Witchy Women, and the Men Who Love Them

MUSIC +++ FILM +++ SPORT +++ PHOTO +++ LINK +++ POORLY REASONED POLITICAL OPINION AND STUPID JOKE

THTR
So, just to share with you a little anecdote:

The other day I'm at this New Year's party -- filled with government-types and local dignitaries, actually, plus two six foot-odd queens in red pantent leather drag, God bless this town -- and I fall into a conversation with another gay gentleman and his partner about my time in Atlanta, and whether it would be very oppressive for people like them to live there.

To sum up, I agree that the thinking man must write off glacier-sized chunks of the local sapien fauna to survive in comfort; still, I point out, not only is Atlanta, next to San Francisco, the gayest city in the nation -- really -- but it's also got scads of commerce, culture, traffic, and the rest of it, not to mention bundles of Mexicans, Mexicants, Ethiopes, Chinamen and -women, and Original Hippies, all of which amount to five times the population we have in our precious worldly and diverse Don't Call It Frisco.

None of this being the point of today's entry, but just FYI. At this point, feeling I've talked enough about myself and the things I think I know, I ask the fellow what he does. He gets a little queeny on me, unabashedly, in describing his practice as a voice coach and sometime opera singer, preferring, he insists, on sharing the stage with no one.

The last thing he worked on, he says, was a highly successful musical called Wiccan. You know, he says, about the lives of witches.

A musical about Wiccan? Vegetarian lesbians being pulled through the air on second-rate suspension wires, straddling broomsticks and yodeling about sisterhood with the Earth and the ritual burning of Lady Gillettes?

You remember, the musical, Wiccan, about the witches... I decline to suppress a chuckle, and press him about the production.

No, no, he corrects me. "WICKED." From the Wizard of Oz.

Oh. Yeah, I saw that one.

2K6
Have a happy new year yourself. Here's hoping it's less interesting (read: shitty) than 2005.

POL
Abramaoff cops twice (DC; FLA): Good start. Word is they cut him a deal (I was repulsed at first, then realized any jail time at all is much worse than he's prepared for; he got eight years for the DC bit) so they could get to as many as twenty congressmen.

Good thing we got all those Republicans into power, to keep the scope of the federal government from getting out of hand.

Oh, and if you're reading this, federal government: thanks for stopping by again. Help yourself to some candy on the way out, and say hello to your lovely wife for me.

MR

QWTOFDY
This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education..: You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't."
-David Foster Wallace