aaaaargh. my worst fears have come true. the puppet that replaced kiki and herb at the helen hayes theater won the tony.

words cannot express my fury, and my sadness.

on the positive side, justin bond looked stunning, classy, and totally beautiful on tv last night. for the two seconds we saw him. simple and elegant makeup, hair and dress. perfect. and kenny mellman looked good too — classy (if a bit standard) in his tux.

it would have been a treat to see them onstage, as winners.

i’m sure miss du rane will have many comments about this.

good lord, it happened.

kiki and herb were nominated for a tony.

i’ve written a lot about kiki and herb. kiki is portrayed by justin bond, of shortbus fame.

their homepage is a good place to start if you don’t know much about them.

congratulations to our miss du rane. we saw her last sunday at joe’s pub, and my god what an epic show it was. nearly two and a half hours of complete derangement.

it was delicious, and hysterical. even herb basically stopped playing piano just to watch the meltdown. definitely a show for the ages, or the vaults, or whatever. our friends from out of town loved the show.

and we’re going to see them again on thursday–they are taping their dvd at the knitting factory. should be quite an event.

anyway, here’s hoping that kiki and herb win that tony. their only competition is jay johnson, the ventriloquist.

dear god, please don’t let kiki lose to the puppet that replaced her at the helen hayes theater.

of course, if she does, it’s a comic vein that will be mined for years, which i guess makes it a win-win situation.

sunday and monday, i attended back to back theatrical events that showcased the variety of opportunities for fun in new york city.

on monday night, i was at joe’s pub for the inaugural talk show with justin bond. justin bond is the performer who portrays kiki of kiki and herb, who i write about all the freaking time. his guests were michael musto the gossip writer, jay brannan from shortbus, and jane adams, an actress who most recently starred in “little children”.

it got off to a bit of a slow start but got progressively more interesting and hilarious as the evening wore on. the highlight? most definitely justin’s performance of “god hates fags”, a song he got off a (who knew?) anti gay “christian” website.

don’t get me started.

anyway, here’s the clip in all its glory, straight from you tube:

jay brannan also sang a song, but it’s not up on you tube yet. it was called (i think) “half a boyfriend”–he has a gorgeous voice and plays impeccable guitar. someone sign this kid up!

we’re going back next week as well–it’s john cameron mitchell from hedwig and shortbus, debbie harry from (of course) blondie, and someone else whose name escapes me. well worth the $20 + two drinks to see.

sunday night, at the polar opposite of the spectrum, we saw the gyuto monks from tibet at town hall. not what i would have picked for myself, but kirk wanted to go so i went too. and it was marvelous.

they do this deep-throated guttural chanting that sounds like three notes at once. and when you get twenty of them doing it at once, and throw in some native instruments like drums and bugle-y horns and steel drum-y things, you get a very unusual and surprisingly calming sound.

i loved it.

not as much as i loved justin bond, but still. two great nights in a row. can’t ask for more than that.

tis the season, and all that. lots of fun stuff coming up:

» dreamgirls tickets on monday. we got them at the ziegfeld, which is the best movie theater in manhattan. great popcorn, enormous auditorium, huge screen and great sound, red velvet curtains, serious patrons. and, for special engagements like this, reserved seating. the tickets were $25 each, but they are treating it like an old-fashioned road show movie. you get a special program, and they have all the costumes and memorabilia in the lobby for you to look at. plus, it’s one of only three theaters in the country showing the movie, and the only one in new york. so, expensive, but exclusive too. i can hardly wait.

» kiki and herb christmas show at the bowery ballroom next wednesday. i’ve rattled on before about kiki and herb, and i won’t bore you again. but this is the event of december, if you ask me.

» we saw the radio city christmas show this past wednesday. i never miss this–i’m a sucker for the pageantry, the excess, and the splendor. great new “twelve days of christmas” tap number. plus there’s all your old favorites–the wooden soldiers, the dancing santas, the midgets blurting “christmas” from behind the little doors of the midget house, the kick line, the 3-d movie, mrs. claus singing “man with the bag”, and of course the nativity scene. and of course i get there 45 minutes early, so as not to miss a minute of the mighty wurlitzer. i’m a big pipe organ fanatic.

» finally, there’s kirk in “taming of the shrew”, part of the pied piper children’s theatre’s season. that’s not to be missed, either.

it’s not my fault, really. it just worked out this way.

tonight is the first night of beaujolais nouveau. “beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!” as the french say.

and kirk and i will be sampling tonight at le jardin bistro. we got an emailed invite from them–buy dinner and have as much beaujolais nouveau as you want, straight from the barrel.

sold.

it’s among our favorite french bistros in new york, so we like going there anyway. the beaujolais nouveau is just a bonus.

dinner is going to be followed by a late night performance by kiki and herb at joe’s pub. i’ve written a lot about kiki and herb, but my recent viewings have been in broadway and off-broadway theaters. joe’s pub is a tiny (by comparison) performance space seating maybe 200 people. i’m really looking forward to seeing them again in an intimate space, where kiki can again walk on my table and throw matches at me.

nothing like it.

and, best yet, i have the day off work tomorrow. good thing, since kiki and herb don’t even get started until midnight. but i have to be up by 2:00 or so, because we have tickets for the new bond movie, “casino royale”, at the ziegfeld. great place to see a great movie. probably the best moviegoing experience i ever had in my life was seeing “moulin rouge” at the ziegfeld. they have real red velvet curtains that open to reveal the screen, and when they parted, the movie started, and the first thing you saw was red velvet curtains parting, in the movie, to start the film. amazingly cool.

but i digress.

it’ll be a great night. more detail to come, assuming i can remember it.

the new york times has a new daily email they call “urbanite”. i like it quite a lot; yesterday, they had a blurb about a presentation of a movie by paul festa at st. bartholomew’s church called apparition of the eternal church that sounded fun. all i knew was that it was named after a strange and rarely-performed classical piece written by messiaen for the pipe organ, and it had justin bond of kiki and herb and john cameron mitchell of hedwig and shortbus. and also that the strange and rarely-performed classical piece would be performed on the church’s pipe organ (the largest in nyc) after the movie.

i love me some pipe organ. it’s the only reason i go to the radio city christmas show every year–to listen to the dual duelling pipe organists before the show.

good enough for me. i got tickets.

so i buy my tickets, and in the process i discover that st. bart’s is an episcopal church. who knew, and me episcopal and all. and we had time to kill before the 7:30 movie start time, and they had a 6:00 eucharist.

hence, eucharist and a movie. actually it was quick dinner at lou’s cafe, eucharist, and a movie.

this is what my life has come to. big night on the town for jamie. woo-hoo. it’s a blowout. church, followed by church.

anyway.

the movie itself was fascinating. various people, famous and not famous (infamous?), put on headphones and listened to the piece. and described in words what they heard, and felt. you couldn’t hear the piece yourself, only the words of description.

and only at the end of the movie did you get to hear the piece itself. it was a brilliant setup–a perfect way to get at the meaning of a piece of music without being intrusive on the piece itself.

and the stories were funny, moving, stirring, wistful, frightening, hopeful–the gamut from a to z, or a to at least q or r.

i bought a great t-shirt with the movie info and a picture of miss kiki du rane on it, along with the dvd of the movie. it’s not likely to play in your town–it’s a small movie without any real distribution–but if you can get a copy it’s well worth the trouble and expense.

the performance afterwards? a bit disappointing, to be honest. the people in the movie, who were wearing headphones, kept talking about how loud it was, and how they could feel the notes in their spine, and all. and while the organ was powerful, i kept wanting the volume to be louder. i didn’t get blown away.

i love the piece, though. it’s all sustained notes and harmonics that build on each other in a fascinating and disturbing way.

i’ll definitely be getting a messiaen cd, and putting on the headphones.

kirk and i saw shortbus last night, and loved it. the times has a great review (registration required).

i’ve written about it earlier–it’s the new movie from john cameron mitchell, the creator of hedwig. he wanted to make a movie that celebrates sex, and depicts it graphically and honestly in the context of story, plot, and art.

and wow, did he succeed.

the characters are all on a journey to reorder their lives for a variety of reasons. and through sex, they embark on a voyage of self-discovery that is honestly and beautifully depicted–more so than in any film in recent memory. it’s the movie that robert altman should have the guts to make, but probably doesn’t.

and the sex is real, human, hysterically funny, tender, shocking, outrageous, and occasionally degrading–just like sex in real life, and most unlike most cinematic sex.

but ultimately, the movie for me wasn’t so much about sex as it was about control. self-control, the difficulty with reclaiming control ceded to others, and the difficulty in knowing when to cede it yourself. sex is the vehicle that’s used to flesh out the concepts (so to speak), but to say this is a movie exclusively about sex is to miss the point entirely, i think.

and, oddly enough, it’s the feel-good date movie of the year, a movie with its heart on its sleeve, with the happiest of happy endings that sends you from the theater on an emotional high, more appreciative than ever of the relationships in your life. after seeing the process that the characters collectively go through, and where they collectively are at movie’s end, you know that, with someone you love at your side, there’s nothing you can’t work out, together, ever.

the movie is clever, honest, beautifully filmed, riotously funny, tender and tragic, and above all, real. really really real. and a poignant love letter to new york city as well–through the content, the characters (the faux ed koch is perhaps the best character in the movie) and through the device mitchell uses for scene transitions (i won’t spoil it for you, but it’s stunningly gorgeous).

in these times where so much is repressed that we no longer have the perspective to determine the extent of our represssion, this movie is the perfect reset button. go see it, get some perspective back, and be reminded of just how wonderful life is.

oh, and how wonderful sex is, too.

frank bruni did a long piece about “shortbus” in the ny times this weekend.

i’ve written about “shortbus” before–it’s the new movie from john cameron mitchell of hedwig fame.

bruni’s article is not to be missed–it’s a great explanation and a great exploration. very very well done.

and of course, the movie is not to be missed either. it starts october 4 at the landmark sunshine cinema in nyc, rolls out to la and san francisco two days later, and opens wide (so to speak) beginning october 13.

track down a showing of this movie. i have a feeling you won’t regret it.

“shortbus” is the new film from john cameron mitchell, of hedwig fame, and it’s coming to new york.

it’s been a long wait, and i’m psyched as all hell to finally see it. it’s jcm’s attempt to reclaim sex in film from the clutches of pornography. here’s an interview with john about the film.

“Sex,” says john in the article, “has been cheapened by porn.” i think this is a great idea for a film, and i think it’s going to push all the right buttons (so to speak), just when some damn buttons really need to be pushed.

and in addition, it looks like a lot of fun. see the trailer for yourself, either censored or uncensored.

kirk is still on john’s mailing list from back in hedwig days, so we’ve gotten updates on this project from the beginning. i remember him soliciting stories from people, with the promise that the most interesting people and stories would be worked into the film. it looks like he kept his promise–a quick check of imdb turns up justin bond (from kiki and herb) along with lots of first-time performers. looks like he kept his promise to search out the best people and performances, bar none.

good for him.

here’s the schedule of dates, from john’s email:

Sept 10 – North American Premiere, Toronto Film Festival, followed by a big concert party (see our site for tickets).
Oct. 4 – New York release at the Landmark Sunshine
Oct 6 – LA and SF release
Oct. 13 through Nov – we expand across N. America

as he says, plan on going for opening weekend–lots of people for opening weekend means the movie will stay around, and expand.

people in ny, la, and sf need to show up in numbers, so that this movie moves as much as possible into the heartland. they need this movie out there!

i’ll be recruiting. you should, too!

saw liza minnelli performing at coney island last night…incredible show.

it was a free concert, but the organizers had set up seats in the center of the field in front of the stage, and were selling them for $10 which went to charity. so for $10 i got a nice comfortable seat about twenty feet from the stage, in the center.

i did get there a bit early, to get a seat that good. by showtime, the place was a madhouse. i’m not good at estimating crowd size, but it had to be in the tens of thousands. and liza was great–very natural, unplanned, and spontaneous (for liza, anyway). she sang “cabaret” and “new york new york” at the end, of course, but preceded that with an atypical selection of interesting and well-chosen material, all of which brought the house down. standing wild cheering ovations after each song, and sometimes halfway through the songs.

and she was onstage for a good hour and a half. i think. maybe more–i didn’t have a watch.

it’s the second year she’s done this at coney island, and the last thing she said as she left the stage was “see you next year.”

i am so there. kirk stayed home and worked on the show he’s directing. his loss. he’ll be there next year. i’ll make him go.

and tonight, “snakes on a plane”, baby. i fandangoed tickets for 5:00. can’t wait to see those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane. go on with your badass self, samuel l.

and sunday, a return trip for kiki and herb on broadway. we found another ticket deal.

i have a feeling we’ll probably go a third time before it’s all over. they are that good.

god, i love living in new york.

and i have tickets.

in my inbox this morning–an email with a link to discount preview tickets for kiki and herb‘s one month broadway run.

of course i jumped all over it. third row aisle for the performance just before opening night. god am i excited.

i’ve seen kiki and herb perform every show they’ve done since i came to new york, starting (i think i’m remembering correctly) with fez. and we saw their off-broadway gig a number of times, because it was just so damn good. i think kirk may have seen them in other places before that, though. he’ll correct me in the comments if necessary, i hope.

and i had tickets to the infamous sold-out farewell performance at carnegie hall but, in one of the most bone-headed moves i’ve ever committed, i forgot to go.

you can’t imagine how mad at myself i was. i still have my unripped pair of tickets, though. maybe someday i’ll ebay one of them.

kiki and herb are technically a drag cabaret act, though calling them that is like calling frank sinatra a crooner, or calling babe ruth a former big-league pitcher. it completely understates the brilliance of what they do, which transcends drag and is politically, sexually, and psychologically charged. their invented history, which kiki recounts on stage between wildly inappropriate songs and frequent sips on the canadian club, is at once hysterically funny, brilliantly poignant, and morbidly tragic. it’s one of the best performances you’ll ever see, and you should not miss it.

i can hardly wait for this one, which thanks to my google calendar i will not miss.

will not miss.

will not miss.