Author: Jeff Tabaco

For those of you going through race-around-the-world withdrawal, last night Game Show Network began airing reruns of The Amazing Race. Starting at season one, they intend to run through all the episodes in order, with one episode every night at 9 p.m. ET, repeated at midnight (link via reality blurred). I’ll probably try and tune in for the first couple of seasons (insofar as it doesn’t conflict with other shows I’m TiVo-ing, of course), since I didn’t get on the Amazing Race bandwagon until season three… ah, coincidentally back in the day when I used to read Television without Pity religiously. I need to get back on that bandwagon too.

[Addendum: I just looked it up on TiVo. It turns out the episodes do not have unique titles or descriptions in the guide, so recording it may involve some customization, lest a plain Season Pass record each episode twice.]

I spent most of the weekend in a lethargic haze, mostly due, I suppose, to my longstanding lack of sleep. It’s strange. Lately on weekend mornings I naturally wake up sometime between 9 and 11 a.m. My mind is awake and alert (though my body isn’t), but since I can’t get back to sleep, I just get up and groggily start the day, usually taking a nap in the afternoon. Anyway.

On Saturday we finished watching The Apartment on DVD, a classic romantic comedy from 1960 directed by Billy Wilder and starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. Really great stuff. In the reading department, I am close to finishing The Master by Colm Tóibín, and have concurrently started on Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. A three-part TV program based on that book premieres this week on PBS.

On Sunday night we had dinner at Aladdin’s in Shirlington, and then saw Pacific Overtures at Signature Theatre. I think Thom and I had many of the same reactions (see his review). The show, which takes as a central moment Commodore Perry‘s arrival in Japan in the 1800s, made me think a lot — which I assume is the point — and want to know more about the history of that period. (In college I took a handful of courses in Japanese history and language, but alas, much of it has faded from memory.) The show’s music is lovely, and the performances strong. However, something we found interesting, even unsettling: I’m all for color-blind casting, but as Thom notes, having a completely Caucasian cast (in white Kabuki-style makeup, no less) playing Japanese roles added a complicating layer to the already complicated issues presented in the show (isolationism, colonialism, culture clash, etc.). It’s difficult to sort through what I think about that. As I say, it’s interesting, at the very least.

While Maureen Dowd is on leave at the Times, Sarah Vowell is filling in as guest columnist. Saturday’s column, “Our Faith-Based Train Rides,” in which she asks whether it makes sense for Wyoming to get more money per resident from the Homeland Security Department than New York, opens:

John is the A train. Robin and the other John are the L. Nicole used to be the 1 and the 9, but ever since they canceled the 9 she’s been just the 1. Geoff and Jen, Joel and Kate, Ted and Scott and, Joan — they are the F. Four months ago, I moved east of Fifth Avenue and became the N and the 6, even though there’s a part of me that will always be the C and the E.

It’s not just the New York subway map I think of as a refrigerator door plastered with loved ones’ snapshots. The Richmond BART line in California is Eli heading home to Berkeley; the orange line on the Washington Metro is Carson, reading her son a bedtime story in Arlington; the purple line in Paris is David, who moved there so he could smoke.

When I woke up on Thursday and turned on the radio to news of the London bus and tube bombings, the announcer said, “Piccadilly Line,” but in my head it’s just called “Nick.”

It’s good stuff. Check it out (link via Mike). Previously: “A Pat on the Back” (“Breaking news: Pat Robertson is sane”).

Last month Ed at Guy Dads wrote about how the Stanford Band got kicked out of the San Francisco Pride parade for unruly behavior. I know, when is the Band not unruly? Unruliness is their raison d’être, pretty much. Today Ed called my attention to Leah Garchik‘s column in the Chronicle, where the story got picked up:

The Stanford Marching Band, which runs this way and that instead of marching in precision formation, got kicked out of the Pride parade for slowing down the action. The band wasn’t a registered participant, but marched along with several gay and lesbian groups from Stanford. Ed Jones, who with his husband, Eddie Reynolds, was with a Queer University Employees at Stanford contingent marching near the band, says a parade monitor with a “cold, hard heart,” warned the musicians three times, then called in security to barricade the street and force them out of the lineup. The monitor must have been a Cal grad, says Jones, noting the irony of tight control of a parade about freedom.

The band’s Michael Priest said the band has issued an apology to parade organizers, and is hoping that time heals this wound. “We hope to be back next year.”

Way to go, Ed! Go Cardinal! (No doubt the paper will be getting letters from Cal defenders.)

Yesterday evening after work I went to Ticketplace and got tickets for the shows I mentioned yesterday. My favorite ticket lady was there. She commented on how Pacific Overtures is a beautiful production, and I told her I can always count on her to have already seen the shows I am interested in. “I try,” she said.

I headed to the Kennedy Center, where I was to meet Thom for the lowbrow, two-man, multi-character play Red, White and Tuna. I haven’t been to the Center in a while, and it’s neat to see the renovation of the front plaza all done. We met up at the café on the second floor, where we often like to eat dinner before seeing a performance. (I usually have a salad with salmon; Thom recommends the calzones, which I will definitely try next time.) Red, White and Tuna was a fun time. Yee haw. Although, I think we didn’t find it quite as hilarious as A Tuna Christmas, which we saw last year.

By the way, at Thom’s suggestion, I will start adding our cultural outings to my del.icio.us media log, so they will show up in my blog in the sidebar, along with the movies and books under “Recently seen or read.” Accordingly they will also appear as individual items in my integrated news feed, but hopefully you won’t find that too unwieldy. Or I may rejigger it entirely. Who knows.

It’s been a busy week so far at the office, so I haven’t had much time and energy to write, but just to catch up: this past weekend was pretty relaxing. We spent most of it at home. On Monday, Independence Day, we put together a nice barbeque dinner in no time (this is where I sound like a commercial) with prepared and frozen foods from the supermarket.

That night there were the usual fireworks on the National Mall, and we watched them from a pretty convenient vantage point: the parking structure at the Pentagon City shopping mall here in Arlington. (See also Thom’s blog and photos.) There were a lot of people there, and I overheard the couple next to us telling someone that it was their anniversary. They were married on July 4 some years ago; what a neat day to have a wedding, with fireworks and everything.

Penciled in on the agenda: Red, White and Tuna tonight at the Kennedy Center; and Pacific Overtures on Sunday night at Signature Theatre.

Last night I went to see Once on This Island at Round House Theatre in Bethesda. I had planned to get my ticket at Ticketplace (as I’ve mentioned before, a great place to get half-priced tickets), but as I perused the Round House website, I was reminded that they have a “young audiences” discount for theater-goers under 30. Like me! Score! (Thirty does sound like a high limit for a “youth” discount; do their audiences skew towards an older demographic?) So on my lunch break I walked to the box office and bought my ticket for a total of $12. The theater is only a couple of blocks from where I work, but this was my first time there. I really should see more shows there, while I still work in the area. And am still under 30.

Once on This Island takes place on a Caribbean island and is about a peasant girl, Ti Moune, who saves the life of a rich boy, Daniel, and falls in love with him. Complications of class ensue, of course. The entire cast was really good, all strong singers and dancers, and the sets were spare and effective. It did take me a while to get into the story, though, but as the story progressed I went with the flow and found it kind of moving.

Aside: when I was a senior in high school, my parents and I visited Stanford, and as we passed Memorial Auditorium, I saw that Once on This Island was the spring musical being produced by Ram’s Head, the theater group that I joined a couple years later when I was a sophomore there.

» Related: Post and Potomac Stages reviews.

Just a day before its launch yesterday, Logo signed a deal with DirecTV, our cable provider, which means we have the new gay channel in our lineup. Cool! Last night just before 9 p.m. I turned to channel 263, and stared worriedly at the blank screen, but shortly thereafter Logo programming began with a documentary about gay America over the last half-century, called The Evolution Will Be Televised.

It’s nice to know that I can now turn on the set at any time and get my gay TV. They have a few shows I’m looking forward to, including a travel series. (We’ve been watching a few gay documentaries in the last few days, though, most recently Showtime’s Same Sex America, so as Thom says, we’re perhaps “all gayed out.”)

Aside: I think a few of my brain cells are now owned by Miller beer, only because Miller was Logo’s opening night sponsor, and we were subjected to many of their commercials. Mmm, beer. Anything but Miller, though.