In the tradition of "Tommy," Berkeley Rep will be developing a stage adaptation of Green Day's 2004 hit album, "American Idiot."
The production will be staged by Michael Mayer ("Spring Awakening"). Its run is set for September 16 through October 11, with previews beginning September 4.
According to the Chronicle, "The band members had already been thinking about a stage version when Mayer approached them, guitarist-vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong says. Mayer's concept and a trip to see 'Spring Awakening' convinced them he was the man for the job, and what Armstrong calls Green Day's "hometown" theater would be a perfect partner. The Rep is 'very adventurous,' he says, 'and their willingness to take chances is in keeping with the spirit of the album.'
I have been wondering about this for a little while now.
On Market Street, where there used to be an adult book store (near Golden Gate), there has been construction for a few months, and this blue barrier has been up around the construction site. I ride past it most mornings on the F Market on the way to work. But on Monday, both the F and the MUNI underground were experiencing delays, so I found myself walking up Market Street in this area (thus the photos).
Several weeks ago, someone painted sad candy corn on each end of the barrier, as well as a rainbow with a slightly odd face.
The rainbow and one of the two candy corns have been painted over, but for some reason, they did not paint over the candy corn on the south end of the barrier. So I thought I'd share the sad candy corn with you.
I'm sorry not to be able to share the rainbow as well. It was . . . unique. In the photo below, you can see where the rainbow has been painted over.
[UPDATE: Thanks to the gracious Holden, we have this link to the larger story behind the Forlorn Candy Corn, as a well as a photo of the rainbow and a link to the Flickr photostream of the artist, Matthew Briar Bonifacio Rodriguez, who says he likes "grumpy candy corns," "raccoon robbers and gamblin' squirrels," "lite brites and food packaging" and "rainbow monsters and color pallete boogie monsters." I forgot about the fact that the rainbow had one teardrop coming out of one eye.]
[UPDATE 4/1: Now it's gone. Like its companion corn and the monster rainbow, the lone forlorn candy corn has been painted over.]
Well, let's go for transparency here. The bearded guitarist in the video above (on the right, with the glasses) is my nephew, Will Gilreath (my sister's oldest child).
But, regardless of any possible personal bias, keep your eyes and ears on this up-and-coming band. They've got an extremely loyal following of ardent fans. And if the iTunes sales chart is to be believed, their fan base is growing. I've seen them live twice, and I was surprised by the size of the crowds and the near "Fatal Attraction"-ness of the fervor of a few of them.
They also released a remake of The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" last December (would you guess that maybe that's where the name, "A Million Different People" comes from?). Chip and I went to see the band at Slim's last fall. When Will told me they were doing "Bittersweet Symphony," I asked him if they also planned to do a remake of the copyright infringement lawsuit that The Verve got from that song. He said that this had definitely been their question when they were recording it.
Will also complained that some of the "younger kids" on the tour had never heard of "Bittersweet Symphony," and he claimed that this fact made him feel old.
I said, "If that makes you feel old, how do you think it makes me feel?"
[3/25/09: Hmmm... the video now fails to link and says it's a "private" video. I'll leave it there for a while and see if it gets unlocked again. Ace's site still says "watch the video here" with a link to the same "private video" error message. If it doesn't clear up on its own, I'll take it down.]
This is the front of the store as of this morning. The signs have been changed from "Up to 40% off" to "Up to 50% off."
When I was there on Sunday, the only things that were 40% off were magazines. CDs and DVDs were 25% off, and Blu-ray discs were 20% off.
I hate to sound unfeeling, but I don't see the loss of Virgin as nearly the tragedy that losing Tower Records was. Virgin's prices have always been too high for my tastes, even for sale items. At Tower, I often saw sale prices that were on a par with Amazon's prices (with shipping). But whenever I've shopped at Virgin, my first thought upon seeing their sale prices has always been, "I bet I could find that significantly cheaper online." When Tower was around, I would buy something there on impulse during about half of my visits. At Virgin, I have bought things on impulse on fewer than one visit out of ten. And the reason has been their "MSRP or close to it" pricing structure. One thing you need to remember about all "Everything must go" sales is that the first thing that happens is that everything is raised back to Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price before the "10-40% off" is applied, so the deals are not always such good deals. Virgin has never been the land of bargains, and it won't be one until the closing sale exceeds 25% off.
Here's another reason I have never liked shopping at Virgin:
Several months ago, I bought a DVD on the second floor. On my way out of the store, I noticed a CD that I wanted, so I picked it up and got in line. When I got to the register, the goth chick behind the counter started to ring me up and said, "Oh, did you get caught?"
I asked what she meant. She pointed to the Virgin Megastore bag in my hand, held up the CD she was ringing up for me and said, "Did they catch you sneaking out the door with this in your bag and make you come back to pay for it?"
I would like to say that I drew myself up, haughty and indignant, and said firmly, "How DARE you accuse me of shoplifting! I demand to see your manager NOW!"
Instead, I just looked at her like I barely understood what she said, and I said, "Erm...No."
But (as Bertie Wooster would say) I meant it to sting.
The Local Government Association has issued a list of phrases that impede communication more than they help. Some are cliches, some are just bizarre.
Some you expect, such as "thinking outside of the box," "value-added," "quantum," "benchmarking" (another verbed noun), "revenue stream" and "synergy." Personally, I'm pleased to see that they included "tranche" (often spelled "traunche") to mean "portion" or "segment." because accountants suddenly started using this one a few years ago, and it confuses people to this day.
But here are some that I have either not heard often or not heard at all, ever:
"Mainstream" (as an active verb) "Seedbed" (instead of "idea") "Contestability" "Stakeholder management" "Subsidiarity"
And then there are the ones that I can't even figure out what they're supposed to mean:
"Blue sky thinking" "Double devolution" "Improvement levers" "Coterminous" Have you heard any of these last ones? And can you explain what they're supposed to mean?
For St. Patrick's Day, here's a fake Irish band from LA, The Mighty Regis. Kind of a cross between The Pogues and improv theater. Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company interviewed lead singer Franky McNorman (aka Mike O'Hara) on this week's Reduced Shakespeare podcast.
Band member names include "Gavin McLoud," "Paddy McRib" and "Ryan O'Neill." Currently, The Mighty Regis's music can be downloaded from iTunes or previewed at their MySpace page. Song titles include "Me Mother Became a Werewolf," "Get Drunk and Go Home" and "A Tree Grows in Sligo."
Okay, I have to confess to a little bit of subterfuge and misdirection. While I like this song (and Bardot's Nico-like delivery), what I really want you to see is another Gainsbourg-Bardot video that has embedding disabled. It's a Scopitone film made for the song, "Comic Strip." The song is interesting enough by itself. But the costumes, props and camera work are all just too wonderful for words.
Introducing the Uro Club. It makes a great gift for the golfer who has everything except a Stadium Pal (made infamous by David Sedaris).
My favorite thing about the Stadium Pal website is the question, "What if you want to buy the Stadium Pal as a gift?" (because there's just no discreet way to get the gift recipient to use the sizing guide to ensure a proper fit -- it conjures up a lovely image of someone waking up in the middle of the night to find his SO fumbling under the sheets. "What are you doing down there, honey?" "Oh, I'm just measuring you for a special gift. I wanted it to be a surprise.").
Well, that and the testimonials from happy Stadium Pal customers (e.g., "Had two friends fishing with me yesterday and they just couldn't understand how I could go so long without relieving myself. Little did they know that while they were standing on the swim platform, hoping not to fall in the water, I was simply smiling and letting nature take her course. My new pal works like a dream and its nice not having to fumble with ice cold fingers and going the traditional way.").
This is your reminder that daylight saving time begins this Sunday morning at 2 a.m. It's time to change (and I'm not just talking about Greg's fringed shirt).
I'm sorry not to have posted anything new for a while. If you haven't guess, I'm in one of those "My job is eating my life" phases. I'm writing this in at 11 p.m. in a ten minute break I'm taking while working in a hotel room in Irvine.
There will be new posts one day within the next week or two, I promise.
From this morning's SF Chronicle:
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