MTV does Broadway

my two main topics for today involve a broadway musical and football. could i be any more of a renaissance man?


legally blonde the musical on MTV

as regular readers of this site know all too well, whenever i have a friend that i deem worthy of evangelical blog praise, i will evangelically praise my little black heart out. well, guess what?! it's time for me to evangelically praise once again. but trust me, it's well deserved.

as i have mentioned here previously, my partner in crime, THE stinky britches, my BFF laura bell bundy is currently playing the role of elle woods in legally blonde the musical on broadway. she, and the show in it's totality, is pretty damn spectacular. and i'm not the only one who thinks so...she was nominated for a tony award for best actress in a musical after all. if you've never seen her perform she's a bit like a modern day lucille ball, albeit one who can sing and dance her ass off.

if you haven't seen the show live, and i say this as a straight guy(despite what you may have read on craigslist), you should see it. every single person that i know who has seen it, and a few of them entered the theater highly skeptical, has come away loving it. laura and the rest of the cast are amazing. the choreography and direction by jerry mitchell are jaw-dropping at some points in the show. the set by david rockwell is a sight to behold on a broadway stage. i could go on and on and on.

but if you haven't seen the show yet don't fret, because here's your chance.

a couple of weeks ago MTV went into the palace theater and taped a live performance of the show, which they'll be airing this saturday at 1pm eastern time and again sunday night at 7pm eastern time. MTV was nice enough to send me a preview dvd of the show, which i in turn watched last night and i have to say that it's....AWESOME!

i was truly blown away. in truth, i was skeptical going in that they would be able to capture everything that goes on during a performance that makes the experience of a broadway show special but they truly covered it all. great camera shots, great sound...it was a delight to watch. it was almost better than watching the show live in the theater because of all the great shots of facial expressions/reactions of the actors on stage that are so hard to catch sitting out in the audience.

what's even more remarkable is that something like this is happening at all. this is unprecedented. never before has a live performance of a broadway musical been taped for television and aired while they show was still doing its run. i don't know how this was pulled off but the people at MTV and the producers of legally blonde did it and the final product looks great. i'm pumped for america to see this. so set your tivo/DVRs. and be sure to let me know what you think.

the only negative thing that i have to say about the broadcast involves the girls from the hills, and i hesitate greatly to say this because i'm friendly with one of them, but their readings of the scene intros and exits off of cue cards were hilariously bad. you'll just have to watch it and see for yourself.

saturday will be sort of a big day for laura bell's family. you see, they're all centered in and around lexington, kentucky, home of the university of kentucky, whose football team just so happens to be hosting my #1 ranked LSU tigers on saturday afternoon. so they'll be basking in the glory of having laura's show air from 1 until around 3:30, which is precisely the time that LSU and kentucky kick off the football game. not coincidentally, this will also be the approximate time that their elation turns to complete and utter dejection as LSU begins to chew up their football team, only to unceremoniously spit them out.

laura(she's a huge kentucky fan herself) and i had planned to watch the game together. just she and i and a bottle of knob creek. but that may not be such a great idea...one or both of us may not come out of it alive.


basking in the glory one more time before turning attention to kentucky


photo via olla via fmd

spencer hall, aka orson swindle, a florida grad, unabashed florida gator fan and author of the popular college football blog "every day should be saturday" ventured down to tiger stadium for the game this past saturday. he filed this report on his website. it's perhaps the most spot-on and funny synopsis i've ever read of the gameday experience in baton rouge given by an outsider.

That voodoo’s real. When the “Four Corners Salute” gets cranking, it’s like listening to a 747 made entirely of fired clay crashing into a field of shattered glass. Getting a snap off effectively is in itself a game ball-worthy achievement. Combined with the orgy going on outside the stadium for five miles in any direction, it’s the gold standard for any other college gameday experience. Any of them. It is peerless in terms of demonstrated intensity, lunacy, commitment, flair, and menace. At several points in the day, we were convinced we were going to be killed, injected with creole butter, and thrown in a deep fryer…but only in the most festive and accommodating of ways, of course.

Every single person in the state of Louisiana was in Baton Rouge, professionals, ne’er-do-wells, rapscallions, and professional ne’er-do-wells and rapscallions, to watch LSU play Florida in Tiger Stadium. Babies went unborn; ships sat unloaded at the docks. Dogs circled a spot on the floor three times and then lay down on the floor, passed out until their woozy owners returned 48 to 72 hours later.

We scoff no more. It’s real, live, and tangible enough to hang your freshly slaughtered baby alligator carcass on in a pinch. (We met a tailgater who, in festive fashion, had slaughtered a baby alligator that morning in order to prepare it for the tailgate. Tiger meat’s a bit harder to come by. Thanks, Chinese Medicine black market! Assholes.)

you can read the whole thing here...

edsbs road trip: baton rouge

one final note on all of this...at some point in the third quarter of the game on saturday night, it was announced that USC, those bastards, had lost to stanford and the 92,000 in attendance went absolutely apeshit. someone in the stands caught it all on video...



yeah, we're a little crazy about our football team down there!


george clooney on charlie rose

george clooney is probably my favorite person in the entertainment business. he just seems like such a cool guy. and he gives great interviews...always funny, charming and insightful. he was a guest on the charlie rose show last night and was as funny, charming and insightful as he always is.

by the way, clooney's father nick is a well-known newsman back in kentucky and indiana. he was hired for his first news job years ago by laura bell's grandfather, wayne bell. just a little tidbit for ya.

the interview is here...




for your next "bad talent video" party night

this is truly, remarkably, painfully bad. and hilarious.


via bwe