Archive for April, 2010
Obama gets no cheer in latest Boystown theater production
We really liked a theater company here in Chicago, called GayCo, until 2008 when they converted themselves into an Obama propaganda machine.
We’ve tried to go back to their productions, including a show they did last year which rebuked Obama to some degree, but frankly, our love for GayCo is gone. Their schtick just leaves a bad taste in our mouth, considering how much cheerleading they did for the administration that’s responsible for everything we’re facing today.
Some of GayCo’s former performers started a new company, called Quixotic, that doesn’t have a theater for a home and instead stages its shows inside the late-night bar Hydrate, before Hydrate gets rocking. It’s a great setup, actually, with Quixotic performing on a makeshift stage on Hydrate’s dance floor from 9-10pm, getting more people into the bar than usual, since most people avoid Hydrate until places like Sidetracks, Roscoes, Cocktail, and MiniBar (aka, douchebag central) close at 2am.
We know some of the guys behind Quixotic, and they are big Obama Zombies. Knowing absolutely nothing about what’s actually being done to the country, or the unconstitutionality of the Obamacare bill rammed through Congress in March, these are the kinds of guys who just think it’s cool to have a black president and first lady. They don’t see the ramification of new taxes coming down the pipe, and they don’t care all that much about Obama throwing only the teensiest of bones and tiniest scraps to gays. They have the “We hate Republicans!” blinders firmly in place, and do whatever Anderson Cooper tells them to do on TV.
That said, we caught Quixotic’s latest show at Hydrate because we like seeing shows about life in Boystown, and hearing another take on the things we also observe and write about. The new show, Hate Crimes: A Love Story, is about 90% funny, with only two bits that miss the mark.
One is a slam against Christians that we find needlessly out of place. The show’s rolling along very well, snarking on the antics of people in Boystown, and all the ridiculous things, guys especially, do here when out of the blue there’s a musical number about “Travis Christ”, supposedly the 13th apostle, and Jesus’ husband.
It’s not as disrespectful as you’d think, and the main vocals on the song are provided by an adorable Neil Patrick Harris impersonator,who plays ‘Travis”. It’s really just a setup for them to argue for spousal rights, trying awkwardly to eliminate the religious objection between same-sex partnerships. But, when we see Comedy Central censor itself because it’s so afraid of insulting Muslims, for disrespecting the Religion of Peace that is Islam, we find it glaring that Quixotic, like the rest of the Left, sees no harm at all in degrading Christianity.
Even if it is with an NPH clone.
It’s interesting the audience didn’t laugh or really seem to enjoy the “Travis Christ” song. Knowing some of the people behind Quixotic, we can peg who forced this number into the show, just because he wanted to stick it to the religious types we know him to hate. It’s a shame someone didn’t take a step back and 86 this needless dig. The show would have been better for it.
The same is true for another line in the show that got absolutely no cheer from the audience — a line that praises the current president.
We don’t remember the context, exactly, but there’s a bit where the Quixotic cast is talking about how great it is to have a “big dog in the White House”, protecting them. And it’s just stone cold silent in the audience at that. The line falls completely flat.
Obama gets no cheer.
Whatsoever.
Which is interesting, because in 2008 when GayCo staged the show that sang Obama’s praises and fawned all over him, the audience did in fact cheer. Loudly. They just ate that stuff up.
But, in 2010, those cheers are long gone.
The writers at Quixotic don’t seem to realize it, but it’s true.
We are glad, however, that Quixotic didn’t feel the need to take a jab at Sarah Palin in this show, like they did in their last production. That was a smart move on their part, because it’s become the lazy fallback of the LGBTQ-set, to rag on Sarah Palin in some way, as the straw man villain of lazy minds. Someone at Quixotic has a defective fabulous gene, because we as a community are supposed to be sharp, cutting-edge, forever fabulous, and critically-acclaimed-sitcom-witty just walking down the street (let alone starring in gay theater productions). Stale, recycled, mean-spirited, unfunny jokes about Republicans just don’t cut it.
If you are in Chicago on a Friday or Saturday through mid-May, “Hate Crimes: A Love Story” is worth checking out. We really liked it, as we said, save for the Travis Christ number and the weird Obama shoutout (that no one else seemed to want either). If you really like Neil Patrick Harris, in particular, you should definitely see it…because if you squint your eyes, or just forget your glasses entirely, you’d really think it was actually him. And in super tight black jeans too.
Question: Do you carry an ID with you at all times? If so, what's the hyperventilation about asking illegal aliens to do the same or go home?
We’ve never understood two things about all those on the Left who enjoy taking to the streets screaming and yelling for amnesty and open borders:
(1) Why they think waving the Mexican flag at these events helps their cause
(2) Why they have such a problem with the enforcement of existing law
In Chicago, we need to carry an ID with us at all times, because at least three or four times a day we are asked to show it.
80% of the time we use a credit card here in Chicago, the clerk at the register asks to see an ID.
IDs are required to get into any bar or club, and even some restaurants after a certain time of night.
None of us drive on a regular basis, but if we did, we’d be required to have that ID with us whenever operating a vehicle.
If we didn’t have an ID on us, we wouldn’t be able to do things like pick up packages at the mailbox store, cash checks at the bank, sign up for a gym membership, or do any of the other random things we do frequently here in Boystown.
So, eliminating the larger issue of why having no borders at all is a civilization-killing, culturally-suicidal idea, we just can’t understand the argument made by the Left that it’s improper to require illegal aliens to hold identification documents…because we, American citizens, are required to show such documents multiple times a day.
Have you ever understood this?
As we watch the Left screech and wail over Arizona being the first state to grow a pair and start cracking down on illegal aliens, we anecdotally see support for the Left crumbling the longer unemployment stays so high. Here’s what we’re seeing in Chicago, in just the food & beverage and private event industry.
We know of at least three guys who can’t find work as cater-waiters, like they usually do, in Chicago because staffing companies have too many illegal Mexican workers employed. Instead of paying an American citizen $12-15 an hour for a job, the staffing companies pay the Mexicans $5 an hour, cash.
You’d be surprised who uses these staffing companies. It’s not just for private events.
The City Club, Union League Club, and all the other big, fancy, private clubs in Chicago use staffing companies to lessen their payroll costs. Hotels do this too. Instead of hiring staff outright, these companies sign a contract with a staffing agency for x-number of warm bodies for events. The City Club or big hotel never knows these people’s names, so they never have any documents on them in their HR files. Instead, they just do a pay-out to the staffing agencies for 50 workers at x-dollar and hour on a certain day, and then the staffing agency distributes that money to its own workers, however it sees fit.
The bulk of the staffing agency’s employees are illegal Mexican workers, serving banquets, doing janitorial and housekeeping work, toiling as gardeners and other laborers, etc.
So, the racquet that exists keeps American citizens unemployed, while companies save money on staffing costs by using these third party staffing agencies to bring illegal workers into the employment pool — off the company’s books.
Just about every restaurant, hotel, and bar in the city uses illegal workers in this way, since they work for essentially slave wages — at least half what they should be getting in the job market if the company was forced to pay the standard going rate.
This practice will only INCREASE if Obamacare’s taxes and penalties become a reality.
Just think about what Obamacare is going to do to the unemployment numbers, when you realize companies forever look for creative, if not outright illegal, ways to lower their biggest expenses: payroll.
If a company wants to avoid paying health insurance costs for its employees, it will just fire the staff it has and instead contract with a staffing agency to provide the workers it needs, at a lower cost (and no insurance requirement).
Democrats are fools because they didn’t fully think out Obamacare before ramming it through — but this bill is going to put millions of people out of work in 2011, if Republicans don’t succeed in taking back Congress and killing it before then.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious the Left’s goal with illegal immigration is to perpetuate a slave class of undocumented, uneducated, hopeless and helpless individuals to serve as the lowest rung in society, working for as little money as possible so that the Liberals in their ivory towers can live the high life — and have their little pets to use for their own array of purposes.
But, we still can’t understand how the Left can continuously claim that asking these illegals for their identification is such a crime, when American citizens are asked for their identification multiple times a day.
Is this more Liberal irrationalism, where the Left screams and shouts about anything when someone gets too close to calling them out on one of their crazy schemes?
Or, are we missing something about the heinous burden of showing an ID when asked in public that we’ve just never been apprised of?
Question: Are Ken Tucker and Entertainment Weekly racist?
Gabourey Sidibe is, by all accounts, a wonderful young lady -- but she was terrible on Saturday Night Live this week.
Here’s something fascinating that’s been developing since Saturday, when Gabourey Sidibe, star of the movie Precious, hosted Saturday Night Live.
Sidibe seems to be a very kind and lovely young woman, whom everyone she’s worked with says very nice things about. Additionally, one of our friends teaches in New York public schools and knows Gabby — and she’s confirmed what you see on TV is indeed what you get with her: she’s good people, as they say, and has seemingly not let any of the Oscar and other attention go to her head.
So, we like Gabby, and we want her to succeed. We were rooting for her to do very well on SNL this weekend, but when we watched the episode on Hulu yesterday, we had to admit what a poor job she did as host.
She’s young and very inexperienced, so her performance was like watching someone from high school drama class host the program. She forgot many of her lines and giggled through the bulk of her sketches. It was cute, in a way, like watching a good friend or a little old lady with no acting experience get the chance to randomly host the show, after winning a contest — but Gabby’s no Miskell Spillman.
We really enjoyed seeing her in the sketches, in the way we’d also enjoy seeing our friend Abbey’s baby, Lil’ Remy, up on the stage dancing around, being in skits, and taking part in the community center’s follies. We’d clap and laugh and would tell anyone who listened how great Lil’ Remy was, because we couldn’t care less about the quality of the performance or production. Our goal from the beginning was to cheer for Lil’ Remy, and to tell the world he was simply THE. BEST. THING. EVER. Because Abbey’s our dear friend. Lil’ Remy, son of Abbey, is thus our dear friend, and anyone who doesn’t think his performance as “Rumple” in a Wiz-inspired, hippity hop version of Rumplestiltskin is just daft.
Or, according to Ken Tucker over at Entertainment Weekly, RAAACIST!, no doubt.
Here’s the deal.
Tucker’s catching some surprising heat for praising Sidibe’s lackluster, unprofessional and disappointing performance on SNL this weekend. So much so that after he wrote a glowing review of her hosting gig, he got enough blowback that he had to write a second post trying to justify his decision to lavish so much praise on an undeserving performance.
It seriously was like us writing a review of “Rumple”, calling it the greatest piece of theater in the world, just because Lil’ Remy was in it…and then having people call us out on our bias.
In our case, we would rightly be accused of having blinders on, since our good friends were involved in the production, and we couldn’t fairly judge what we saw because we were too focused on praising Lil’ Remy.
With Tucker, it’s very clear he’s a Liberal who’s been trained never to say a critical word about a black person.
That would be blasphemy to him.
And, knowing the Left and how it operates under Alinsky’s rules, perhaps Tucker’s afraid of mobs with torches heading to his condo, or of the Race Industry targeting him the way Islam declares fatwas on anyone who draws pictures of Muhammed.
It’s a crime against the religion of Liberalism to admit a black person did anything wrong, failed at anything, or just didn’t measure up.
As nice of a person as Gabourey Sidibe is, and as much as we wanted her to succeed, she fell flat on her face on Saturday. More bluntly, she stunk the place up. Then giggled about it.
But, Tucker instead pretends he watched an episode of SNL aired in an alternate-dimension, where the black host blew everyone’s socks off and delivered a bravo performance unparalleled in the history of SNL hosting. The Emmy’s might as well be canceled, because in 90 minutes on the air this last Saturday, according to Tucker, Sidibe has qualified herself to win every possible award, including those invented just for her (and for the sake of “diversity”). Apparently, her performance was so great that it’s been readied for theatrical release, so she can finally win the Oscar Tucker must feel Sidibe was robbed of (by that RAAACIST Sandra Bullock, no doubt, who done stole it from the black girl).
All of this reminds us of the time one of us worked for a major hotel chain in Cleveland, and saw first hand the racism corporate America employs in the name of diversity.
There was a young front office manager named Keisha who never did anything right, who was rude, abrasive, and made all the wrong calls with guests. She had no tact, zero common sense, and generally caused more problems than she resolved. Under her tenure, the employee and guest satisfaction scores dropped precipitously, as no one liked dealing with her and her job performance was abysmal.
BUT, Keisha was black. She was recruited from a hospitality training school by the company and fast-tracked into management because corporate wanted more black women working for them in management positions — since 99% of black women receiving paychecks by this lodging giant wore housekeeping uniforms.
So, short of murdering someone, Keisha was guaranteed an executive-level position within five years, since every year, on the anniversary of her hire, she’d be promoted up one management grade, regardless of if she did a good job or not. Her supervisors were prevented from giving her poor evaluations. She could not be criticized or disciplined for anything. She was the Golden Child…because her skin was darker than more qualified and deserving men and women who were passed over for her job so that corporate could promote its “diversity agenda”.
This sure feels like what Ken Tucker at Entertainment Weekly is up to as well.
There aren’t many black hosts of Saturday Night Live in a given year…with fewer still black women.
Tucker might not even realize he’s doing this, but it feels like he doesn’t want to objectively judge Sidibe’s performance because he does not want to attack one of the few black female hosts in SNL’s history. So, she gets not only a pass, but rapturous applause. Just for showing up and not throwing up all over herself.
Sound familiar?
It’s essentially the same pass Obama gets on everything as well. The Left has long wanted a black president, and would have been happy picking one from the phone book. So long as that person’s — well, who are we kidding, that MAN’S, because the Left wouldn’t support a woman in the White House no matter her race — skin color was somewhere between cocoa and tan on the Ralph Lauren paints chart, no criticism or critical evaluation would ever be allowed.
All of this bar-lowering and standard-dropping, in the end, hurts only black people, ironically enough.
It’s like going to see a lavish Broadway show, and having one set of expectations there…and then going to see Lil’ Remy in “Rumple”, in a community theater production that’s lackluster and poorly staged. Clearly, a theater critic wouldn’t judge “Rumple” by the standards of “Billy Elliot”, because “Rumple” is light years below the quality and caliber of a Broadway production, which is the theater gold standard.
When Tucker applauds black actors like Gabourey Sidibe for being able to remember most of her lines and not pass out from the excitement of being on stage, and treats her performance as momentous when it (disappointingly) was not, then what he’s saying is that black people should be judged by a lesser standard than other more capable individuals out there. Tucker, and Liberals like him, see blacks as inferior to others in our society — so much so that they should be patted on the head and cheered for doing the most basic things.
In a cooking competition, Tucker would be ready to award the prize to the chef with the darkest skin before he tasted any of the food. If that black chef managed to get his chef’s coat on, even inside out, and somehow figured out how to put his hat on, and remembered to bring one or two of his knives and maybe a green pepper and some salt, Tucker would dig into that sliced, salty pepper and declare it PHENOMENAL! His rave review would place the culinary genius of the black chef head and shoulders above whatever complex gastronomic creations competing chefs prepared, just because Tucker, from the beginning, wanted the black chef to win.
But, does the black chef REALLY win when Liberals like Tucker lavish high awards on them for mendacity?
Keisha has no talent whatsoever for the hotel business. She’s probably a high-paid executive right now, though, with absolutely no clue in hell in how to do her job. This is a publicly traded company that will most likely suffer some sort of serious loss in the future should Keisha ever be put in charge of anything really important. A disaster will come, and fingers will be pointed, and there’s a good chance the men in suits who destined her rise to the top will never realize how stupid they were to praise Keisha for talent she did not have, just so they could be PC and “diverse” as a corporation, instead of taking her to task and developing what skills she had and truly nurturing her abilities.
You don’t challenge people to rise to greatness if you never challenge them.
You don’t help Gabourey Sidibe become a great actress if you jump up and down on your couch cheering a lackluster performance — with all the believability of Tom Cruise singing the praises of heterosexuality to Oprah.
It’s time for America to truly redefine what it sees as “racist”.
The Al Sharpton/Henry Gates/Jesse Jackson/wailing in the streets definition of “racism” is limiting someone’s opportunities because that person is black (since, to these Race Industry hustlers, black people are the only ones whom racism can be used against).
Another take on “racism” is giving someone a complete pass in life because that person is black, and treating that person with special status and lowered expectations because, on some level, you must believe that person is not capable, intelligent, or talented enough to compete fair and square on a level playing field with non-blacks.
We’ve known for years how RAAACIST! Liberals truly are. They see blacks as pets — a cause for them to rally for, to pet on the head when they deem them good, and props to prove their devotion to the cult of Liberalism.
If Tucker truly saw a young black woman as his equal, he would have demanded the same performance out of her that he’d expect out of Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, or any of the other women that were nominated for an Oscar this year alongside her.
Instead, he lowered his standards from Oscar-winning leading ladies to what we’d essentially expect of children singing, dancing, and bebopping in “Rumple” somewhere at a community theater in Lakewood, Ohio.
That makes Ken Tucker, and Entertainment Weekly, hella RAAACIST in our books.
David "Popcorn" Kernell Trial Watch: Day Five
What’s the latest on Obama operative David “Popcorn” Kernell’s trial?
Last we heard, the defense has decided not to put Kernell himself on the stand — largely, it seems, because Kernell doesn’t seem able to control himself when speaking in public. He can’t resist the urge to slam the Palins, and thinks he’s too cool for school. Not a good combination in the witness box.
So, if his entire defense strategy was to sit up there, with Boticelli locks a-curled, and puppy dog eyelashes a-batting, then his legal eagles better move on to Strategy Number B.
Have you gleamed any new insights into the trial?
Do share.
Who's Dressed Better? The First Lady, or Keeley's 5th Birthday Cake?
Who looks better in a ridiculous gown?
The current First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, or Keeley’s 5th birthday cake?
Tuesday Open Thread: April 27th, 2010
What’s on your minds this Tuesday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
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How should a parent approach a suspected gay son (without mortifying or embarrassing him)?
This essay is a little unusual for us, in that it’s in response to a direct request from a longtime reader asking us for what we would have liked our parents to do when they realized that each of us is gay.
We debated for a while here at Buzzquarters on how to answer this, because none of us here are psychologists, none of us are experts on child development, and none of us are parents. As such, we are definitely not comfortable telling any of you what to do in raising your children — we don’t know you personally, and we don’t know your children, so we think it’s dangerous for anyone to say, “Do this”, “Don’t do that”, “Here’s your recipe for rainbow-coated parenting success”.
So, while we must be clear that we’re not telling anyone what to do with their sons, we want to reply to the reader’s request and give you our personal experiences with this topic. We have four unique case studies on parents’ reactions to their gay sons, each one a little (or a lot) different. These are things we probably never would have shared if not asked directly by a reader, but the more we talked about it together, the more we decided that if sharing these insights helped one mom or dad out there relate to their gay son better, and that in turn helped a young gay guy out there avoid what some of us went through, then there’s no way we couldn’t respond to this query with everything we’ve got. Getting very personal, here goes, the answer to the title question in this post, provided by our individual experiences.
David "Popcorn" Kernell Trial Watch: Day Four
If Janeane Garofalo is the best you can do for legal support, your corn's gonna get popped at trial, buddy.
What’s the latest on the trial of Obama operative, and son of a self-proclaimed “Obamacrat” and Tennessee state rep, David “Popcorn” Kernell?
The defense is supposed to have its turn this week, trying to convince jurors Popcorn’s just “a wacky college student, up to pranks and shenanigans”.
Do you think it will fly?
While we doubt Kernell will go to prison for 50 years, as we’d like him to, we do believe he’ll end up with some prison time for what he did. 2-5 years is what we are guessing — which means, even with parole, time served, and good behavior, he’ll have to spend at least a year or so locked up with Big Bads and McNasties.
Where he, and all Obamacrats actually, belong.
Who else thinks Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and others in the Obama Administration will find themselves in jail come 2011 or so, once Republicans take back Congress and the pay-to-play schemes and other bribes perpetrated by this White House come to light when the investigations start.
Maybe Popcorn can give them some tips on how to survive prison life.
George W. Bush's post-presidential memoir, "Decision Points", to be released November 9th, 2010
Former President George W. Bush’s post-presidential memoir, Decision Points, will be released on November 9th, 2010.
We can’t wait to read it.
One of our goals this summer is to find a way to thank “Dubya” in person for all he did as our president — including his strength and determination after 9/11 and for doing more for AIDS funding and research than any president before him. Though we didn’t agree with him on everything, and didn’t appreciate him while he was in office, we’ve come to really respect the man — and, dare we say, miss him — in this the Golden Age of Hope and Change.
Are you excited to read his book?
What are the best political memoirs you’ve ever read?
Who's Dressed Better? The Current First Lady, or Romulans?
Click above to embiggen.
Who wears Romulan battle uniforms better?
The current First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, or actual Romulans?
