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One
Man’s Compliment is Another Man’s
“Good.
How about yourself?” Maybe.
Haiku: by Ted Kane Did the D.J
just The rain washes
the The dog barks
a I never want
to Sex at the Shadowbox Cabaret Easton Columbus * * * * * by Rick Brown Two
firsts in this performance. David Whitehouse (Mr. Pratfall)
didn’t once fall to the stage. This I missed ... although being
a guy waiting for a knee replacement I can certainly understand
taking some time off. And amazingly there is little use ... or
any maybe ... of the “f -word” ... not that I have a problem with
saying “fuck” myself. It’s just that “Sex at the The perfect example would be Gary and Galinda: Home Edition, which on the surface is a call in radio show dealing with home improvement. Scotty Candler and Katy Psenicka superbly maneuver the callers’ questions into the land of double meanings piqued with code words such as “knockers”, “backdoor” and most humorously “caulk”. The sketch highlights the second half of “Sex at the Box”. Also good is Bustin’ a Move with Busty Wiggles in which Julie Klein (Busty) imparts her stripper wisdom on some fresh recruits: effeminate Stefan (Jimmy Mak), boob obsessed Misty (Ms. Psenicka), and shy but willing to try anything once Donna (Amy Lay). The other veteran actors deftly play off Ms. Klein’s superb salty, sultry boom chick a boom in a hilarious rave up culminating with a “volunteer” from the audience. Football Fetish concerns a reluctant football coach who is obligated to teach a health class about sexuality to budding adolescents. Predictable yet entertaining at the beginning, the skit accelerates when the kids leave the stage and Ms. Pooter (once again a marvelous Julie Klein) confronts Coach Bronger (David Whitehouse) about his teaching abilities. Mr. Whitehouse’s character drones about the similarity of football and puberty using a football as physical metaphor so effectively ... circling the tip with his hands so suggestively that the audience first might think “breast foreplay” and eventually segueing thoughts into ... uh ... something a little south of beltway. And the show includes some of the troupe’s more popular short pieces. The innocence of Campfire Boys: Valentine’s Day (Jimmy Mak and Jim Andes) is as adorable as Cindy and Laverne: Chaperones is jaded redneck. But once again the charm of Amy Lay in Shannon’s Movie Reviews enchanted me. This time little girl Shannon reviews Beauty and the Beast and The Graduate with Ms. Lay ... as usual ... convincing the audience she’s a child who knows more than she should without the hint of smart aleck. “Sex
at the “Sex
at the
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 4th Anniversary Issue 
 Kelly 1990 - 2006 Blank Sight by John Bennett Five
Million Easy Pieces of the Night Music
(with apologies to everyone) by Ted Kane By
now everyone is familiar with the fall from grace of James Frey,
the tough-guy recovering drug addict from Granville, OH. His elaborate
story of crime and redemption A Million Little Pieces was revealed
to be a near complete falsehood, shortly after being trumpeted
by Oprah Winfrey as a great book. Oprah, for her part, chose to
stand by the book, but it seems significant that her next selection
is a book of seemingly impeccable reputation, Elie Wiesel's holocaust
memoir Night. Quite a juxtaposition, IMO. Amorphous Apathy Rant by Patrick O'Malley This
is one of the most pertinent and disturbing trends in American
culture today. The apathy, disinterest, and ineptitude of growing
numbers of americans middle aged and younger. This demographic
more and more has become accustomed to a blasé attitude
towards everything but one's own well being. Ridiculously people
seek this well being through the acquisition of money and material
possessions, a culture of consumerism. How this has come to
pass is multi-faceted and unfathomably more complex than I can
understand or describe, but I can't help but think it has much
to do with the ever-growing dearth of intellectual pursuit for
its own sake and one's own betterment, as well as the ridiculous
short-sightedness of Americans. A review of How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, by Francis Wheen by David Hochman If there’s
one book you read this year, make it Francis Wheen’s How
Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World. I don’t say that lightly.
The older one gets, the more discerning one becomes. Time presses
itself, seemingly unlike in one’s youth, upon one’s
choices, and one is less apt to be frivolous with it. Naked
Life With the Fish
by Cory Tressler Beijing,
September 29th, 2005
A Moonlight walk inside the Forbidden City by Amelia Hapsari One night I found myself inside the Forbidden City. As a foreign expert at a Chinese government institution, I was invited to see the Beijing Opera Concert in the Western-designed music hall inside the Forbidden City. It was three nights before the National Day celebration. My thoughts were too noisy that I could not accommodate more melodies. So I took a moonlight walk around the Forbidden City. Beijing was no longer what it was a hundred years ago. The only chance I would enter the palace then was if I were one of the Emperor's daughters, maids, or concubines. Today the majestic aura of the garden was still there, dimly lit with luck-generating gold fishes swarming its heavenly styled pond. Tonight, three employee of the palace were fishing at the pond. They were shocked to see me, but did not stop what they were doing. The Emperor was no longer there. With Beijing city lights beaming at full power to celebrate the day the Chinese Communist Party liberated the nation, it was not too dark to navigate along the corridor of Forbidden City. The ceiling of the corridor was painted with thousands of royal epics. A hundred years ago, it must have been gloomed by the moon, stars, and red lanterns. Guards would patrol the whole complex, leaving no room for threat against its stability. A concubine of the Emperor with lotus feet and a red jade necklace would be punished if caught wondering around the courtyard even if she was only reciting poetry. Only the silk covered wooden pillow could understand the secrets of the mind rested on it, including forbidden love and hidden coup. The
palace should only project its enigmatic harmony, sealed
mightily by two gigantic stone tiger-like creatures. One
cuddled a baby tiger underneath her foot, the other one
was playing with a fiery mini globe. Woman bore children.
Man ruled the world. My grandpa left the mainland of China in the 1930s. He left behind a very young wife, married by family arrangement. After he could earn a decent living in Indonesia, he was married to my grandma, an Indonesian-born Chinese. After they had two children, the first wife of my grandpa came to reunite with my grandpa. Three of them; my grandpa, his first wife, and my grandma; lived as one family with their children in the chinatown of Semarang, Indonesia. As the designated breadwinner of her family when she was younger than 20 year old, my grandma has one brother and four sisters to take care. She needed the financial support from my grandpa to pay school tuition and living expenses of her younger brother and sisters. Out of love for her siblings, my grandma stayed with my grandpa, his first wife, her own children and her stepchildren faithfully until my grandpa passed away. My grandma even breastfed the children of my grandpa's first wife because she did not produce her own milk. When my grandpa passed away, he left behind 13 children; six from my grandma and seven from his first wife. My culture told scary stories about love. A mother swallowed her pain as she sold her daughter to a rich man. Love was a hope for a better life. A wife cut her own flesh for her starving mother in law. Love was a solemn sacrifice. A son used his body heat to melt the frozen river so he could catch a fish for his ill father. Love was not for oneself, it should only give. A man aged and died lonely just for the hope that he would see the woman he loved one more time. Men and women went through a long life saga with misery and struggle just to show love. Love was a fatal obligation. It was written decisively by immortal deities. What do I know about love? Is love like a Potehi puppet show? However many people come, the magnetic wonder doesn't decrease. More children can still squeeze and laugh until their parents come with chicken-feathered broom to get them back to study. It's always there to provide a cooling oasis after the sweaty industrious life of Semarang's Chinatown. It's there for all walks of life; the Chinese, the indigenous, the young, the old, the rich, the poor. No cover charge, no string attached. Is love like a moon cake? It is round, soft, with sweet black bean inside. It is available only seasonally, so we are always waiting for the next moon cake to come. What we get is decided by how much left from what others get. We are never full of it because we only think about how much more others get. Is
love like ancient herbal medicine sold in a Chinese drug
store? The giant cupboard that is divided neatly into equal
volumes stores each miraculous healing secret in different
drawers with careful prescriptions. Diverse preserved leaves,
roots, flowers, seeds, and other parts of wondrous plants
coexist peacefully while waiting to cure their patients.
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Las
Vegas Blues 'Someone will win' 'You're probably right,' -------- The
South Bay When I started working in I think I’ve
got it figured out The Best of 2Co’s and the Blues 2Co’s Cabaret The Short North Columbus, Ohio * * * * * by Rick Brown Wow.
My last 2Co’s review. And wouldn’t you know it ...
right after the city ... after what? 3 years or so ... finally
decided to get the arch lights spanning High Street repaired.
And to add insult to injury there’s a “For Rent”
sign in front of the building already ... sigh. For more information go to www.shadowboxcabaret.com Sunday Night with a Monday Off 1:37 am by Rick Brown You
know ... people say early to bed and all that shit. But when the
opportunity presents itself ... I always promise myself I’m
going to be disciplined ... you know ... drink and eat moderately.
That’s the easy part really. I can do that ... when I’m
alone ... I mean me and the dog ... I’m cool with THAT.
But the going to bed at a reasonable hour thing ... as they say
... getting up early to make the most of “the day God has
given me” ... I can’t handle that crap. Rejected Book Blurbs by Andrew Wood No other self-help book has ever opened my eyes to the joys of breaking into someone’s home, and then replacing all their pictures with one of myself holding a sign that says, “I win.” No other book has so foreshadowed the dissolution of love between two people like this one, especially when our hero and his heroine get married in a patch of quicksand. After finishing this book, I ran through a supermarket and pounded people on the head with it, yelling “BOOK, BOOK, BOOK, BOOK!” I almost threw myself into the garbage can along with this book, but I just didn’t want to be that close to it again. This book was fantastic. I had no idea that bananas were capable of operating heavy machinery. The fact that sparrows will demand indoor plumbing if you build them a birdhouse is not news to me, but what I did find truly inspiring was their willingness to split the water bill. If you’ve ever been mauled by a gorilla because you mentioned he could use a shave, then this book is for you. The writing style is hilarious, in that it is hilarious to think of all the reasons how someone this stupid could get a book published. I loved this book so much that I took it on vacation, and even let it drive a little. But I’m hoping the sequel can parallel park. The best thing about this diet book was its cover. I am currently wearing it as a pair of pants and now, when I sit down on the subway, everyone can admire my small portions. Someone took a dump in my desk drawer. This book made me seriously reconsider my marriage to a houseplant. Let’s just say I took this book out for dinner, then asked for separate checks. This book made me quit my job, sell my kids, drug my wife and send her off in a hot-air balloon, then wear a powdered wig and offer guided tours through an abandoned outhouse. But at least now I know how to restore my Windows operating system from the “Safe Mode” to a previous date.
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