[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Ryan Adams “returned” to music this year with Ashes & Fire, possibly his most heartfelt and earnest album to date. I try my bestest not to read into music with an artist’s off-stage life, but there’s no getting around the fact that this album was born with and grew from his sobriety and his marriage to Mandy Moore.  

What am I doing here?
What am I?

Somebody save me
It’s just too much pain
If someone can save me
From the morning, I will remain
Somebody save me
Save me…

It’s sweet, without being saccharine. It’s lovey-dovey, without being clingy. It’s simple, without being dolt. He’s regularly sung about asking for help and seeking rescue. But if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time he sounds like he actually received them both.

We may not have started the fire, but we can at least put it out and clean the ashes up.

Museum Rules Prohibit Skateboarding, November 26, 2011, Brooklyn, NY

Museum Rules Prohibit Skateboarding, November 26, 2011, Brooklyn, NY

Children, cover your ears. What the fuck is happening to this city? It used to have character. Now it has boutique shops [for kids]*. It used to have [rail riding]*. Now it has Taxi-motherfucking-TV. It used to stand for something. And now it has “If you see something, say something.” Well, so then I’d like to say something about the premiere civil rights issue of our time. You got it, smokers’ rights. [Holds up sign seen above.] This is bullshit. Fascist bullshit. Why would you outlaw smoking in the one place there’s adequate ventilation? We need the degenerate smokers. Otherwise, what would you hold the moral standard up to? What would there be to be self-righteous about?  And you can’t smell smoke anymore, but I have to still smell your motherfucking barbecue. “Oh, Nellie, it’s really the same thing. You don’t think people should eat meat, and I don’t think people should smoke, so it’s the same thing.” Nooo, it’s not the same thing. [She acts out the brief, but horrific life, of a factory farm chicken, causing equal parts uproarious laughter and awkward silence in the audience, and piercingly compares its brutality to someone smelling cigarette smoke in the park.] Smokers, I urge you: civil obedience. And if you don’t like cigarettes, I think we can understand. Just remember that if you smell tobacco, you can always say, “Excuse me, I prefer if you use marijuana.” —Nellie McKay, at last night’s NYCLU’s Broadway Stands Up For Freedom event, before singing Mother of Pearl, which began, ”Feminists don’t have a sense of humor…”, and is seen here from a few years ago *My normal audio recorder went bye-bye a few weeks ago, and I was, thus, forced to use my c. 1998 cell phone to record the event, which resulted in quite a lot of inaudible audio. These words are my best guess as to what she actually said. Apologies.

Children, cover your ears.

What the fuck is happening to this city? It used to have character. Now it has boutique shops [for kids]*. It used to have [rail riding]*. Now it has Taxi-motherfucking-TV. It used to stand for something. And now it has “If you see something, say something.”

Well, so then I’d like to say something about the premiere civil rights issue of our time. You got it, smokers’ rights. [Holds up sign seen above.] This is bullshit. Fascist bullshit. Why would you outlaw smoking in the one place there’s adequate ventilation? We need the degenerate smokers. Otherwise, what would you hold the moral standard up to? What would there be to be self-righteous about? 

And you can’t smell smoke anymore, but I have to still smell your motherfucking barbecue. “Oh, Nellie, it’s really the same thing. You don’t think people should eat meat, and I don’t think people should smoke, so it’s the same thing.” Nooo, it’s not the same thing.

[She acts out the brief, but horrific life, of a factory farm chicken, causing equal parts uproarious laughter and awkward silence in the audience, and piercingly compares its brutality to someone smelling cigarette smoke in the park.]

Smokers, I urge you: civil obedience. And if you don’t like cigarettes, I think we can understand. Just remember that if you smell tobacco, you can always say, “Excuse me, I prefer if you use marijuana.”

—Nellie McKay, at last night’s NYCLU’s Broadway Stands Up For Freedom event, before singing Mother of Pearl, which began, ”Feminists don’t have a sense of humor…”, and is seen here from a few years ago

*My normal audio recorder went bye-bye a few weeks ago, and I was, thus, forced to use my c. 1998 cell phone to record the event, which resulted in quite a lot of inaudible audio. These words are my best guess as to what she actually said. Apologies.

(Source: playbill.com)

The 2010-2011 Season; or Why I Have No Money

My mother asked why, despite my raise this past year, I either didn’t pay down debt or acquire some savings. I created her a list:

Broadway 

  • A Little Night Music (3 times)
  • Promises, Promises
  • Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (2 times)
  • A Life in the Theater
  • Brief Encounter
  • The Importance of Being Earnest
  • American Idiot
  • The Book of Mormon
  • The Normal Heart
  • Arcadia

Off Broadway

  • John Gabriel Borkman 
  • Mistakes Were Made 
  • Small Craft Warnings
  • The Other Place
  • The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Encores!

  • Lost in the Stars
  • Where’s Charley

Special Events

  • Stritchy Reading of The Pretty Trap (Etc.) 
  • Stritchy at 92Y
  • Kate Baldwin, American Songbook Series
  • Stephen Schwartz Concert at NYCO

Team Opera (miss u, NYCO!)

  • A Quiet Place
  • La Traviata
  • Nixon in China (3 times)
  • Le Comte Ory
  • Monodramas (2 times)
  • Elixir of Love
  • Wozzeck 
  • Seance on a Wet Afternoon
  • Ariadne auf Naxos

“And this doesn’t count the pre-show drinks and post-show dinners, let alone friends’ shows and concerts and all that jazz, Mama,” I said. “As long as you think you’re making adult choices,” she replied. “I just wonder how long this can continue.” 

“Well, the new season starts tomorrow night with 4000 Miles and then there’s Master Class and I still want to catch The Motherfucker with the Hat and Death Takes a Holiday starts soon and this fall I can finally see Other Desert Cities and then when the Met starts back up… OMG!” She interrupts. 

“Adult choices, Mac. Adult choices.”

“The kind of adult I want to be simply has to see Anna Bolena, Mom. Simply has to.”