Riding Harry Potter's Celebrity Coat-Tail.

Check out this link. I dressed up to work at the Harry Potter Midnight Magic Party for the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" last friday night. A photographer from Reuter's was there and took a bunch of shots of me as the "Trivia Wizard." I circulated the store (when I could move-- I was mobbed most of the night) asking tough questions from all 6 books. I was amazed at how much detail the kids knew! Anyway, just before midnight, I became a bagger on the cashier line. It was surprisingly fun. As you can see from the link (if you look close at the first picture and caption) the Reuter's guy found me again. I made international news! :)

I also found the link on Yahoo News, where the photo is a little more clear...

Dr. Bush knows best...

The Final Frontier...

Rachel's fab boobs! We were out for a night of Tequila and beer. This is what happens... I'm reduced to the Hooters Lifestyle.

Ralaxing with Harry Potter

The view on a perfect summer evening as I sit at home reading the new 'Harry Potter.'

A Wonderful Evening with a Good Friend

Leslie is my dear friend Judy's sister, and also a friend. Here she is picking me up for a relaxing evening of wine in the garden and a fabulous dinner at a local Mexican restaurant in Walnut Creek. The car suits her festive personality.

Obedience

BART in San Francisco is so civilized compared to NYC subways. People actually obey the signs and line up in such a way as to allow people to exit the train before crowding on. It would NEVER work in New York.

Temptation #3

And again! And I STILL resisted. Nobody knows the trouble I've found. Nobody knows my sorrow!

Temptation #2

...twice! Is it a conspiracy?

Temptation in San Francisco

I resisted...

With Friends at the Marfan Conference

NMF Annual Conference in Palo Alto kicked off with a wonderful BBQ event for almost 400 people. Here with some of my good friends I met through work!

Spreadin' the love of God?

Hate everywhere!

Passed by a small team of God's Flock, spreading his message of love on the streets of Palo Alto, CA.... Poor, poor, clueless people!

Mom's Birthday

Today is Mom's birthday. It was the first thought I had when I woke up, and the last thought as I fell asleep. People who say that it gets better with time don't know what they are talking about... you just learn to deal with it better.

I do dream about her more than I did, which I am grateful for, but the dreams never make sense, and I can never really put all the pieces together when I wake up. I usually have fleeting memories of the dreams sometime the next day, out of nowhere. Today I have vague recollections from a dream last night of us flying, as if on a kite or something-- not on a plane. But there was a sense of conflict, or something very wrong. Grandma B was there too. And Dad. They weren't flying with us, but we were trying to get back to them when we crashed on a beach. And we had to avoid someone, for some reason. Craziness in my dreams...

I was happy to find this heart on her birthday. I kept seeing it on the floor across the room, but never looked closely. I kept catching it out of the corner of my eye, and each time I felt like I needed to look more closely. When I finally did, I saw that the glasses are covered with hearts... :)

Sad news...

Last December I posted that I found out my friend and college roommate David was diagnosed with melanoma that has spread to his brain. His mother emailed me today that he passed away. I'm stunned.

Here is a photo of us a few years ago when I visited him in San Diego. He was one of those truly friendly people was SO EASY to like. Great sense of humor, grounded, giving.

Craziness going through my head...

Laugh-in Legend

Jo Anne Worley and me at the stage door of "The Drowsy Chaperone."

Who says there are no jobs...

Playing tourist in my own town...
I can always grab a guitar, don my skivies, and stand "naked" on the streets of Times Square and take dollars for pics with tourists...

Goofy Photo Op at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville

Interesting Name for a Restaurant

(It was Grandma's choice, actually..... Hmmmmm.....)

Heart-y Lunch

Outside Subway at lunch...

Awwwwwwwww......

Bunnies in the driveway...

Theatre Fest!

Me and Matthew with (Tony Award winner) Christine Ebersol

Matt and I had a major theatre fest this week. (I actually saw Xanadu last week as well, so it was twice in one week. Warren and I are thinking about trying to get ourselves dubbed the official Xanadu groupies-- if we can figure out a way to pay for it.)

This set my former record of 4 shows in 5 days set back in 1983 on a choir trip to NYC. It'll take a whiel to recover financially to be able to see any more, but it was WORTH IT!

It was fun to have Matt here this week. Last time he came out, it was a whirlwind trip to do hair and makeup for the NMF PSA-- in and out in under 3 days. This time he had almost a full week. Mostly we ate and saw shows. Not a bad vacation. :) One of these days I'll get back to visit him and Paul again, but I have been forbidden from ever visiting between May and September ever again. I guess I bitched about the heat in Phoenix too much. Ha! They're looking at maybe moving to So. California or back to Colorado, so it'll open up my options for visiting...

Almost a heart

Turned out just to be a wadded piece of paper, but it made me look...

E-e-vil Woman!

"Xanadu" choreography... Matthew style.

Beaver-shot

Poor Jerry Mathers. His bio in the "Hairspray" said that he is 'best known for his role as the Beaver'. Ummm... Isn't he ONLY known for his role as the Beaver???

The show was fun-- and who can't appreciate the kitch of seeing the Beav live and on-stage?

Wicked!

Matt in front of the "Wicked" stage at intermission. My third time, his first. Still one of the best shows in town!

Wind Beneath My Wings-- or not

As I was getting ready for work early this morning, Scutter started going crazy over something that he was trying to get at under the front door of my apartment... I assumed the worst, and armed myself as if I was about to face a big hairy spider (which, under the right circumstances, can turn me into a big sissy).

I was pleasantly surprise to find this baby bird (not really a baby-- more a young adolescent) clinging to the underside of the door jam. It let me get this close to take the photo, but wouldn't let me pick it up to see if it was injured. It sort of fly-hopped (or hop-flew) away down to the ground level. I didn't get the impression it was injured, just not quite adept at the whole wind beneath my wings thing. It had the right idea, but wasn't quite sustaining its airtime. Poor little feller.

When I left for work, it was gone. Such a sweet little thing looking up at me. I sure hope it makes it...

Colorado Springs Comes to New York

Guy and Jon visiting from Colorado Springs (my hometown).

A Night in NYC

My friend Warren had an extra ticket to see "Xanadu" on Broadway. Who would have thought that (arguably) one of the worst movies ever made would be such a truly entertaining night of theater.

Warren's dad's friend's daughters (did you follow that) were visiting from Texas and Warren had agreed to show them around NYC a little. Having never met them, he wasn't sure what to expect. As it turns out, they were a blast, and we ended up having dinner, the show and MANY MANY drinks after at a few different bars in the City.

Mary or Peggy (I can't remember which one-- too much tequila) took this photo just before Warren decided to call it a night. I stayed with the girls and before I realized, it was 4:40am. I put them in a cab to their hotel and then walked (pretty well, I might add) to Penn Station.

This is the emptiest I've ever seen Times Square. It was almost pleasant. No tourists pushing and shoving their through the overwhelming crowds.

These two were out cold. The kind of shots the frat buddies would use to hold over them later. The cops came along and totally "harshed their mellow." Getting the guy in pink to his feet proved to be quite a challenge, but the crowd watching cheered them both. It was oddly uplifting... LOL

It was a great night all around. I got home at 6:30 am, had to be at work at 11am-- I am definitely getting too old for that, but such a great time.

Thanks, Warren!

Enough Said...

Dad sent these two t-shirts, one for me and one for Matt (he's visiting from Arizone next week). I might question his hidden message if they weren't so perfect.

Progress, Bush Style

Grafitti

Grafitti outside the theatre where RENT is playing.

A higher purpose...

I almost died today... This 8' x 8' section of a construction barricade wall crashed down to the street from about 15 feet up and landed on the sidewalk RIGHT BEHIND me as I passed by. If I had been about 2 seconds later, I would have been clocked on the head! I must have a higher purpose in my life, so it wasn't my time... SCARY!

In Defense of Rosie!

This writer captures my thoughts on this perfectly...

O'Donnell's Enemy Ideas
By: BRENDAN KEANE

Rosie O’Donnell has quit “The View” early, thus ending the daily duel between America’s most recognizable lesbian and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, a Bush apologist.

Democracy-lovers understand the importance of kitchen-table forums, and “The View” had become under O’Donnell a model of political discussion for an audience usually more interested in hearing talk about popular entertainment. She’ provoked daytime controversies for her viewers - which include many thoughtful women - that were then edited down and rebroadcast at night accompanied by critical review on the part of mainly male pundits.

What got lost in the translation was the deeply moral argument that O’Donnell was making about war and the human rights of non-Americans. Occasionally celebrities will speak of dead innocents, but criticism of the Iraq war is usually about strategy, and the fiascos in its execution. We get stuck on the missing WMDs, but talk no further about our own greed, deceit, and murderousness in roughly 100 years of policy and policing in the Middle East. O’Donnell stands out for rejecting the war because of civilian casualties and soldier casualties alike - and doing so not on the cable talkfest, but rather on an “entertainment” program.

O’Donnell’s pacifism is ridiculed when it questions the morality of the American military and of the decision-makers that send young people to kill and die in America’s name.

The fury came from comments made on the May 17 show, during which O’Donnell reminded Hasselback that “we’re invading a sovereign nation, occupying a country against the U.N.” She also said that she believes “6,000 dead Americans from 9/11 and from this war is a lot less than 655,000 dead Iraqis.”

Hasselbeck ignored the lives of the civilian dead O’Donnell focused on, and probed her about why she was mentioning them. “Who are the terrorists?” Hasselbeck asked.
O’Donnell’s moral starting point - that human life from any nation is equally valuable - and her other objections regarding needless deaths among American soldiers and the horrible treatment back home of those who are wounded were soon lost in a semantics dispute about the word terrorist, via Hasselbeck’s reductive question. Hasselbeck hinted that O’Donnell was revealing a sympathy for enemy ideology as part of a slur on American soldiers, when she was in fact reflecting empathy for Iraqi people subjected to our illegal war - launched in the name of liberating them.

Hasselbeck was relying on distinctions long ingrained among Americans - opposites that become ridiculous as the horror unfolds. Terrorism is suicide-bombing in cities. Soldiering is risking one’s own life to drop bombs from the sky on cities. Terrorism is gunning civilians on purpose.

Soldiering is gunning civilians because the soldier is some scared kid that panicked. Terrorists started it. Soldiers finish what politicians started. Terrorists are trying to build a caliphate. Soldiers may go on offensive to defend the homeland even as they advance an empire of freedom.

Terrorists have evil ideas that would make the world a bad place. Soldiers defend true ideas that make the world better.

By denying any equivalence between the bloody gruesomeness of the two enterprises, we can ignore the consequences of soldiers’ actions and harp on terrorist atrocities. Soldiers represent the righteous sword of progressive American idealism. Terrorists are disruptive wasters, bent on backwardness. So goes the romanticization of our current war.

What if the romance is swept aside? Rosie tried to make it okay for average Americans to look behind the hijab of words like terrorist and freedom with their own common-sense tools of analysis. She was offering another perspective on our national identity - not from the prevailing media perspective of us and our boys - but from one that takes human account of those we have harmed.

And if we are able to make that accounting, perhaps we will also be willing to look at a 100-year policy based on oil, not democracy - in fact one that, as in the case of the Shah of Iran and the House of Saud was only too willing to sell out progressive reformers.

Rosie O’Donnell may speak as normal people speak - sometimes sweepingly, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes on shaky legs. She may embarrass the liberal cognoscenti. That does not destroy her moral perspective. She is a mother thinking of Iraq’s mothers, and that is a perfectly valid intellectual principle. O’Donnell said, “I believe every human life is equal.” Does anyone in this country but an American idealist believe such a thing?

All people are created equal, and it might take a loud lesbian to apply that truth to all nations, including those with indigenous rights to lands with oil.

Yeah, Kelly's in town!

Kelly used to live downstairs from my Mom and Dad in Portland in the early 90's-- we got to be great friends. She's in town for the weekend for a book show by day, and we played by night. :)

Sad News

Gretchen Wyler, the Broadway and TV actress who became a leading animal rights activist, has died at the age of 75, The New York Times reports. Wyler, who brassily celebrated "Stereophonic Sound" in Silk Stockings, died from complications of breast cancer in her home in Camarillo, CA on Sunday, May 27th.

Born in Bartlesville, OK on February 16th, 1932, Wyler made her Broadway debut in the original production of Guys and Dolls, in which she appeared as a replacement in the role of Miss Adelaide. She also created the role of Janice Dayton in Cole Porter's Silk Stockings, appeared as a replacement Lola during the original run as Damn Yankees and as a replacement Rose Grant during the original run of Bye, Bye Birdie. Other Broadway credits included Rumple and Sly Fox.

Wyler also had an enduring career as a television actress. She was notably a regular on the short-lived series "On Our Own" and also spent a season appearing on "Dallas." Other TV credits included "Providence," "Judging Amy," "Friends," "Falcon Crest," "Charlie's Angel" and "The Phil Silvers Show."

Wyler became committed to animal rights in 1966, after seeing the poor conditions of a New York animal shelter. After managing the shelter for a decade, she became the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' first female board of directors member. She formed Ark Trust in 1991 and ran the organization until it joined with the Humane Society in 2002, after which she became the Humane Society's vice president through 2002. She also founded the Genesis Awards in 1986. The awards "honor the media and entertainment industry for shining a spotlight on animal cruelty." This year, The Beatles legend and animal rights activist Paul McCartney was the first recipient of the Gretchen Wyler Award.

Humane Society President and CEP Wayne Pacelle said of Wyler, "The humane movement has lost one of its brightest stars. Gretchen Wyler devoted 40 intense years to protecting animals, and the cause gained so much ground during that time because of her extraordinary achievements and advocacy -- in the media, in law-making, and in raising public consciousness."

This photo was taken in 1983 after closing night of "Mame" with Music Theater of the Rockies in Colorado Springs. Mom, Matt, and I were all in the show (the first of many shows we all did together). Mom played several character roles and struck up a friendly relationship with Gretchen because of their common attachment to animals.

After Mom died, I made a donation to the Ark Trust in her name and sent this photo with the check. Gretchen wrote back a personal note saying how she remembered Mom well, and was sorry to hear she had passed away. Mom always said that Gretchen was her favorite of the old "MTR Stars" and they had exchanged Christmas cards through the years, so it meant a lot that she wrote back.

We'll miss you, Gretchen. Although our paths crossed nearly 25 years ago, "Mame" was a wonderful memory for so many reasons!

My Babies

Friends at last.

I know how Mom felt--the frustration she must have endured watching Matt and I fight so much when we were growing up. Cootie has been a loner for many years. Now that Emerald is gone and Scutter doesn't have her to torment, he and Cootie have struck up a new friendship. It make my heart melt to see them snuggle. Of course, it's usually short-lived, becuase the "Mr. Hyde" surfaces and he launches an unprovoked attack, and they're off...