Lakewood mall. He is accused of two incidents of sexual assault on a child, city spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said. She said the charges involved inappropriate touching.
The MTV show "Viva La Bam" focuses largely on Bam Margera playing practical jokes on his parents and uncle, whose dialogue is often unintelligible.
Vincent Margera came to Colorado to film promotional material for ManiaTV.com, which first reported his arrest. ManiaTV.com founder Drew Massey said Margera had finished his work before the arrest.
'Viva La Bam'
Returns Book Advance
David Gardner
The former board chairman of the J. Paul Getty Trust has returned nearly $100,000 of the book deal he received to write about the history of the famed arts institution, the trust said.
David Gardner, who left the board in 2004, was ordered to pay back the money after an internal investigation concluded the book deal violated tax laws, Getty spokesman Ron Hartwig said Friday.
Gardner, who completed an outline for the book, had not written a word, but will keep more than $78,000 he received for 19 months of work on the project, Hartwig said.
David Gardner
Drought Abatement Tactics
Nepal
Dozens of Nepali women stripped naked and ploughed their fields in west Nepal, hoping to appease the gods and get some much needed rain, a newspaper report said on Sunday.
About 50 women in two villages in Kapilvastu district, 190 km (120 miles) west of Kathmandu, resorted to the desperate move at night on Friday as days of prayers and Hindu ceremonies failed to bring rains for the parched paddy crop, it said.
"This is our last weapon, we used it, and there was light rainfall," Nepali daily Rajdhani quoted one of the women as saying.
Nepal
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