Spring Awakening: A new musical

So last night, Eric and I went to see Spring Awakening: A new musical at Wharton Center on MSU. We bought the tix back in August after seeing an advertisement while being at Wharton to see Wicked. The ad said rock and roll and exploring sexuality which are both cool for theatre. We thought that it would be like Rent and we love Rent.

Going into it we did not know much about it. There were quite a few suprises. Just before I bought the tix I had gone online to find examples of the songs to see if it was any good. The titles got me. Some of the songs are "The bitch of living" and "Totally fucked". The musical is actually based on a very controversial play written in 1891 by Frank Wedekind. It was not performed for 100 years because it was so controversial and modern at the time. It is about teens exploring sexuality and dealing with puberty. Very interesting.

The first suprise was during one part of the play one of the characters starts jacking off. Fun. Then he sings while doing it. Next when two characters go to have sex the guy opens her shirt and there is a boob out for all to see. Then he actually kisses and touches it (I turned red). Then they proceed to have pretend sex with his butt showing, at least I think it was pretend sex. That was the end of act 1 so the audience had to look at each other and try not to be embarrassed. :) The beginning of Act2 involved that same scene in repeat, so more boobie. LOL. Then later on there is a make out scene with two boys.

Also one of the main characters Moritz was played by Blake Bashoff who was Karl, Alex's boyfriend in "Lost". Pretty cool. He was an amazing singer.

Overall, it was a very good musical. It deals with a lot of big issues besides sexuality like suicide, child abuse and a little s&m even. We had fun.

RNC Taking It to the Street!

I can't be alone in thinking the new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele sounds like a complete tool when he says things like the following:

“We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

Yea, cause the first thing I think of when I think of hip-hop artists is people who are interested in "family values" and "respecting the law".

He added, jokingly, that “we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”

And after a comment like that, I say "Good Luck with the one-armed midgets".

Steele described the new multi-platform PR offensive as “avant-garde, technically. It will come to [the] table with things that will surprise everyone — off the hook.”

"Off the hook" hasn't been the hip slang for at least 5 years. Please don't say that again.

Asked whether that meant cutting-edge tactics, Steele demurred. “I don't do 'cutting-edge,’” he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

Oh great. You're a tool AND a marketing weinie. I bet you ask people to give "110%" as well. Actually, you probably ask them to give 120%, because 110% is what "the Democrats are doing".

My new favorite song!

Maybe a good lullabye... ;) I love this song, in rock form anyway. I like when rap is made into rock. SO much better that way.

More Motivational Posters

Yet more proof I should move to Denmark

The Economist: How people in various countries view the theory of evolution

The image from this article depresses me (Click to see a larger version)



Even worse is this stat from the article:

In 2008 14% of people polled by Gallup agreed that “man evolved over millions of years”, up from 9% in 1982.

I have a long, angry post about how completely insane this is and some comments about people thinking that fossils were put there by the devil, but I'm too tired to type it all out. Fill in your own angry thoughts here.

Comcast's not the Only Company Offering a Rebate

MSNBC: Pink Visual Offers Compensation for 'Superbowl Porn' Mishap

You've got to love a porn company that can make a joke:

Adult entertainment studio Pink Visual announced today that it is offering its Tucson, Arizona-area customers $10 off subscriptions to its flagship mobile and "mega pass" adult sites to compensate Comcast customers who might have wanted to see the rest of the porn movie that interrupted Sunday's Superbowl broadcast.

"We feel really bad for the customers that were just getting into it when Comcast rudely switched back to the football game before the clip could really get going," joked Kim Kysar, brand and product manager for Pink Visual...

"Having seen the clip which interrupted the Superbowl uncensored and uncut, I can imagine that many fans were left wanting to see a lot more of Evan Stone," Kysar said. "Perhaps they even wished they had access to a private, mobile adult site where they could get a bit of 'alone time' to get fired up after the game, and to release the frustration they felt after watching Arizona lose in the game's final seconds."