Saturday, September 15, 2007

Express Lane: Issue 36

Kanye: MTV exploited Britney for ratings - Too bad MTV didn't have a "No Shit Sherlock" Award... I think we'd have a winner. (9/11/07)

Davenport plays first singles match in almost 1 year ... 3 months after giving birth (!!!) ... and easily defeats a Top 40 ranked player!   Mamma Mia, indeed! (9/11/07)

Emmys will censor Kathy Griffin's "suck it, Jesus" speech - Kath must be loving this!  The AP won't even print what she said, E! will censor her speech when they televise the Creative Arts Emmys, and the Catholic League is demanding an apology!  (9/11/07)

Jennifer Hudson moves to "Sex and the City" movie - From 'Dreamgirl' to Carrie Bradshaw's assistant, sounds like a demotion... but probably not too bad of a gig for the Oscar winner. (9/11/07)

MTV Sets Broadcast Date for 'Legally Blonde' - Pretty unusual... a TV broadcast of musical currently on Broadway (and at a decent 80%+ capacity)... and someone other than PBS doing it.  (9/10/07)

Kathy Griffin wins Emmy - After last year's profanity-laced losing tirade last year, Kathy tells Jesus to "suck it" in this year's acceptance speech as the Queen of the D-List takes home the prize for Outstanding Reality Program (Non-Competition). (9/10/07)

Monday, June 18, 2007

Getting off the D-List?

What do Paula Abdul, Barbara Walters, Paris Hilton and Larry King have in common?

They were all major targets of Kathy Griffin's stand-up act on Saturday night... and I'm thinking she might have to re-think the whole D-list thing! 

When you are performing in a theater that require video screens on both sides of the stages so everyone can see you... you are starting to move up the alphabetic status list.  The last time we saw Kathy in Arizona (almost two years ago), she played a tiny intimate theater in Tucson... and now even Kathy (and her people) seemed genuinely impressed that she sold out Phoenix's Dodge Theater... it's a flexible seating venues, but I am guessing a crowd of nearly 3,000.  And while her beloved "gays" were certainly out in force, it didn't have quite the "is this a comedy show or a gay bar?" feel of that previous show.  I would almost say the crowd was primarily women ("girls night out" sort of thing), the gays, and quite a good ratio of hetero couples.

We did have this quite darling young 20-something gay couple (ah, youth!) a couple of rows ahead of us.  A concert/show is pretty much a gadget event... cell phones, digital cameras, and various combinations of the two keep everyone quite entertained with themselves before a show these days.  These two guys attracted quite a bit of that media attention with their "Team Kathy" shirts.... with one have "Kathy's Whore" and "Kathy's Bitch" emblazoned across their backs... ah, times they are a changin'!

There's no sense trying to go into her nearly 2-hour routine... she had the audience rolling... only losing the audience for a mere millisecond during an American Idol backstage story, when she said she missed seeing Sanjaya walk by because he was eclipsed by our home-town girl Jordin Sparks and her flowy dress. Oh, she did more than suggest (allegedly!) that a certain beat-boxing contestant may be a part of a segment of her core audience... hmmm?!   

Kathy also briefly mentioned the death of her father ... which will be addressed in this week's episode of My Life on the D-List.  She mentioned her thanks for all the kind words that have been left on her website and that she has received in person.  Certainly the break-out stars of this reality show, the crowd gave father John a well-deserved ovation.

She ended her night of comedy with some backstage dish on The View... the morning ABC gal gabfest that she has recently been guest hosting (pre- and post- Rosie, who she had nothing but nice words for).  I think Kathy may actually be gunning for a permanent spot, she was just a wee bit more careful with the Barbara Walters, who she admits she loves to tease (and she does if you have seen her on the show), than some of her other focal points.  Nevertheless, even if she does land the job, Kathy predicts a tenure of about three weeks.

... and a gig on The View would start edging her off the D-List as well... plus she's becoming a Larry King favorite too (Programming note: she will be on again later this week!  Thursday?)!   Kathy called Larry, the oldest person she's ever met... who spends his time yelling and firing people during commercial breaks and, even after two appearances on the show, she's not quite sure Larry knows who she is.

Monday, April 16, 2007

"A-List" Charges & Fees

Like a dutiful gay man, this morning I purchased tickets for Kathy Griffin's June show here in Phoenix.

I was pleasantly surprised the tickets were only $30 or $40 a piece.  We have been known to pay some astronomical prices to see our favorite gay-cons... so even Kathy would agree that her ticket prices are pretty D-list (heck anything under 3-digits seems to qualify as that these day)!

I am on TicketMaster and put in my "best available, somewhat centered" seat preference request... only $30 seats popped up... but not too bad (rear orchestra)... so what they heck, it's comedy show and not something that needs to be appreciated close-up (no offense Kath!).   

I go through the check-out process, but still a bit shocked by the final figure... call me silly, but for some reason I think it's going to be approximately $60... but then there's a...

facility charge fee + convenience fee + order processing fee...

Ok, convenience fee is fine... kids these days will never appreciate what we used to have to go through to get tickets to a live event.  I definitely don't miss the days of actually having to leave the house to go to a ticket booth or stay at home and hit re-dial and listen to buzzy signals for hours on end... or worse yet, be "tricked" into thinking I got through but instead receiving that "all lines are busy, try your call again later" operator message. Granted this likely would not have been an issue today (sorry again Kath!), but when everything was tallied up...

Those three items tacked 45% onto the face value of the ticket (actually 45.9%!)!  Now, it's not like we can't afford it or that I wouldn't have bought the tickets at the ultimate price... but it still struck me as slightly outrageous.

I guess the fees have no correlation to the ticket price ... it's just that when we're paying hundreds of dollars for tickets the additional charges seem like the proverbial drop in the bucket.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

When Larry Met Kathy

(Originally posted 7/10/06)

griffinJust a shout-out to my fellow Kathy Griffin "gays" (and non-gays, too!), the Larry King interview that was set to air last week is being showing this evening... Monday, July 10th (check your local listings/airs multiple times).  CNN pre-empted that show after some rogue nation in southeast Asia decided to fire off some missiles. Go figure?!?

If you haven't heard, in this interview, Griffin accuses her ex(?)-hubby Matt of... to borrow one of Kathy's favorite words... allegedly... stealing $72,000 from her.

Now, okay... I have to admit I am confused as the next gay about this one.  Last October, we saw Kathy live shortly after the "divorce" news broke... she seemed sincerely bummed about the whole thing.  Fast-forward to Season 2 of the D-List and the two appear happy and "reconciled"... now comes word, via this Larry King Live interview, that they were allegedly divorced in May and Matt allegedly just showed up at the house before Bravo camera crews arrived for filming.

But then I got thinking... a) this is reality television and b) this is Kathy Griffin.  So a) reality television is never "real" and, for the most part, totally manufactured and edited for entertainment purposes... and b) Kathy has basically told (or shown us) us time and time again she'll do anything to get attention/media coverage.  So I'll take any futher "developments" in this story with the proverbial grain of salt... and landing a full-hour on the nation's leading "news" channel is certain a coup for Griffin.   

So we'll see how it all shakes out this evening... if warranted, look for an update to this post or a whole new post tomorrow.  I am just looking forward to Kath making Larry chuckle very uncomfortably with her dissing of the A-List celebs that Larry so covets... and hopefully there'll be more on one of Griffin's favorite targets, Star Jones, and her recent appearance on LKL.

UPDATE (7/11/06):  Ok, I really don't know what to believe after watching the show.  Kath didn't appear terribly comfortable talking about herself or the break-up... and it was my least favorite part of the interview.  To add to the rumor mill (get out your salt-shaker, this comes via the Star), our local newspaper reports this morning that Griffin expected Matt to pay half of the household expenses and, with his inability to do that via his computer business, that was the reason he "stole" the money. 

So who the heck knows. I, for one, honestly do not care.  I would have been satisfied with a "we tried, but it's just didn't work out" ...  it is easy to be cynical speculate about motivation (I stand by what I said above).  The rest of the interview was classic Kathy and hilarious... so let's just get back to dissin' celebs and life on the D-list, even it's as a single woman.

If you can't get enough of this story... there is plenty more blogger chatter:

Larry King Live - Interview Transcript

kenneth in the (212): Kathy Griffin: D-List Confessional

towleroad: Kathy Griffin and "The Gays" on Larry King Live

The Malcontent: Life on the Divorced List (includes video highlights)

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Bright Light City Gonna Set My Soul...

Gonna Set My Soul On Fire!

Yes, the opening lines of "Viva Las Vegas" are already echoing through my head... in less than 24 hours we should be in Sin City for the ump-teenth time.  If you really want to know how dorky I am about it, on the drive into town of late, I have had the song queued and ready to go as we round the corner and get our first glimpse of the Strip.

As mentioned this was supposed to be a business trip, unfortunately due to a family emergency the business people we (my business partner is going as well) were supposed to meet up with had to cancel..  So anyhow, we are still meeting up with each other for dinner... pretty comically now, hundreds of miles away now when we could just have dinner 15 minutes away from each other any day of the week!

We are excited about the couple of shows we have booked (Gladys Knight and Avenue Q), but otherwise it is a pretty open book... since we go to Vegas pretty frequently we have pretty much seen e everything... though we will have our first look a Wynn Las Vegas.  Gambling-wise, I am not as stoked as usual.  Having just been in Atlantic City last month... and not doing well at all on the video poker machines... my enthusiasm to lose more cash is not very high... but who knows, I tend to break fairly even over the long haul, so hopefully my luck will turn and I will be able to re-gain some of those losses.

Since we won't be back until Sunday afternoon... there are some of my celebrity "stud" birthdays that will pass by... there are some good ones ... so I didn't want to let the visuals sneak by... so here we go:

A very busy November 4th... Jeff Probst, Kathy Griffin, and Matthew McConaughy!

nov4

Hmmm... how I would love to be Kathy in that above sandwich!

For the record:  Jeff snuffs out torch #43... my new favorite comedian Kathy turns 44... and Matt "is that a toothbrush in your mouth" McCon is still holding up quite fine at age 36.

And Scott-O would not be happy if I let this November 5th birthday go by unnoted:

nov4

In what has to be his most popular picture of him on the Internet, Javy Lopez turns 35.   Javy was a long time catcher (don't even get me started on the pitcher-catcher double entendres!) for the Atlanta Braves but now plays for Baltimore.  Javy Happy Birthday!

See you next week with another Vegas trip report (whether you like it or not)!

Monday, October 17, 2005

"D"-lightful Surprise

griffinMy big Friday night birthday surprise from Todd were tickets to see Kathy Griffin!   I became an even bigger (huge!) fan of Ms. Griffin during her Bravo reality series My Life On the D-List, so you might be wondering why exactly I couldn't figure out that we were going to see her?!

Well, the show was out of town! 

About a month (??) or so ago, I looked up Kathy's tour dates on her website.  The closest she was going to be to Phoenix was Tucson... but since it is about a 1.5 hour drive each way... I didn't even bother to look at the date (or the day of the week).  So Todd gets big brownie points, (a) for picking up on it (honestly, I was not intentionally dropping a hint... and I am more than willing to admit when I do!), (b) tracking it down, (c) realizing that we could swing it on a Friday night... (d) that it was conveniently around my birthday... and (e) keeping it a secret for an extended period of time!

Kathy was just great!  She came out wearing a shower cap after Tucson was hit with a freaky deluge of  rain... saying that she had perfected her bangs and didn't want to ruin her hair. 

With an stand-up act that is largely based on celebrity foibles and misfortune, I have to give Kathy credit for almost immediately putting her own impending divorce out there. She did not linger on it, and seemed genuinely depressed about it... but hoped getting out on the road would help her get through this tough time.  The cheering (dare I even say... raucous!) audience certainly did not let her down.

It was a very gay crowd... I told Todd that I thought every gay person in Tucson must have been there (along w/ some of us from Phoenix).  But with Kathy flip-flopping between adoring and mocking (destroying!) pop culture icons, it only makes sense that she has a big gay following... and as a D-Lister she is also has the "outside looking in" perspective.  So her humor is right up my alley... and we agreed that I certainly could be one of Kathy's "gays"... though I am sure I can just get in line with probably a million other gay men who think the same thing.

If you have seen Kathy, you know this chick has some balls... just fearless!  Her biggest targets of the night included Tom Cruise (he has gone so whacko even the gays don't want him), her former E! red carpet colleague Star Jones (she said Ms. Jones upcoming book on finding love should just be titled "How To Make It Work With A Gay Guy"), and celebrity/right winger Patricia Heaton.  I was particuarly thrilled with the Heaton rant, since she really bugged the crap out of me going on Entertainment Tonight (or as Kathy calls it "the news") during the Terri Schiavo case... and even "big fish" like Oprah, Mel Gibson, and Republicans (You have the White House, the Senate, the House... so shut the f&ck up!) were not left unscathed.

Kathy puts on a very spontaneous show... if you saw the Bravo series, you know she comes out with her own notebook of brain-stormed notes of current hot topics.  I would guess you never get the same show from night to night and definitely get the feeling that you are meeting up with an old friend who has all this juicy gossip to tell you about.  At times, Kathy would just go off on tangents... holding out her hands and going "Oh wait... I have to tell you this!"  Even after doing nearly an hour and a half of material, the audience still seemed to want more.

So just a very fun evening and I don't think Todd could have come up with a more perfect (or fitting) gift... though it still kills me a bit that I didn't guess what it was (guessing right is one of my strengths). 

The rest of the weekend was fairly low key... which was totally fine... we are both still recovering from our East Coast trip and getting ready for the Vegas trip in a couple of weeks... and  flirting with some kind of head cold... so catching up on TiVo was a perfectly acceptable activity!

Oh, I do have to tell you about Saturday... I am on the verge of a *major* splurge... which, the more I think about it, really smacks of an impending mid-life crisis... stay tuned!

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