2010 LiveBlogging the Tonys

Live blogging the Tonys:

7:57 - OMG, Sean Hayes rocks playing piano - nice dress Kristin - very good choice - gem encrusted towel, but you look cute in it.

Come Fly Away - so it's like a Stomp to Sinatra? ahaha Green top dancer did the "hold my head while I barf move"

7:58 Everyday Rapture! Sherie Rene...what is this about? Like a girl group? Good singing. Is it just me or does this stage look ridiculously small?

759 - FELA!!! Oh my god this looks good. I really want to see this. Think Afro Carribean moves and singing, like Lion King with no weird baboon thing. Ok, except for that part where it sounds like she's killing a feral cat

8:00 La Cage! Fabulous.

American Idiot, could you look more bored John Gallagher? Ooh guyliner. Did there REALLY have to be an iPod graphic in the back?! Billy Joel lookalike! OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA!! Bay Area in the hizzouse bitches!

REAlly? fuckingREALLY?! A whole Green Day concert just for these yokels? That's um...pretty awesome. EVERYONE IS CLAPPING! even the yenta in the front row! And Ryan Reynolds looks bored. Dumbass. Free Green Day concert! Um, yeah headbob Matthew Morrison. Why is Will Smith there? Aww, the Glee Kids are rockin'!

Monologue: 8:04
haha, now would be an awesome time to focus in on Kristin's ex as she and Sean Hayes give each other tongue kisses.

The WORLD cup of showtunes! ahah, when someone scores at the World Cup they yell 'GOAL'! When someone wins at the Tonys, they go, "Girrrll..."

LOW blow Carol Channing joke.

Is ScarJo wearing the same dress she wore to the MTV awards?

Oh Nathan's moustache is real? That's interesting. Adams Family the Musical.

Ohmygod Daniel Radcliff! And some tall chick...wow, she's REALLY TALL. Or Daniel is super super short. he's probably not so happy about this shot. Katie - stop acting like you're reading off the teleprompter!!
Berkeley Rep play! Yeah bizzitches! (vibrator play)

SCAR JO??! Fucking really? Broadway debut: Best performance by a Featured Actress in Play. I guess I gotta go see it now. T&A really will take you far. Thank your husband grrll...aww, she called him the Canadian (and then named him, just so you are all clear). Wow, so they're just letting winners talk as long as they want now?

RICKY MARTIN!! Yes! Let's just pull out all the 90s pop stars! I want Boys to Men and Chumbawumba next.

8:16 Million Dollar Quartet - hey we already saw these people. So it's like if Johnny Cash and Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis sang together? Who's the other guy?

8:17 Another million dollar show down the tubes with mic problems.

8:19- not cool, no more Hollywood people. I would like to see: Alice Ripley, Idina Menzel, and some Donna Murphy please.

8:24 - oh, you can just watch the Tonys just sitting your ass in front of Times Square? That's pretty cool

8:25: Lucy Liu is in God of Carnage, so she gets to give an award. Token Asian moment, and she talks like an automaton. Is it really a thrill Lucy Liu? Cause it sounds like you took a Xanax.

8:26 : Featured performance by a Featured Actor in a play.
Eddie Redmayne, that must be a record, 3 nominated black actors and they gave it to the cute white boy. SUPERIOR DONUTS! ooh, that really was the name of a play? I'd see that.

8:28 - La Cage, Alber does his stroll down the aisle to flirt with people - KISS HER MATT MORRISON!! KISS HER!! He gave her money!! omg, that was fucking awesome! And bump and grind on Will Smith. Nice Aw, little focus on Nathan Lane.

8:36: Wow...how much did Theatreworks pay for that commercial?

8:39: Antonio - "And avoided the movie version of Nine." hilarious. Thank you Sean Hayes. You know, 'La Cage'? Huh, I sort of wish it had been Fela, but that's ok.

8:44: the doctor's name is Givings? Oh aha, there is so much ridiculousness at the Tonys right now.

"Dude you're making it sound like CSPAN." After the younger, hotter one is hospitalized. Nice.

8:46 - Red: Alfred Molina, NO HAIR! Does he have cancer? Eddie Redmayne is pretty hot.

8:47 - Time Stands Still - oh Brian d'Arcy James, you're still very cute. They are all selling these plays pretty damn well. Laura Linney should sell BP stock, she's really good at this stuff.

"We'll present the award for Best Play later" - Mr. Big, you're funny, now get off the stage.

Bon Jovi?! Wait, the dude from Bon Jovi wrote Memphis. STOP SHOWING CATHERINE ZETA-JONES, I heard she was crap in ,"A Little Night Music" People have alternatively said she was dialing it in and others were saying she acted like she was drunk or stoned one night.

8:54 - oh the boring shit. Honorary Chairman? YEAH BIZZITCHES! ANGELA LANSBURY!! Bitch looks good. Finally, someone up there that I respect. Crying out loud. BEYONCE? What the hell is Beyonce doing there?

8:56 - Frasier and Niles together FOREVER!!! whoo hoo! Wow, David Hyde Pierce looks really drawn, is he ok? Does he have Alzheimers? Wow, finally a legit award. With legit nominees: Best Performace by a Featured Actress in a Musical - Katie Finneran. She looks like a mix of Evan Rachel Wood and Laura Linney. She's kinda adorable.

Kids at home! That's me! Me, me me!
"Focus on what you love. It’s the greatest roadmap for an extraordinary life.”

9:03 - ok is James Iglehart coming out for Memphis? I mean, cause I actually know him! Ok, here is JAMES!! Rock it out! Rock it OUT!!

9:14 - Barbara Cook looks like a Florida houswife. Muumuu laden! Oh god...CZJ, she looks stoned, why does she keep moving her head?! SEND IN THE CROWNS?!?!
Somewhere, Stephen Sondheim is writing a suicide note.

9:16 - Christiane Noll and Idina Menzel. Two great tastes that taste great togehter. God, I wish I had seen the Ragtime revival.

9:28 - It's Monk, the cute dude from 'National Treasure' and Anthony LaPaglia. Mmmmm...Anthony LaPaglia...What's the name of their play? Lend Me a Tenor. Ok.

9:29 - Hahaha, old lady can't read the teleprompter.
9:30 Why do we keep saying we're gonna present these awards later?! Just do it now. Jesus. Hip hop Play montage. Okie doke.

9:32 I'm sorry you had to do the police PSA Kerry Washington. What lottery did you lose?

9:37 - Sean Hayes dressed up as Annie on Bernadette Peters. "She's the BP that isn't ruining the planet." LOL.

9:38 - Helen Mirren. She's doing a shout out. Um...that's pretty fucking hilarious. The British give shout outs? Best Performance by Leading Actress in a Play.

9:39 - Viola Davis! Right on! Ooh, her husband is pretty hot. "I don't believe in luck or happenstance, I fully believe in the presence of god in my life....I had to believe it in my heart."

9:30 - That's Lee-EV, just in case you didn't know. Ok...all Hollywood people. This award is lame. But we like Denzel. "Man gives the award, God gives the reward." Why does Kenny Leon look pissed that Denzel won?

9:43 - Oh, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith produced Fela? Ok, I get it now, that's why they're there. Fela is so awesome. I love the whole feeling of this musical.

9:54 - National Playwrite's Conference? Do I care?
9:56 - PAULA! What's up you crazy bitch? where you been at? Choreography award, nice. Come Fly Away...is is all this violent? I wish some of these cute shirtless boys were straight. ahah, wow, there's one dancer that looks like one of my previous directors...interesting.

10:03 - Ok, shoot me, I LIKE the Promises, Promises Chair-ography.

10:05 - Stanley Tucci is on! He's adorable! Just because you tell me to reflect, I will.

10:12 Sean Hayes said "balls" instead of "bulbs"
10:13 - Cate Blachette looks like an alien. Our costumes for Riff-Raff and Magenta looked like this when we did "Rocky Horror"
10:13 Yes, Carol Shorenstein-Hayes, emotions are OK. Your face will not break if you like cry or something. Ooh, they're playing her off. hahah!
10:15 - We can call Alfred Molina "Fred" now? That's interesting. Aww, the gays - let's all thank our gay partners.

10:17 Laura Bell Bundy, the blonde that made Sutton Foster and Christian Borle break up.
GLEE!! Ooh, Matthew Morrison is the best dancer - cute cute cute!! Ok, Lea Michele doing Funny Girl again...no "hi" to Idina? But a nod to Jay-Z? I can see her molars. I wish she'd smiled a bit, the sound would have been brighter. but it's awesome she can stalk down an aisle doing that. also, huge breaths make her behind the beat by about 1/2 a measure. Not cute.

10:32 - Raquel Welch wins for best plastic surgery, damn - she is 69 frickin' years old!

10:35 'American Idiot' - it's like if Shotgun did "Spring Awakening 2"
10:42 - Bebe Newirth and Nathan Lane present awards (or as we call it at my house 'Passover' lol!!) Best Actor and Actress in a musical.

Anddd...now is the moment where I turn this stupid awards show off. Really? CATHERINE ZETA JONES? You gotta be kidding me. Bebe Newirth is shooting daggers. Actor, the dude from La Cage. Nice.

Memphis with our friend James Iglehart wins. Awesome.
Bon Nuit!

Moderation.

At the office, we recently hired several new people. Including one that goes through dry cereal faster than Cookie Monster at a Mrs. Fields orgy. The idea of sharing (2 boxes amongst 36 people) has obviously passed him by. But is he at fault or is it society? Or is it me for making this much cereal available?

Here's something interesting that's been twisting around in my head lately. Are we allowed to enforce our own personal laws of moderation in consumption on others in order to serve the greater good? Being an American - the automatic answer is "no". No one in the States is about serving a greater good - we're all here to serve ourselves and quite possibly, in a magnanimous gesture, our families and loved ones. But certainly no one other than that. I think that's why people often refer to America as a "young" country. We have the spunk, energy and will of a younger person but also their selfish wants and needs. In fact we laud them. I've been in three successive relationships where each man was in a self-proclaimed selfish phase and not only thought it was an acceptable state of mind but a completely appropriate one.

FAIL assholes, FAIL.

Do you know what happens when you serve yourself and only yourself? You end up fucking alone. (literally and figuratively)

In countries with traditions centuries old like Japan or Sweden, there is a certain amount of hospitality bestowed upon the common traveler. There is something about the confidence of living in a country that acts like an elder statesman, that doesn't worry if you hack into their internet or steal a candlestick (ha. LezMis reference, take that)
a) because why would you do that for? slap on the wrist, don't do it again
b) no one there would succumb to such reckless and bad behavior.

And people in other countries? Share. They share stories and wine and song and homes. In England, people will buy rounds of drinks. Not just one or two for the bird they're interested in, ROUNDS, for everyone. To take this to an extreme example, even though it is often wrought with corruption, food shortages in other countries can lead the government to ration out portions. Because everyone needs to eat. Divorce is ridiculously prevalent in our society. Based in selfishness. When you're making a choice to marry someone it should be completely about that other person. As they should be about you.

Real success only matters when you have someone to share it with. By all means, pursue the things you want to pursue, only go to events that you feel will enrich your life - but understand that there are different types of enrichment. The same family dinner where I am criticized for not having a career, lamented for not being married is the same one where I can hold my cousins' babies, learn how to negotiate around subtle social barriers, get to feel reconnected with people who share my name and my genetic material. I'm so surprised that at the same family events there are family members that I feel so detached from and at the same time ones that I want to hang out with all day.

Remember this today when you're out in the world. That cupcake tastes sweet, but it's even better when you have someone to share it with.

Penelope Top

Spent the better part of my lunch break reading this blog: Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist

And it's been a fantastic wake up call to what I have and haven't been doing lately. And one of them is not really paying attention...ie being guilty of not being conscious. Working without knowing, acting without feeling and simply going through the motions. (yes, exactly like Buffy)

I mean, I found the site by Google searching, "Penelope Top" - because I was shopping. Less than a year ago, I was spending two hours a night writing and editing blog entries. It's not that the mighty have fallen, but it's more like the mighty have taken to faceplanting into bed at 7pm.

Penelope's quote on what her blog is about:

• What I think my life is about is figuring out how to find success at the intersection of work and life—one happy, synchronized adventure. It's a difficult task, and I don't want to do it alone. My blog is a community where we all do it together. (And my company is community career management on a much larger scale.)

Part of what I feel like we're all here for is to, "know thyself". Did you know that words, "thee" and "thou" are often used in the Bible to indicate the familiarity/intimacy between God and man? And in a much larger sense - that we live to understand that there are parts of us that can touch what we refer to as God on a regular basis, but it takes practice? This is not disrespectful, it recognizes the fact that we as man created a higher power that we could relate to; why else would we?

And this knowledge calls upon us to do things that a) make us happy and b) make us feel like we are contributing members of society. After watching 'Lost' last night - it's sad but true - the revelation has come about that some of the simplest things to do in life are often the hardest, but make our lives so much more richer. Things like, "letting go" or "asking for help" or "forgiveness" can get in the way of real relationships or real connections with people. Even people that we live with, lovers we once thought knew us inside and out or people who refuse to reach beyond surface...because we all fear peeling back the layers to get to what's inside. That we'll find that they'll reflect the worst in us.

But shouldn't we revere those people? The people who are there to show us the parts of ourselves that scare us? Because here's the other thing that I've learned, when you look at the thing that scares us, really look at it - we find something inside that is so scared and unsure and fragile who is just trying to survive. And sometimes the only way it can survive is to lash out. And that doesn't excuse it, but it's also our job to understand that we all lash out. And that it's a sign that something needs to be loved and cared for more...not less.

On a personal note, I'm going to try to catch up on projects this year that have fallen by the wayside for one reason or another.

• a) Finish reading my copy of the "Tienaman Papers" and then write a first draft of my play
• b) Climb more, climb often
• c) Get my local Bay Area Theater podcast up and running. I have a whole list of people I want to guest on there. And they won't be your run of the mill folks. I want to have a stage manager forum, producers, marketing people, etc.
• d) Start to write this blog a little more comprehensively. Seriously. Like this: Don't be a snob about career advice.
• e) sky dive
• f) get my butt out to New York

the finance whisperer.

hola...know I've been away awhile...taken some time off. time really does equal $$ and luxury. i've been trying to plan a vacation with my bestie and haven't been able to - was sort of looking forwards to rainforests and waterfalls.

life has been very doable lately. in that i've established a routine of sorts and i'm more than happy with where i am. doesn't mean that things couldn't be better, but for the most part it's all working copacetically.

have recently been asked to participate in a round of interviews at work. i mean, where i'm doing the interviewing/ie. asking the questions. all i've been asked to do is give my general feeling on the vibes I get from people. it's like i'm the finance whisperer or something. i've met two people so far and what a marked difference between the two.

there's nothing like meeting someone who is quietly confident and sure of themselves. who asks the right questions and answers all of yours directly. the person who follows up and sits in their own self like a cloak. and what a marked difference to meet someone who is constantly trying to out or overthink you.

met our second candidate for an open position today. and it was sort of laughable how much she was trying to impress me. srsly? i just work here. but what was also hilarious was how much her answers fell into the "stereotypical" category. like she almost interviewed herself. she even did the whole, "What ANIMAL in the forest am I." analysis. SHE ACTUALLY BROUGHT THIS UP AND ANSWERED THE QUESTION HERSELF. dude. then she was all blabbity blabbity finance...blabbity blabbity run and manage a team. "i'm really direct and to the point." "i say what's on my mind." etc. she also seemed like a control freak. like the uber perfect child.

the last thing she said that freaked me out?

"Well, I'm the oldest child. (like that would impress me or something, cause I'm the oldest in mine) And so I would look at the other members of my team like a younger sibling. Like I am here to help guide you and tell you stories about the things that I've done that worked for me. I have a ton of experience and would take the role of older sister."

ok...FAIL.

just from experience, it's so hard to work with people who view themselves like this. as gurus instead of teachers. as constant leaders instead of learners. i also do not need to tell anyone how friggin' annoying it is to work with someone who lacks the ability to listen to those around them they view as "less than" or to be with anyone who would ever view anyone as "less than". makes one think how often we walk around thinking that we have to school the people younger than us. unless of an exchange of information, it becomes this dearth of unsolicited advice that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

so i'm still diggin' candidate one, but we'll see what happens with option numero tres on friday. til then.

i'm doing something silly right now, please don't mind me

sunday nothings.

my brain hurts.

I just finished writing the first draft of a CA$H grant - the Bayareatheaterfancyshmance thing that all of the artists and so-called artists in the greater Bay Area will spend days and weeks putting together so that they can be awarded a small yet significant amount of money. Sad but true. This is where, I suppose, I go into a rant about how little funding there is for the arts in what is supposed to be the heart of the artistic community.

but I'm really drained.

had a birthday party for the roomie last night. it was actually quite nice - the whole, wine, cheese bit. i have to admit, i prefer my parties less fancy. roomie works for a hotel and so all of his peeps showed up in the latest anorexic wear and then left to go to a bar. i still don't get the appeal of a bar. there's nowhere to sit, drunk people everywhere, the music is too loud and you have to pay to drink. it's like the greatest joke played on mankind ever. now i get the idea of a pub. in a pub, there are places to sit, good lighting and generally good food. you can just hang. a bar is like a feeding frenzy for horny people. so i always pass on that shit.

i went to wondercon yesterday - geeked out. saw zoesaldana, chrisnolan, millajovovich, alilarter, jerrybruckheimer(mofo), jakegyllenhaal, chrisevans, amyacker etc. etc. etc. all and all i was glad i went, esp. since i ended up sitting in the ballroom for like 4+ hours.

the stache has yet to call me today. i took a picture with a dude pretending to be the dude from mystery science theater 3000 yesterday for him. shows you who really has the upper hand doesn't it?

i could go into explanations on all of the above stuff, but i'm really burnt out and my other roomie has people here tonight doing a reading for his new show. and I just finished reading the blog of some straight dude who's an actor here in the city and i was inspired and incredibly disgusted and turned off by his writing "style" if you could call it that. i really want some pot roast and some soup right now (update-just grabbed some roomie's leftovers and they're delicious). and to just be left alone. i'm so tired of dealing with other people right now.

i'm the most outgoing introvert you will ever meet. seriously.

awareness

forcing myself to write - because it matters. not to anyone else but me, but because it needs to happen.

it's nothing really.
just strawberries, plain cream top yogurt
honey
puffins
yep, the cereal of trader joes
named after a flightless bird
the one that isn't a penguin
the berries are slightly underripe
but they give me the idea that i'm eating something healthy for dessert
crunchy, creamy
sweet, slightly sour
eaten in front of the tv
or webcast
or book
five nights in a row
still not sick of it
but tonight is the last night, i'm out of strawberries
so i turn off the tv
and try to make this one last
take smaller bites
scrape the sides of the bowl
so the last spoonful has equal parts of everything
creamycrunchsweetsour
rinse the bowl
and spoon
and remember this is what it's like to need to be creative
this is where it all begins and germinates
in the quiet space
of appreciation
me and some yogurt