This clip amused me a bit, especially since I am in it.

Look for me after Chaz answers the question about celebrity brothers. I'm in pod 26 in the stripey earthen shirt yelling "Mob! Mob! Mob!" and also in the audience wearing the same shirt with a black jacket over it. I have defied the laws of time and space.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

That would be way cooler, if I had walked away from that question with any cash.

I was inspired to look up this phrase after seeing the first half hour of I Know I'm Not Alone. The first ten minutes of the documentary are shared above.

And from the year I was born, an interview with John Lennon.

On the most recent episode of Iconoclasts , comedian Dave Chappelle met Doctor Maya Angelou and for the second time that show brought tears to my eyes. It was during a segment where Dr. Angelou told a story that happened on a movie set:

I'm supposed to be cleaning at the moment. There's a bunch of family flying into town this weekend. Also, I have to review the Calculus that I left behind in High School. Lot of work to do. Wish me luck!

At least Calculus is more fun than Cleaning.

This morning, I found a little clip on Film Threat. It's..a little ditty about how a certain director would re-furbish one of my favorite films.

George Lucas Presents: Singin' in the Rain!

Honestly, I couldn't help but laugh. I..feel that George Lucas refurbishing of his own movies is lame. It's his right to do so, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it. There's something about the grit of a low-budget flick.

Then someone pointed out this car commercial.

I watched it and my stomach churned a little bit. I can't say I was very pleased.

And lastly,..a friend..suggested that I use the phrase "leaders and followers" instead of "boys and girls" or "ladies and gentlemen" in my classes. This was my former position on the subject. I used to use those phrases, but to be honest, I don't care for..that terminology..in the context of my classes at Lindy Groove. That is to say, I make sure that the words lead and follow (I use them like both verbs and nouns) are introduced, but I generally start my classes by asking all the boys to seperate from the girls so that beginners are taught their roles from a traditional perspective.

Contrarily, I've been more than welcoming to women who are interested in leading and men who are interested in following to join my class, with the caveat that they should be aware of the comfort of the other members of the class. Considering how much I pushed for my own right to learn to follow, it would be hypocritical for me to suggest otherwise.

However, I don't feel that I must adhere to a Politically Correct standard in my classes. I want to make reference to groups of people by gender. I want to be able to tell a guy that it's "all about holding a pretty girl in his arms." For me to say "Leads, it's all about holding the Follow close to you" seems a bit more sterile, especially if I'm talking specifically to a bunch of guys. One on one, I'd like to hope that I tailor my language to fit the student's needs.

Now if a female student objects to being called a girl (or a lady), that's one thing. It's completely within their ability to say "hey! call me this or that" (at least up to the point where it becomes disruptive to the class) but more often than not, the female leads appear to understand that..I include them in my instruction even when I address the "boys." At least in my memory I've made sure to point out that they're always included. Beside that, no student has verbally objected to my phrasology, even when asked point-blank.

When (if ever) someone objects, I'd like to hope I'd consider their points. Until then, I've done all the considering I need. Time for me to teach.

Well, after I get done with the Cleaning and Calculus, anyway.

...if it were a thriller starring Jim Carrey and directed by Joel Schumacher.

If you're curious about the whole 23 thing and the Law of Fives, here's the Wiki about the ol' deuce-tre.

Oh, and for you swing dancers here In the Not Too Distant Future, the whole 23-skidoo thing doesn't mean I'm from Denver. Consider me a loyal discordian, acting accordingly, or simply a dis-accordion. Hey, it's late people. Cut me some slack.

While we're on that subject, I'm a Subgenius too.

And lastly, I think I know what I'll be wearing to the US Open. It's not covered in glitter, but it should be. This Village Voice cover by Alex Ross is now a t-shirt by Graphitti Designs. It's a little on-the-nose for me, but I couldn't resist.

And post-lastly... In case you needed a reminder:

More money equals better.

New up on Broken Frontier:

Not So Funny Animals: This latest installment of Genre Bender features a round-up of animal stories written for adults.

Here's a pic my editor didn't use - the death of Fritz the Cat, by R. Crumb

I was out sick yesterday...Feeling better now. As many people I know are also sick, I thought I'd recommend a few shows that I watched recently.

This week's episode of 30 Rock might be the funniest..TV I've watched this season!..It doesn't hurt that I've totally crushed on Tina Fey since she wrote Mean Girls. Here's the recent episode on NBC.com!..Just wait for the commercials to finish. Perhaps a way has been found to make the internet somewhat profitable.....

I was quite surprised tonight when I watched the latest episode of Iconoclasts on the Sundance Channel. I was planning to skip the episode featuring actress/model/spokesperson Isabella Rossellini and inventor Dean Kamen. However, I'm glad I didn't. I found it surprisingly moving. The series has now been added to my DVR schedule.

Here's a clip from a previous episode, which featured Quentin Tarantino and Fiona Apple talking about their creative antenna:

I never really understood the whole Luke and Laura..hype on General Hospital, back in the early 80s. Of course at the time, I was about ten and had never seen the show, but apparently their wedding was the most highly rated hour of television in soap history. I guess their relationship was complicated. Sometime between the day they met and their wedding Luke had allegedly raped Laura. I haven't seen those episodes, but it does seem unlikely doesn't it?

Here's the first meeting of Luke and Laura, before Luke got his perm:


They were married for twenty years.

Now I'm flashing back to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Watchmen, and looking at the parallel regarding rapists and victims. If you haven't read this classic graphic novel, it is one of the most highly acclaimed books by one of my favorite authors. In my mind it wasn't his best work, but the comics community seems to believe it's his grandest achievement.

Does anyone else think that the Nielsen Ratings system will shortly be obsolete? With digital cable and TiVo, I think there are more accurate measures of what people are watching. Back in the day there was criticism of the Nielsen Family system, and how a few box owners

Coming soon to Broken Frontier:
I'm nearly finished with Not So Funny Animals, but in looking for pictures, I found this neat little parody of We3,..Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's ultraviolent update to The Incredible Journey.

Tetris was once a religion to me.

I'm not talking about the fact that I once played a single..game of Tetris for at least 4 (and possibly as long as 9) hours. But at the time, Tetris was a metaphor for my world-view. To sum that up, every block is a complication, and our job is to make it fit somewhere. It's not very complex, but it gets to the point.

I was reminded of this by these videos. The first player isn't very good at all, but the second is remarkable, all things considered. Both videos are amusing.

 There was something amazing about the way that the game would infiltrate my senses, and those of quite a few other people at the time. I remember the first time I saw the Lottery L, and imagined it spinning towards the ground. Honestly, we need more games that affect us that way, that seep into our subconscious.

This weekend is the premiere of the first ever East Los Angeles Farmer's Market. This will be the first Farmer's Market that I can walk to from home. That's amazing. I'm going, and then heading up to the Valley for that audition. Too bad that it's on the same day as the Hollywood Farmer's Market, because that one is tough to beat. I'm still craving the vegan soul food that I tried some months back. I think they got hit hard by the recent spinach troubles.

I'm so glad that spinach is available again.

And then there's Dan Savage's latest political column.

And also Pronto Condom:

Sometime soon on Broken Frontier:
Not so Funny Animals - I know I announced this a while back, but with all the dancing mishegos lately I've been too preoccupied to actually write it. At least now I have the seed for my introduction.

Also, I re-read The Fountain yesterday, because the movie comes out next week. It made a lot more sense the second time around. I should have expected that.

For you Darren Aronovsky fans, I have a copy of his The Book of Ants, which was his comic book companion to his premiere movie pi.

For some reason, MySpace doesn't want to use the greek letter for pi. Forgive my technological inability to spell titles correctly.

Dance-a-thon was a hoot! An update is imminent!

Also, I need a headshot for an audition this weekend. Does anyone want to take non-creepy pictures of me?

When I saw this ad for the Sanford Meisner DVDs, I was reminded of some of the formative sources of my Lindy Hop technique. Meisner developed courses around repetition exercises. To cut to the chase, his exercises were about making true observations of the person you were there with. It was an approach to teaching that was utterly vital.

 
Sandy Meisner and Keith Johnstone

Another obscure source of my Lindy Hop improv technique was Keith Johnstone, author of the classic Impro! One of the cool things I remember about this book is the way he would force his students to take left turns outside of their normal thinking. I wish I had an excerpt, but you'll just have to find a copy for yourself.

Please watch The Business. It is funny.

This weekend, I'll be dancing at the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon. Last year was crazy fun. This year, I'm bringing spray-on deodorant, because sometimes folks just need a spritz. There's still time to donate, by the way. All proceeds are 100% tax deductible and benefit the City of Hope hospital. Whatever you can afford, sling it on over!

In the meantime, I bought a copy of District B13, which I will be watching on the train to Irvine. A clip from the movie is below. Watch it and you will know what it is like to be smacked in the head with the adrenalin stick.

If you've been following In the Not Too Distant Future for a while, you might remember that I'm a big fan of Chuck Barris and his wacky, trashy 1970s era television shows, not to forget his surreal "autogiography" Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Anyway, I'd always heard of a clip from the Gong Show that aired only on the east coast, and I'd always been curious to see it. It was called Have You Got A Nickel?, but it was more popularly known as the Popsicle Twins.

Do I need to explain?

Firstly, the second California Girl Jam rocked. I had lots of good dancing and met a bunch of good folks. Also, I picked up a book of Monty Python scripts for fifty cents.

And then for some reason, I always have torn pants during dance contests. That's somewhat relevant to the overarching theme of this blog.

At some point, I became team Co-leader of Old School. That means sometime this week, I've got to organize the entire team, and figure out shifts for those members who can only be there a short time. At the Jam, Shesha and Nikki asked me to run a Poker tournament at the event. I haven't decided whether I'll be able to do this. If you haven't donated to the charity, look for my name (Neil Figuracion) over at the Dance-a-thon website. Vote early and vote often. All proceeds benefit cancer research at City of Hope.

I'm going to see Shortbus again today. In preparation, I went to the site and read through the cast info. I didn't expect to find it as entertaining as I did. There's some interesting folks in the cast, and some of them are on MySpace too.

In the Shortbus Salon, I found this clip, Underrumble:

It's like West Side Story meets those Markie Mark billboards. It features PJ Deboy, who plays Jamie in the movie...

In all this time, I never thought to question the identity of Doctor Donut...I never understood that he was a real character, so seeing him in..Shortbus... you just think he's a contrivance. Now I have no idea what to think.

I still can't explain Doctor Donut, but at least I know he exists outside of the movie.

These clips are nothing like Shortbus. Well, other than the fact that these clips and the movie are mighty gay! Go see it now or forever hold your piece.

In Los Angeles, it's still playing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 and the Academy theatre. Hopefully it's still playing at these fine establishments.

Last week or so, I was reminded that the earth travels around the sun at the approximate rate of 67,000 miles per hour. That means that in a day, you will travel 1,608,000 miles, even if you never leave home. Since last year, you've driven (or ridden) around 586,920,000 miles not counting traffic delays.

If you were on the other side of your computer monitor, wouldn't this be moving clockwise?

They say that the Earth moves in a counterclockwise orbit around the sun. Wouldn't that depend on the way we were looking at the Earth and the Sun? If a top-down view looks counter-clockwise, wouldn't a bottom-up view look clockwise?

These flat animations are really too simple for the kind of picture I hope you'll envisionyourself.

After one of my recently published interviews, I accidentally left my recorder on. If you have never done an interview, most of the time funniest or most meaningful material happens after the interview is done. This excerpt struck me because it was so true.

I had to get off my chest that it really bothered me about the quality of Art (in the capital-A sense) in one aspect of comics. I'm going to make that specific aspect obscure, because I feel that the subject's opinions apply to all aspects of Art. I'm also going to keep the subject's name anonymous, because it wasn't part of the interview.

Me: (flustered) I really felt the need to... I hate it!
Subject: It's not the xxxxxxx's fault.
Me: You don't think?
Subject: One can never... Nobody's ever guilty of lack of talent. If you don't have talent, that's not your fault.
Me: Riiiight?
Subject: If you're not very talented, that's not your fault. So you can't blame the xxxxxxxx.

End excerpt. Of course, that doesn't mean that people can't get the idea. It doesn't mean that eventually artists won't develop an aesthetic outside of "that looks shiny" or "that grammar is impeccable," or "that dancing is so smooth." 

Any art, really. That's how art works.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space.

It seemed right that I quote that little bit of the Spiritualized song. I used to play it occasionally before Late Night Lindy at Old Memories. It was a lovely waltz, and the lyrics went:

…Take the pain away
Getting strong today
A giant step each day
All I want in life's
A little bit of love to take the pain away
Getting strong today
A giant step each day

I've been told
Only fools rush in
Only fools rush in
But I don't believe
I don't believe
I could still fall in love with you

I will love you 'til I die
And I will love you all the time
So please put your sweet hand in mine
And float in space
And drift in time
All my time until I die
We'll float in space just you and I

I think I'll love you today
I guess that's what you get
And I don't know where we are all going to

Life don't get stranger than this
But it is what it is
And I don't know where we are all going to

Everything happens today
And we're out here to stay
And I don't know where we are all going to

I think I'll love you today
I guess that's what you get
And I don't know where we are all going to

Well, not really. Not mostly at least.

Firstly, it wouldn't be Halloween without Screaming Jay Hawkins.

 

Secondly, Prom Night of the Living Dead tonight at Paladino's. Kim and Dave are going to do it up right.

And lastly, someone over at the Cabal started a thread asking for our favorite albums. My initial response was (I don't pick favorites, dammit!), but then I realized that there has only been one album that has inspired me to buy three replacement copies.

I've written about it Spike Jones and George Rock in previous installments of In the Not Too Distant Future (that's what..you're reading now), but then I went and found some stuff on YouTube.

First, I promised some romantic tunes. Here's one: Cocktails for Two.
 

Song of the Volga Boatmen.
  

Flight of the Bumblebee. 

Here's..an abbreviated version of Minka. If you have read about the routine I'm choreographing, this is the tune, although quite a different recording.
 

One of my favorite sex advice columnists is syndicated columnists is Dan Savage - author of the Savage Love. Now he's released his first podcast.

The first episode is available on The Stranger.

Apparently he's taking calls from people who would like some advice. Check the websites for more about that.

I read Savage Love in the LA Weekly nearly every week, but the last time I heard him speak, it was on one of my favorite radio shows, This American Life. He told the story of the time that he joined the Republican party and represented his district as the sole cross-dressing homosexual at the Republican convention.

He also scripted two issues of an indie comic book, also titled Savage Love. It featured autobiographical stories as well as anecdotes and illustrated stories from his column. A few of the stories from Savage Love have been reprinted in Ellen Forney's latest compilation I Love Led Zeppelin.

And now, let me introduce - Ms. Dewey. The grooviest search engine I've ever met.

There. Something for everybody.