R.I.P., Golden Girl

Actress Rue McClanahan passed away this morning after suffering a stroke. Most people knew her as Blanche from The Golden Girls, but what a lot of people don't know is that before she started acting professionally , Rue McClanahan was trained in dance her whole life (On a "Lifetime Portrait" TV program, Ms. McClanahan stated that she did "toe and tap" and showed pictures of her dancing en pointe). Her dance training showed up in her acting-- McClanahan had an excellent sense of physical comedy and body language on-screen. She also brought her dancing abilities onto 'The Golden Girls,' performing tap dances or ballroom dances in several episodes.

A full article about McClanahan's passing on People Weekly's website can be found here.

Rest in Peace, Blanche Devereaux. Have a spiffy eternity.

Yet Another Blog Post About Dead People

(Wow, I am a HIT at parties)

Today's blog post is brought to you by the letters W, T, and F.

Pina Bausch died today. What the--? Are you serious? I told you, famous people, quit dying already.

(That said, it was pointed out to me that this was probably my fault, since my last post was titled "Rocks fall, everyone dies." Oh, whatever.)

Anyway, in honor of Pina Bausch/because I am a gigantic fan of Le Sacre du Printemps, let's watch a movie in her honor:

(Yay, awesome)

Also: my old dance company did a project that was loosely inspired by her Fur die Kinder von Gestern, Heute und Morgen. I don't have a copy of the video, but I assure you that it was both awesome and amazingly fun.

There's also this great video from dancemedia.com. Oh, and guess what? That music that they're dancing to at the very beginning? That was the music for my Caterpillar dance. Whee! And, while you're at it: Here's a great story about Pina from Guardian.co.uk.

Hey... remember how yesterday, I blogged about a possible Michael Jackson tribute? Well, it's going to take place this Thursday (July 2nd-- as in, two days from now) at Discovery Green Park from 6-8pm. My very-awesome friend and colleague LP will be teaching the "Thriller" dance. It's sponsored by Discovery Green, Dance Houston, DSH, and A Certain Dance Company that A Certain Blogger happens to perform with. If you live in Houston and are cool, I expect you to be there. Come on, it'll be fun!

That's all I have for today, folks; and I'm off to bed. I would appreciate it if nobody else died between today and tomorrow. Thanks!

My Week in Fifteen: "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies."

It's been a pretty slow week here at Upstage Left, so there's not too much to report. Let's see:

1. First off: A lot of people died. Many were killed in a DC Train Wreck; and after that Farrah Fawcett/Michael Jackson/Billy Mays all kicked the bucket in quick succession. Every news station here is covering Celebrity Death Epidemic. STOP DYING, FAMOUS PEOPLE.

2. Our company director and one of my fellow dancers may be organizing a Michael Jackson tribute sometime in the near future. Stay tuned for details on that.

3. Also, that Fellow Dancer I just mentioned? She got engaged last weekend. Hooray! Congratulations, LP. :)

4. Had several fairly-good ballet classes this week (yay!).

5. Took up jogging. Promptly became the proud owner of Really Sore Calf Muscles. Ouch.

6. Used aforementioned Sore Calves as an excuse to not do pointework all week. Am lazy, y'all.

7. Dancehunter finally joined Twitter, and the twitterites of the Houston Arts Scene were happy.

8. Several dance blogs-- including Dance Outlook , Ballet Shoes and Pointe Shoes, Dance Advantage, and this very blog-- are are finding our posts duplicated at Choreography Blog.

9. I wrote ChoreoBlo an e-mail, saying "Look: if you want to repost my stuff, that's fine, as long as you link me or run my byline." They're still copy-pasting my stuff, but now they're linking back to this website. I can live with that.

10. Amazingly enough, I still haven't gotten a Cease & Desist Order for this. Whee.

11. Apparently, I'm going to (finally) (Finally.) (FINALLY!) set my piece called Last Night. I've only been trying to set this dance since 2004, so YAY!

12. As I write this, I'm watching The Simpsons on TV and-- in memory of Mike Jackson/because The Simpsons is awesome-- I feel that I must encourage all of you to "do the Bartman."

13. Am I the only one who routinely dances around to The Simpsons' theme music? What? I am? Good God.

14. You know it's been a slow week when all you have to report is dead people, Twitter, blog-plagiarizing, and The Simps. Now I feel lame, so.... here's your moment of Zen:

15. "ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES."

That's all she wrote, folks. Have a great week!

Off- Topic Tuesday: Rest in Peace, dear one.

It's been a sad week for my fellow bloggers and fellow Pennsylvanians: last Friday, the world (and the blogosphere) lost a great writer. Lisa Kelly, aka "Clusterfook," of Birdsboro, PA passed away on Friday after three seperate battles with ovarian cancer. Yes, you read that right: THREE. And through it all she remained funny, smart, interesting, at times heartbreakring, yet always lovely in her writing. Amazing!

She's dead and people like me still walk the planet blogosphere planet. VERY FUNNY, GOD.

I'm praying hard-core for her family right now; that goes without saying. I'd give a donation myself if I wasn't currently swimming in Lake HolycrapIambroke. I am almost considering calling up Mama Butterfly and making her go to the funeral for me, but I know she has to work at that time (Plus she would probably ask if I was drunk, because that's always her reaction when I ask her to attend functions for/in memory of people she doesn't know on my behalf. Some might argue this is not unreasonable).

Please be in prayer. R.I.P., Clusterfook: you will be missed. We love you.

"We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution."

HERE BE STRONG LANGUAGE. Please advise.

William Melvin "Bill" Hicks (1961 ~ 1994) was, in my not-so-humble opinion, the greatest comedian of all time. One of my best friends introduced me to Hicks on the day we met and I've been hooked ever since. Hicks passed away 15 years ago today after battling pancreatic cancer, so in the grand tradition of Off-Topic Tuesday Thursday I'm going to share some of my favorite Hicks material with you.

First, here's a little background: Hicks (who liked to call himself "Noam Chomsky with dick jokes") was born in Valdosta, Georgia on December 16th, 1961 and moved to Houston when he was seven years old. He appeared on Letterman a total of twelve times; his last appearance on the show (October 1st,1993) was cut from the show-- the only time a comic's entire routine was deleted after taping. On January 30th, 2009, David Letterman not only interviewed Hick's mother (Mary Reese Hicks) on his show, but aired Hick's banned comedy segment from fifteen years earlier. Hicks fans all over the globe just about shrieked with glee. You can view the interview here, here, and here. It's epic on many levels, and Mrs. Hicks is quite funny herself.

Now: "Let's do some comedy. I always like to add some comedy to my show." (Rant in E-Minor) Here we go:

From Arizona Bay (1992; possibly my all-time favorite Hicks album):
- "Boy, I love talkin' about the Kennedy Assassination, man. That's my favorite
topic. You know why? . . . Because for me it's a great archetypal example of how the totalitarian government who rules this planet partitions out information in such a way that we, the masses, are forced to base our conclusions on erroneous-
Oh, I'm sorry, wrong meeting. I thought this was the meeting uh . . . at the docks, no? Oh, shit. That's tomorrow night...."
"... everyone followed that, that's the frightening fuckin' thing! God damn it, are we that fucking cynical? 'Yes, we are. We can take any blow you give us, GO! We, too, will be at the meeting at the docks, you fucker!'"
- "I saw footage over there [in London] of the Rodney King trial. I think I figured out why the L.A. riots occurred. Did you guys see these cops testifyin', man? Did these guys have balls, or what, man? These guys carry their balls in a wheelbarrow, man. . . . And I watch all the news reports, you know.
'Today Officer Coon, Officer Nigger Hater and Officer Keep Darkie Down were acquitted on all racist charges. Here's Tom with the weather.' 'Hi, Susie, it's 420 degrees Fahrenheit here in South Central L.A. right now. Probably a good time to get outta the fuckin' city, Susie. There's a gust of lead coming up Sunset.'"
- Another great thing about Hicks is that he was so far ahead of his time-- and even though most of his material is at least 15-20 years old, it could very well be relevant today. On the night of the election, I listened to this...and even though it was recorded in 1991, it perfectly described how every far-lefter in America was feeling on that night in 2008. Likewise, I often joke that I'm overjoyed that Obama is in the White House, yet I'm not used to having a president who isn't automatic joke fodder...and then, just today, I found this. I originally wanted to link it for "George Bush is gone, and along with him.....half of my fuckin' act;" but keep listening: it can easily describe America's political situation between November 2008 and...well... this afternoon. IT'S AWESOME.

From Rant in E-Minor (also 1992; my second favorite):
- "Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to No Sympathy Night. Welcome to You're Wrong Night."
- Billy Ray Cyrus was popular at the time this was recored; today Hannah Montana is at the top of the pop scene. Thus, this still feels entirely relevant.
- "I was over in Australia during Easter, which was interesting. Interesting to note they celebrate Easter the same way we do, commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus . . . by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit . . . left chocolate eggs in the night. I wonder why we're fucked up as a race."
- "'We're pro-life.'" 'Gee, you look it.' 'We're pro-life.' 'God, I wanna hang with you and PLAY TWISTER!'"

Also:
- Then comes the kicker: Say the alphabet — backwards. 'Well, shoot, you got me. I'm not drunk, but I'm obviously too stupid to be driving, God damn it.' This appears on Sane Man ('89) and in Love, Laughter, and Truth; you can hear the full skit here, and IT RULES (I've made many of my dancer buddies listen to this, and all of them have laughedvery hard ).
- "'God put [dinosaur fossils] here to test our faith!'... I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. Does that bother anybody else, the idea that GOD might be fucking with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge." (Revelations, '93)
- Possibly my all-time favorite: "There are dick jokes on the way, ladies and gentleman, please relax...Here's the deal: I editorialize for 40 minutes, the last 10 minutes, we pull our 'chutes and float down to Dick Joke Island together, okay? And we will rest our weary heads against the thick-veined trunks of dick jokes while we sit in our cushy bean-bag scrotum chairs and giggle away the dawn like any good American comedy-club audiences."

I could go on for DAYS, but this post is already quite lengthy and my butt needs to get to the studio. I'll leave you with this: Hick's last words on the Rant In E- Minor are a prayer...and when I found out that Rant happened to be the last album he recorded, I now cry every time I listen to this. Here it is, your moment of Zen for today (and here's more, if you want it):
"Oh my God! Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception that I may know only reality and only you . . .”

Rest in peace, Bill. We love you. Have yourself a damn spiffy eternity.

Off- Topic Tuesday: R.I.P.

It is with great regret that I inform you that Estelle Getty, the woman we all knew as Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls, passed away this morning in her home in Los Angeles. She was 84.

Let us all bow our heads and eat cheesecake in honor of television's favorite Sicilian.

And here's your related moment of Zen:
Sophia:...for instance, if someone sends a white flower, it means there has been a birth or a marriage; a black flower means there has been a death, and a dead rabbit means 'My husband knows, get out of town.'
Rose: Knows what?
Sophia: ...........The score to South Pacific, Rose.

EDIT: I've been informed that my above quote is misattributed-- it was actually from Dorothy. So, let's try this again:
Blanche: I am abhorred!
Sophia: We know what you are Blanche. I'm glad to finally hear you admit it.
Blanche: Sophia, I said "abhorred".
Sophia: A whore, a slut, a tramp, it's all the same.