The concert on Saturday night went great. I don’t know if any of my readers were there, but my family came, and they loved it. According to my brother, my aunt (who is the most religious among us) even sang along with the Christmas carols. I was really thankful that my parents came, and their reaction showed me how far things have come. Four years ago, they were devastated by the news that I was gay; this weekend, they voluntarily came to see me sing with a gay men’s chorus. Way to go, Mom and Dad.
Lately I’ve been trying to fine-tune my life goals. I’d been thinking about library school, but now I’ve been leaning strongly against it. My dream is not to be a law librarian; the point of library school was only suuposed to be to get me a more palatable job to support my true goals. But spending time and money on a degree that I don’t really want in and of itself feels like a big waste. What I want to do is write. And it struck me last week that if I keep putting off writing, it’s never going to get done. I keep forgetting, or avoiding, that simple truth. Because you know what? It’s so much easier to have the goal and say I’m going to do something about it than to actually do something about it.
My biggest passion is writing. One of my other big passions is theater. So I’d love to either write theater or write about theater; I’d love to either write plays or musicals or become a theater critic. (That’s in addition to about a hundred other things that I’ve either blogged or thought about over the last few years.) They say that who your idols are can tell you a lot about yourself, and two of my current idols are Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich. I’d love to do what either of them do, or have done. I recent finished Frank Rich’s wonderful memoir, Ghost Light, and I’m currently reading Meryle Secrest’s Stephen Sondheim: A Life, which I’m greatly enjoying (even though I hear there are better books on Sondheim’s shows). I’m also slowly working my way through the albums of the original Sondheim shows I’ve never heard, which is almost half of them.
In the meantime, I think I’m going to have to give up my goal of becoming famous before the age of 30, since I have only 12 days left in which to do that.
Sigh.
Why not combine your love of Sondheim with your dream of becoming famous before the age of 30?
“Come here and kill a president!”
“Okay!”
Dear FBI:
He was joking.
You mean you don’t love Sondheim?
I heard great things about the concert. Wish I could have been there.
Just last night I told Jeff (my Jeff, that is) that you and Mike already are my theater critics of choice. We were talking about a planned Valentine’s weekend trip to New York to see Avenue Q, and I mentioned that we needed to see some other shows, “but not Wicked, because Mike says its crap.” So write about it, and I’ll read it.
Wish we could have made it to NY this past weekend for your concert.
Thom — Mike hasn’t even seen WICKED (he’s just heard the album). Jeff and I both saw it in the theatre and loved it. And now that I’ve listened to the recording released today, I realized the score’s a lot better than I gave it credit for in the theatre. It’s a lot of fun and you and Jeff would probably enjoy it (but make Avenue Q your top priority).
Matt: Thanks for the update on Wicked. I enjoyed the novel so much and really had high hopes for the musical; it’ll definitely go back on the list.
Anyone: I just heard that Urinetown is coming here to the National Theater after Mamma Mia closes in January. What are your opinions about it?
Urinetown is fun. The plot is really out there, and it kind of loses steam toward the end, but the music is terrific and fresh-sounding. I think a lot depends on the actors — there were some hilarious performances when Matt and I saw it. I don’t know what the National Theater is like, but the Henry Miller in New York is made to look (or naturally looks, I’m not sure) really run-down — peeling plaster, no ornamentation. If the actors are up to it, it should be a fun evening.
Tin Man, you’re already famous. Fame is different in 2004. You’re a talented writer, and strangers read what you have to say because you don’t have to find a publisher or an editor. In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 people…