The Quest For Spamalot

When I heard that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was being made into a Broadway musical, I thought that was a great idea. Sort of. One must venture cautiously when tampering with things that aqcuire a cult-like following. Even my dad, overly critical fellow that he is when it comes to filtering his entertainment choices, fondly recalls his own hysterical laughter when he first saw King Arthur galloping, sans noble steed, over hill and dale accompanied by a man pounding together coconuts. I mean what could there not be to love?

Last night, my main squeeze treated me to Spamalot. As lines from the movie are quotidian for us we weren't sure what to expect.

The audience was composed primarily of two groups: The uninitiated, who were simply present as die-hard theater goers with season passes to everything, and the die-hard devotees of the film with their prop coconuts and killer bunny hand puppets on hand. Although a fan, I am hardly die-hard anything, so by default it was interesting to hear distinct portions of the audience react to different things.

For those in the know, the biggest obstacle this show has is hearing the original dialogue delievered by a voice you aren't used to. Everyone who loves the film knows that it's not just the ridiculous nature of the dialogue, but the idiosyncratic delivery that catches your ear. It's like a foreigner mispronouncing a word. Those who are fluent can't help but want to correct. Homage is good, I am sure, but this seems a different beast.

So anytime a signature phrase or scene was reenacted onstage, it was simply not funny. The Knights who say Ni were not as amusingly threatening. Brother Maynard reciting the instructions for sacred artillery? "...then lobbeth thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it. Amen." High-larious. But here, it had all the character of a bored sunday school teacher.

The best bits often were when it deviated and embraced, even parodied, it's Broadway style theatrics. Additions such as a Lady of the Lake diva with her "Laker Girls" made for a show that was completely unrecognizable as a Python adaptation. I'm used to the film so much that it was jarring for me, but probably perfectly acceptable as campy show. The quest for the grail, in a show stopping number, becomes the quest to make it big on Broadway "You can't be successful on Broadway without any Jews." Which, now that I think about it, is probably a Pythonesque joke where the play is lampooning itself, as the movie skewered its attributes of being a feature film.

It was all a different flavor of silly and maybe just tad too hokey for my taste. Perhaps it just wasn't dirty enough. Not in the perverted way, but as in, "Where is all the mud, filth and spurting appendages?" It was all clean bright and shiny castles and expensive storybook forest trees with all the shit cleaned off. Hm, okay, maybe a little in the perveted way. There were no spankings to be found either.

All of this is not to say that I didn't have a good time. It wasn't ever boring, just more "The Producers" than "Python". But then, not being a veteran of what to actually expect from a nationally touring, professional musical it was a treat just to go. I got a good chuckle out of it. Truthfully, the whole Broadway scene is really a little bit weird to me. (Uh-huh, you say, but you dig strange British men who dress in drag...) Maybe I'm just not the all-singing, all-dancing gay on the avenue...

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm just jealous of people who can get on a stage without throwing up. The tiny black woman in my brain just smacked me upside the lobe and gave me some major head swivel.

How To Poop The Japanese Way

My sister knows me too well, I think...



Mental note: Acquire happy, singing toilet to inspire younger monkey to unchi unpapa. Reward with shiny pantsu with a big red star. That's the ticket.

Cheek to Cheek

Online quizzes are always the same for me so I don't partake of many. I'm rather predictable it seems. I already know that I'm Spiderman, for example.

But still sometimes I think, am I really that predictable? So you tell me... is this a good thing or just plain boring?

The Slow Dancer


Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer
(DGLDm)

Steady, reliable, and cradling him tenderly. Take a deep breath, and let it out real easy...you are The Slow Dancer.

Your focus is love, not sex, and for your age, you have average experience. But you're a great, thoughtful guy, and your love life improves every year. There's also a powerful elimination process working in your favor: most Playboy types get stuck raising unwanted kids before you even begin settling down. The men left over will be hot and yours. Your ideal man is someone intimate, intelligent, and very supportive.

Your exact opposite:
The Hornivore

Random Brutal Sex Master

While you're not exactly the life of the party, you do thrive in small groups of smart people. Your circle of friends is extra tight and it's HIGHLY likely they're just like you. You appreciate symmetry in relationships.

ALWAYS AVOID: The False Messiah
CONSIDER: The Gentleman or The Slow Dancer

The 32-Type Dating Test

Homework Bound

Each week, I pray to the homework gods that it will be a good week. I must not be making the proper sacrificial requirements since it seems to be getting harder with every passing day. Currently, the Elder Monkey has no video games for an indetermined time because he blew a gasket, a fuse and I think some vital fluid lines on a particular Tuesday two weeks ago when I said it was time to sit down and do the deed. How dare I!

Homework seems to have the opposite affect on this particular monkey than it's intended purpose. I usually do it with him since I have them in the afternoons. Which makes me as awful and hideous as that forbidden piece of paper with those squiggly things called words appears before him and out goes all manner of rational thought. But we do it and I'm sooooooooooo the devil. At the top of the hit list.

Oh, the impudence! The gall! How dare I make "i" come before "e" and other cryptic nonsense! A silent "gh" in "thought"? Bolderdash! Even and odd numbers? What whacko decided that was a good idea!? Growl, moan, mutter...

The Elder Monkey is in First Grade so it's only supposed to take all of ten minutes and sometimes ends up being over an hour. This is not all his doing of course. There are outside forces at work; the younger monkey, the dog, snacks, extremely urgent potty breaks, the younger monkey and the dog digging holes, swords, itchy clothes, poop, the younger monkey and the dog eating dirt... Goodness knows, there are battles to be fought (but not necessarily won) and treasure to be looked for (even if never found) so who needs homework!?

I know he can do it just fine and these distractions don't work on me much anymore. I have seen the proof when it clicks. He does have a point. The problem is he thinks like I do. I just went through a whole day of this stuff, why exactly do I have to do MORE? I try to steer him in the right mode of thinking. If the right motivation is presented though we get through it. As we read every night, he has still has stumbles on those boring words like "nearly" and "sometimes". But give him "sarcaphogas" and "tyrannosaurus" and his native tongue has been awakened.

Today was a good homework day. And so I make big freaking deal out of it and every one is happy for the moment. Tomorrow, however, is another Tuesday which means, writing a story of his own. He loathes long form writing with the fury of a raging bull. I am sure not to wear red on these days and make sure more erasers are on hand.

I will not be blamed for the tripping of any office fire alarms should you send burnt offerings at your hastily constructed post-it note and paperclip pyre in prayer for mercy on my meager soul. But thanks anyway.

Live From Your Living Room

Today, my dad and I went to a house concert.

I've heard of these before but have never been to one. House concerts are up close and in your living room performances where you usually have to bring your own chair. Generally, these to seem to feature folky types, who prefer smaller audiences without the fear of having beer bottles thrown at them. Unless of course their songs encourage this kind of thing. They also do it as a way to travel without having to pay for a stage, sometimes get a place to crash and meet the people; a great "grass roots" effort to get your name known in a personal venue.

It didn't hurt, of course, that it also doubled as a pot luck. Any excuse to consume free food in exchange for making guacamole (which I will also consume) is A-OK in my book. I'd probably hold a house concert myself, except I'd have to call it a "Large Walk-In Closet Concert". There is also the fear that they might get sucked into the black hole and then I'd have guilt when I have to ask myself, "Whose remains ARE these?" when I clean it out twenty years from now.

My dad had never heard of this type of concert (which surprised me) and asked me to go with him. We went to see Pierce Pettis, a superb singer songwriter of whom my dad is a big fan. It was just him and a guitar and some stories. I basically sat next to him while he played.

All in all I enjoyed it. But now I'm totally spoiled and it reminded me why I am already an old man in some respects. And not just because I actually knew and enjoyed his cover of Wichita Lineman.

I rarely go to concerts. I can't remember how many concerts I've attended but it's been very few. They were always full of smoke and pot and booze and the people who had already absorbed too much of the aforementioned smoke and pot and booze. The tickets were pricey. It was so loud that the next few days strangers mistook me for a retired, deaf Canadian. "Eh? What was that again? Eh? Speak up, sonny!" I'm sure I enjoyed seeing whoever it was I was musically obsessing over at the time but always came home feeling like a train wreck.

My, look at the time, I must now shuffle off to bed after I take my teeth out.

Sketch o' the Day ~ The Proclamation of Ashes

click to enlarge
Progress: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Finish
When left with enough time to simmer the best kind of incandescence is often found rising from the feral innards of soot, scraps and sundry.

---------------------

Dear Secret Simon,
Congratulations on turning two years old today. Now go forth and rampage outside in your underwear.

Peace,
Alden

Vigilante of Love

More importantly does this also mean I get to wear a cape and brood atop gargoyles?

(via Twenty-Something)

A Word, Please

My muses have up and left for winter holiday and decided not to tell me when they'll be back. Flighty wenches, that lot. Regardless, they left me with their yippy pet that's incessitantly droning on past my bedtime.

Otherwise, I'm stupidly busy and I love you but I can't talk right now.

Cause I'm so busy, today I'm declaring this "One Word Comment Day." So give me a word in the comments. First thing that comes to mind summing up everything in your world or just maybe a word you've been wanting to use lately but have had no place for. Just one word only. The more random the better. All of you who don't ever comment should play.

Quick now, I've no time to dawdle.

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To Slumberland...

I would send the monkeys to bed but they are currently charting starcharts on the living room ceiling and swear that they've found life. Truly, this must be of use to someone in the scientific community. Also, I'm not sure if I should be concerned if the life in my ceiling is moving.

I'll consult with the thing behind the fridge.

Sketch o' the Day ~ Blanket Ward

When the time came to reclaim it's prize, all the deep azure eye could see was a flurry of shaking fibers, bundled together in an immovable mass and altogether impossible to pluck from it's protective nautilus.

Weak

I had a dream last night that was probably the most unnerving, explicit dream I've ever had. So much so that I can't repeat it's contents for fear of being accused of something crazy. It is poignant, but right now I just want it to go away.

Goawaygoawaygoawaygoaway. GO AWAY!

Unlike other nightmares, I didn't wake from this one paralyzed or paranoid. I wanted to throw up and cry. But I couldn't. I still feel like something might send me over the edge. In the end, it was the worst kind of loneliness, not that I was alone, but that there was nothing left for me with anyone.

The most I can say is that I don't really want any human touch for a few days.

Maybe I'll come back to it if it continues to haunt me but for now I'm trying to think happy thoughts to expel it.

Bah. It's not working.

I've never been so relieved to see daylight.

ghostheroes

[click to see bigger]

Let Me Purge

Okay so...

So here's a thing I did on a whim. Just for the fun of it. Really. All I did was sing happy birthday.

It happens to appear on the latest edition of one of my regular podcast indulgences. Have a listen:
The Daily Purge

And I'm now pleasantly surprised. Thanks boys!

(And, um, this maybe your only chance to hear me sing...)

Peace,
Alden

Stomped

Today I've had the stomping.

Without warning I see it come, the plumber takes a leap and I know with a sole grinding punctuation it will land squarely to flatten me into squishy goomba paste. It's not the same as being assaulted in a way that allows me room to recover or defend myself. It's not like someone hurling cows and chickens over the wall that I can run away from, or at least devise a plan. It just doesn't matter what you do. There is no escaping the wrath of the stomp.

Usually after the stomping, I gather up what's left and try to make it home where I put myself together the best I can, but I'm basically down for the rest of the night. The next day I'm usually fine. Someone has hit the reset button and I've popped back into play. Until the next time when I blindly march onward.

Stomp. Reset. Repeat.

The stomping is never about work or friends or relationships, or even heavy world issues. It consistently involves my time with the boys. It doesn't happen all the time. For the most part, it's a good routine we've got that let's me still see them equally even though they don't stay with me but one night a week. Even with sit down explanations and reminders of love for them, I often wonder how much all the separation of mom and dad affects them. Sometimes it just doesn't feel right putting them to bed, singing them goodnight in another house and then coming back to my cave.

Usually the beginning of stomping days begin with a Homework Meltdown. After an hour of play to "unwind" from school, it's an unpredictable thing whether or not the Elder Monkey will be into his reading and writing or whether he'll have the grace of Godzilla. Mad as hell and once again we have to rebuild Tokyo in the aftermath.

And then there's Lord of the Toy, much like the quest for the One Ring but much more screaming and bitemarks. It will magically flip from a hobbit and elf team up one minute to the quibbling rage of orcs in an instant. I usually have to ride in and claim it for myself until peace has returned to the land.

I try to keep my cool, I put monkeys in time out, I take things away, I do what it takes. Then I remember, they are six and five and that means they are out see how far they can push things. Every parent needs a break from their kids, it's not selfish, it's simply burn out prevention. All those natural things that come with raising kids.

I try to ask what's wrong. It's always "Nothing." I know it's a great big nothing that at it's root is confusion about why we aren't together.

It's on these days of the stomping, when there are tears and nothing will console, that for a split second I twitch and wonder if I did the right thing in the long run. If perhaps trying to at least live together would have been the best solution. It never lasts very long but I still think it.

Stomped I tell you. I must now look for something to rub this footprint off my forehead. Damn plumbers.

Animal House

Today I was invited by my ex-wife to spend the day with her and the Younger Monkey mingling with some the other species at the Lowry Park Zoo. It was lots of fun, especially when we found out we could feed our child to the giraffes. (Only costs two tokens!) It didn't work because apparently he's seen Curious George enough that he's tight with his jungle homeys. They were all like, come here and we'll show you what we can do with my absurdly long tongue.

I took many, many pictures. Here are a few. Clicky to make biggy:










Later, the younger monkey wanted to take a rhinoceros home but I'm not sure that would have gone over too well with the neighbors. He gets this notion from my ex-wife who also wished to have real live pandas when she was his age and also now. I'm not certain, but I believe they were plotting to take the baby elephant home.

While we were enthused to reconnect the young one back to his people, the only actual monkeys, unfortunately, were lazy and uncooperative or were eating things out of each others butts. While this behavior is not uncommon and understandably in vogue amongst wild folk it's not something we necessarily wish him to start doing in his nightly tribal ritual. There was lots of rear end action going on all around that's all I could get for a view of the manatees.

Meanwhile, the Elder Monkey opted to head to a football game with the Grandparents. I am told that, while they played dismally, he enjoyed himself enough to come home adorning a mini Buc's jersey. Somehow I believe this desire to attend was inspired when, earlier in the week, he somehow psychically tuned in football on my television with no antenna. I can only speculate what is next as he then began to watch golf and found it equally as interesting.

Monkeyism

While dropping crumbs from speaking with his mouth full of cookie:
My, how it's quite refreshment outside today, ain't you think?
-- Elder Monkey

Sometimes being six years old is channeling equals parts Eliza Doolittle and Pigpen.

Proof

Somewhere between my early childhood and now, I abandoned the notion of god.

Adam has posted some videos regarding the latest dysfunctional relationship between religion and science. I went to write a comment there about all of this and try as I might to be clear and concise, I am caught once again in my spin cycle of wanting be spiritual, yet not believing in a spirit or a soul. Wishing for that union of what we think we feel and what is actual.

I highly respect anyone that can happily settle on one camp or another, on something called a "truth". Ultimately, it all boils down to the quest for proof and how much we are willing to believe without fully understanding. If endeavoring on that journey is to define whether things like honesty and integrity are worth pursuing, then I am traveling that path in circles. I am in constant contact with those at opposite ends, those who have had an experience that to them qualifies as god at work and those who are succint in proving this to be a random incident. Either way, isn't is about accepting which of those ways is acceptable?

While redefining this perspective is one of the most valuable things I think I've done as an adult, I wish above all, I knew how to get out of that perpetual depression that comes from it. I know that it must be a necessity otherwise we would not have joyful times to balance it out. But it still saps the life from me.

I watch as how those around me who are looking for a purpose either flounder with apathy or blaze headstrong with conviction. The battlefield of intellectual warfare rarely brings me any conclusion or solace when it comes to all those so called higher things. I would like to think I am not ignorant. I would to think I am a rational being working towards the ends that should be met. And yet, I never know the definition of a given truth.

For whatever reason, it is unrelenting. The more I think, the more I withdraw, the more I fail. The more I act on impulse, the more my senses become alive, the more I progress. So I tip that balance that is between them and wait for the next upswing or downfall.

Some let it consume their life, as it did for me once upon a time, to the point of an unresponsive zombie. I wondered why god let it happen. I wondered why man will keep going. I wondered how I came to where I am now. I know about me and it seems that's the best I can do.

Now if you'll excuse me, the only wonder that I wish to have tonight is the kind where I marvel at the fact that I can play games with my children, call my mom, eat my dinner. And tell people I love them even though I don't have to know what that means.

Mr. Knox, Sir

I keep stepping in sticky blue goo on my carpet. It's also kind of masochistic to read Dr. Seuss, therefore I must release my frustration in verse: Fox in Socks (click to listen)

How Not To Make A Lifesaver

Things I learned on Halloween:

It's always best to make things yourself. Except if your homemade lightsaber would look more like a flashlight with bling than the $8 Target one. And at what point do we learn that it's "lightsaber" and not "lifesaver"?

Never assume anything about the character of your kids until they've been given the ultimate choice: money or candy. In a head scratching role reversal, the Younger Monkey opted gleefully for the spoonful of pennies and the Elder Monkey went for licorice treats.

Sometimes your Mr. Incredible man boobs can get in the way when trying stand on your head.

A Darth Vader wedgie utilizes the deepest unseen aspects of the dark side of the force. And never will be again unless you want some time out.

Okay, what do you say?
Younger Monkey: "Thank you so much!"
No, baby, what do you say first.
"Trick-or-Treat!"
(Maybe they are trained a little too well...)

So what did you like best this year?
Elder Monkey: "I liked when daddy's silly friend came over and gave us glow sticks and then I ran him through with them because I am evil. That was fun."
Younger Monkey: Eee ee aaa oooo...zzzzzzzzzz...

It's the only time of year that you wake up with an unknown bright blue sticky substance on your floor the next morning and you don't question it OR pass the blame on sugar-high monkeys.

I suspect the giant pile of crap on my living room table. So now I get to become a magician and pull a vanishing act with it before Friday. I'm thinking of sending it all to a poor starving college student. Otherwise I'll just end up with a reenactment of Speed 3: Revenge of Willy Wonka.

Halloweenies