laj_or_suchlike | Recent Entries

Me: Erin. Erin. I was thinking about the hypothetical JCS production again.

Like, a lot.

What if Mary Magdalene has lots and lots of friendship bracelets as part of her outfit...

...and all of the Apostles noticeably are also wearing one?

Except Judas, because he wouldn't wear his. Alternately, she tries to give him one during "Everything's Alright," but he just stares at her.

Alternately-alternately, he just stares at her, then notices Jesus watching, and grudgingly lets her put one on his wrist.

Her: :o I see!

...Judas doesn't want one, then sees Jesus take one, then begrudgingly accepts one

Me: Yes, yes good, because Jesus is a good bro and would happily accept Mary's bracelet.

And I've been thinking more about hoodie!Jesus, and the idea is really growing on me.

Like Jesus's outfit consists entirely of this big white hoodie that's AT LEAST two sizes too big, and worn-out jeans with the knees ripped out, and Birkenstocks, because I have a lot of feelings about Jesus in Birkenstocks.

And the overall effect is he looks kind of sloppy, but also SUPER-approachable and cuddly. Maybe ALL of the Apostles look like they got their clothes out of a Goodwill dumpster, except for Judas.

I mean, Judas doesn't need to be a full-on Gucci-douche or anything, but he's noticeably more put-together than the rest of them, because I always feel like people ought to work that "he MIGHT be skimming off the top of the treasury" bit in there, somewhere. And then Jesus can be pointedly referring to his outfit with the "look at the good things YOU'VE got," after he tries to call Mary out as a dumb wasteful hooker with the perfume.

Her: ...I am definitely here for a cuddly Jesus.

Me: He is the CUDDLIEST Jesus. He heals with HUGS.

...also at least one Apostle ruffles Judas's hair during "What's the Buzz?" and Judas just pulls a comb out of his pocket and starts grumpily tidying himself up.

Her: If he heals with hugs, no wonder he gets so overwhelmed when everyone wants healing.

Me: The hugs get very frazzled by the time he's covered in lepers.

And maybe Jesus rarely puts the hood up, maybe it's like a security blanket thing where he pulls it up when he's stressed-out, like right before the lepers show up while he's singing "my time is almost through..." And at the start of "The Last Supper," but he ends up shoving it off again right before he starts calling out Apostles.

And it's up when they drag him in to see Pilate the first time, just so somebody can yank it off to present him to Pilate as "Someone Christ, King of the Jews."

Her: Ooh, yes.

Me: SPEAKING OF PILATE: Okay, we already discussed wanting him dressed like Treize Khushrenada but in Tyrian purple, yes?

What if when they first bring in Jesus, he's behind one of those huge, ornate desks, more or less hip-deep in paperwork?

And they bring in Jesus, and he's just like, "...really? Really? I'm swamped and you bring me a scruffy hobo to deal with? Just...take him to Herod, or something; I've got stuff to do."

But when they bring him back, Pilate's got the cape on, and probably an officer's cap or something, because NOW it's serious. NOW he has to actually stand up and DEAL with things.

Her: Ooh

Me: And Herod...okay, what if when they show up at Herod's, he's throwing a huge, trashy Hollywood party?

Like clearly super-expensive but also completely tacky, "check out my $300 leopard-print t-shirt" kind of affair, like the thing you'd expect to see a bunch of reality TV stars attending, everyone's rich but they all look like fancy garbage...there's probably a chocolate fountain that some asshole has their entire face in, everyone's taking selfies, and Herod's probably snorting coke off of a stripper when they bring Jesus in?

Her: Building on that, what if Herod is, like, not /actual/ famous, but, like, Instagram!famous?

So Jesus being there is a thing of like "oh man I'm going to get SO many views!"

If there's a screen in the back it can show like his selfies/posts that are going up as he sings.

"Look who dropped by!” #kingofthejews"

Me: Omg, Instagram!Celebrity Herod...which just gives me the shivering horrors over the idea of internet celebrities being able to have people beheaded on a whim.

And then Jesus just RUINS EVERYTHING by not doing a magic trick for his YouTube subscribers, and he throws a giant man-tantrum about it.

Her: #jokenotlord #nothingbutafraud

Me: Yes perfect.

And then Judas, who's up until now been the most fashionably put-together Apostle, goes running back to the priests to give the silver back, but he's not so put-together anymore...shirt untucked, buttons undone, hair a mess, sunglasses sliding down his face, just an absolute wreck.

Her: Yes good

Me: And the priests toss him out on his face, and he has his breakdown, and pulls the sunglasses off during the "I Don't Know How to Love Him" reprise to mop up his tears, and by the end of it he's just straight-up wiping his nose on his sleeve because he's so beyond caring at that point, and he's got the sunglasses clutched in his hand all the while but he just carelessly drops them as he goes tottering off to find a rope.

Her: Oh no my heart

Me: Naturally when he comes back as a ghost, he's just...completely glam. The glammest thing that ever glammed.

Super-sharp suit, fancy tie, styled hair, sequins, glitter, he practically GLOWS under the stage lights, and (especially if he comes back as demon!Judas instead of angel!Judas) the sunglasses are back, intact and polished and completely hiding his eyes.

Her: Can he reach for his sunglasses a couple times out of habit, but they're not there since he dropped them before he died?

Nevermind you said other things while I was typing that.

Me: ...until he takes them off during the Crucifixion.

Just standing there, staring sadly up at Jesus while he clutches his sunglasses, and through some clever lighting he's not nearly so sparkly anymore.

Her: Hmmm

Okay but

Actually this changes characterization slightly so I don't know, but

Suppose he has the sunglasses, as you said, through Superstar

But then at the very last moment, they're forcibly removed

Like maybe one of the backup dancer ladies just glides by and is like *yoink* before he can react

Me: You mean like he's rocking out, and then when they start nailing Jesus to the cross one of the Soul Sisters yanks them off as they all just twirl off and desert him?

Her: And it syncs up with that abrupt change in music when Superstar switches to Crucifixion

Me: Ooohhhh, I could dig that.

Like he's got that snarky denial thing going on and then he HAS to face what he's done.

Her: Yes, exactly

Me: Maybe he slowly strips off his suit jacket and tie while he's watching Jesus, because it's just not "fun" anymore...it was never fun, it was just something to hide behind.

Her: Aw yes

All while never taking his eyes off Jesus

Me: Just staring up all the while, as he tosses his fancy demon clothes into the shadows.

Her: Mhm mhm

Me: Staring is all he can do, because it's not like he can interact with the other Apostles or Mary at that point. I've seen staging like that with two productions, and it's just devastating every time.

Her: What if he starts to reach out but then remembers they can't see him?

Me: OH OW.

Her: Like it's habit, because they WERE friends, before everything went down, and then... yeah.

Me: He reaches out to them and they just obliviously move away, but Mary's still draped over Jesus weeping, and after sneering at her all musical he finally puts a hand on her shoulder, even if she can't feel it.

Her: Yes good

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Jesus Christ Superstar - “John 19: 41”

In lieu of any sort of proper update after almost two years, have instead this carefully-reconstructed conversation I had with Erin in our hotel room this past Tekko:

Me: *in the throes of sleep-deprivation, and fueled entirely by sugar and enthusiasm* I had an idea.

Her: *a good sport, and up for whatever* Okay...

Me: Okay, bear with me here...

Her: *suddenly concerned* Oh no what.

Me: I need a production of Jesus Christ Superstar...where Judas wears sunglasses.

Her: *sudden relieved laughter*

Me: *wheedling, also laughing* Whaaat?

Her: I was expecting so much worse, you were so serious, all “bear with me,” and then *striking a pose I was evidently holding* “...Judas with sunglasses.”

Me: NO HEAR ME OUT THOUGH. I don’t want him to just WEAR the sunglasses, I want him to, like...always have them on top of his head, or clipped to his shirt, or be gesturing with them, or chewing on an earpiece because why NOT have a Judas with an oral fixation, but not really WEARING them normally until “The Last Supper,” when he just has them jammed square on his face so he doesn’t have to make eye-contact with anyone. And then he can whip them off dramatically for, “Every time I look at you, I don’t understand.”

Her: Oh, oh yeah, but he should put them back on for after “Gethsemane.”

Me: But the kiss is after “Gethsemane;” I feel like they would get in the way for the kiss.

Her: No, not for the kiss, I mean the stuff AFTER, where he’s trying to not to be seen during the trial, well not the TRIAL, but the...the...*hand-flail* interrogation.

Me: OH! Oh yeah, that works great, but they have to come off for the suicide, somewhere in there.

Her: They HAVE to come for the suicide, at some point.

Me: And then, and then if we want to be REALLY angsty about it, one of the Roman soldiers can just...toss the sunglasses at Jesus before “Trial Before Pilate,” maybe they’re broken or something, and that’s how he finds out Judas is dead.

Her: *hand on chest* OH, gosh, FEELS.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Jesus Christ Superstar - “Hosanna”

I was just in the bathroom getting ready to take a shower when I heard a thump on the door. My dog was standing there when I opened it, and she gave me a doggie-smile and walked to the bedroom, and stood there looking over her shoulder at me until I turned the light on in the bedroom, at which point she walked in and laid down.

To reiterate, my dog knocked on the bathroom door to get me to turn a light on so she wouldn't have to sleep in the dark.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Imagine Dragons - "Believer"

I've been watching old Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? episodes on YouTube lately, and...well, look, I'm not even going to try to pretend that Rockapella doo-wopping mournfully over a laughably low-budget flattened Greg Lee prop isn't simultaneously hilarious, and kind of touching.

Also, a pondering: If you're doing paperwork for a nun, and the nun sneezes at your desk, and you say "bless you," is it lucky?

(That actually happened, by the way. The nun sneezing, I mean. But also flat!Greg.)

Current Mood: twitchy
Current Music: Ludo - "Love Me Dead"

Laj: So last night I had a dream that I was out in the back yard looking at a big rainbow hot air balloon. Only I was younger, and the rest of my family was there, and we were all saying how we haven't seen a hot air balloon around in ages.

Then we went back inside, and I think we were having cinnamon buns, and then I looked out the window and noticed the balloon was in our yard, and the basket was all tangled up in the ivy on the oak tree near the fence, so we ran outside to see what was going on, and Patrick Stewart was in the yard. Apparently he crashed his rainbow hot air balloon, and was trying to figure out how to get back to his sky kingdom, where he's a prince.

And I kept trying to take a picture of him and his balloon, because otherwise nobody would believe me, but I couldn't frame it right and it kept coming out blurry.

Then I went to a cosplay store and bought metallic hair spray.

Celinra: ...that is the most fantastic dream I have ever heard.

Laj: I remember Prince Patrick Stewart being very gentlemanly, but nobody expected anything less.

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Katrina and the Waves - "Walking on Sunshine"

August 30, 2015:
So hello, new journal. Here's hoping I update you a little more than once in a while.

Hah. HAHAHAHAHAH.

To be fair to myself, it wasn't so much lack of interest keeping me from all things social media. Remember the new (as of last year) job? Turns out the turnover is a bit, uh...high. New people seem to run for it the second they see what title work in the state of Pennsylvania involves, if they're not outright drowned at the reception desk their first week in, and once one bails, the rest of the office has to pick up the slack...and when you pile on too much additional work, even your veteran agents start thinking, "maybe Aldi's is hiring." And the more people leave, the worse the workload gets, in turn driving more people to look elsewhere, which means the last agents standing get a lot of "eleven hour shifts mean overtime pay!" emails, which in turn means exhaustion and too much caffeine and no free time.

I'm disinclined to escape just yet. I'm making almost twice what I made at my last crappy, crappy job, and this one comes with nice things like insurance and vacation time and paid holidays off. There are better jobs out there, sure, but so help me, I get to sit down and I don't have to touch feet.

But then I came down with a cough that turned into a MedExpress visit that turned into leaving with a paper bag full antibiotics and steroids and a tentative diagnoses of bronchitis, strep, and a severe ear infection all at once, and that wasn't even the sickest I'd been all year so gods know what I was powering through during the holiday season. I ended up going to another concert with Gautam a week later (Bear Hands/Foals/Silversun Pickups/Cage the Elephant; left underwhelmed by Silversun Pickups and couldn't remember much of Bear Hands, but I liked Foals and Cage the Elephant enough to buy CDs between sets), nearly collapsed by the end of the headlining act, and had to take it easy for another two weeks.

Add a lot of family drama to the mix and, well, time off has more or less been used for sleeping, as of late. A lot of sleeping. Never enough sleeping.

But our fail-whale of a manager somehow failed his way into a promotion, and our new manager starts next month and used to be a licensing agent, so the work schedule, at least, might blow a little less in the future. And I did manage to leave the house, occasionally...still managed Tekko, and even managed a new costume, and that costume will absolutely be worn again because I've wanted to do a Jareth cosplay for years and the response from other congoers was pretty phenomenal. At last I know the thrill of needing half an hour to make the seven-minute walk to the dealers' room! Alas, poor Rachel, stuck holding my bag whenever somebody stopped us with that particular half-timid voice to ask for a picture, unless the person in question was a very tall drunk woman in a restaurant bathroom, in which case there was desperate hand-clasping and shrieking to a friend in stall two to come out right now, David Bowie is here. One person rolled down her arm-sock to show me her Labyrinth tattoo. A number of people high-fived me. It was a fun con.

I ended up falling in love with Preacher, in spite of not even watching the pilot on purpose, and that's been fun, because it was looking like nothing but The Walking Dead was going to hold my interest, and it's been kind of a challenge to be at all excited about the new season now that we've hit the Negan arc, which means seasons upon seasons of pain and misery and character-death if it keeps to the comic at all, and the fact that the most evil motherfucker in the series is being played by Jeffrey Dean Sex-on-Legs Morgan just makes things uncomfortable. I gave up on Hell on Wheels after three episodes, lost interest in Into the Badlands after two, and no matter how hard I try to talk myself into liking Fear the Walking Dead, the fact remains that it's just. Not. Good. But Preacher... Preacher's been fun. Dark enough to be compelling, comedic enough not to get dreary, absurd enough to keep things lively, and every single character is interesting in their own right. It's been a long time since I've even been interested in the protagonist of an AMC series, never mind the backup cast, and anything that lets me bro-ship a vice-riddled alcoholic preacher with a snarky, ferociously loyal vampire with great eyebrows and a substance abuse problem is kind of an instant win. Did I mentioned Fiore and DeBlanc? Fiore and DeBlanc make everything better. It's by no means a shot-by-shot recreation of the comics, but it's crazy-enjoyable in its own right, and worth a watch if you like supernatural black comedies and oddball friendships.

What else, what else...Gautam and I did Phantom Fright Night at Kennywood, and it was way more fun than it had any right to be in spite of coming at the end of a six-day work week (a couple of hours after my day six shift, even) and almost no sleep, and even though I fell asleep in the car, and in the shower, and during some of the longer line waits, and completely tripped out over a Great Horned Owl outside my window, I was glad I went. Tip if you go: it's worth it to drop the extra twenty bucks to skip the lines for the haunts. You're looking at a ten-minute wait at most if you do, and well over an hour if you don't. Another tip: the Exterminator is worth the wait to ride it in the dark. One last tip: there are monsters in the fog. They will jump out at you.

And now I suppose I ought to eat something, and fix a drink for the Walking Dead premiere, and finally see who got the bat last season finale...the big money's on Glenn or Abraham, but it's going to suck no matter who it is. And then sleep, because I've got another six-day work week ahead of me.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll manage to update this again in the next month.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Johnny Cash seems to pop up a lot in the backgrounds of AMC shows...

My Amazon order got here this afternoon...I'm already Price'd up as of this morning, but now I can watch it again in shiny, shiny remastered quality whenever I want...probably without the picture getting all weird and squished, even!

I also got myself the anniversary Blu-Ray of Evita, because I've been on an Evita-kick lately and the price was low enough to be more worthwhile than spending hours trying to install software to get the ancient DVD to play properly, and Ladyhawke on Blu-Ray because I love it dearly and they finally released it legally in a language other than Italian.

Naturally, I've spent the past two hours installing updates to get that to play properly. C'est la vie.

Wrestling with technology is usually three parts crossed fingers and muttered obscenities and one part triumphantly shouting "I AM MASTER OF MY OWN DESTINY," and this time was no exception. But as of the moment, I've got a cooperative laptop and a box of pretty new things to watch. The picture on the Blu-Ray version of Evita is beautiful! The sound on the U.N.C.L.E. DVDs (at least as far as the menu screen) is wonderful! The picture and sound on Ladyhawke are...about what you'd expect from an '80s fantasy movie, but it's not in Italian!

I'm celebrating with tea with whiskey and the Puppy Bowl, because sports are for other people.

Oh my gosh look at that Shar-Pei puppy and his little mooshy-smooshy face oh my gosh his name is WRINKLES oh that's so cute I'm gonna die.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: The Monkees - "Hold On Girl"

I'm watching an all-night (all-weekend, actually) marathon of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and reeeeeeaally ought to consider sleeping tonight, but that episode where Vincent Price plays a snarky well-dressed French spy is on next and Vincent Price and snarky well-dressed French spies are two of my favorite things.

I made some custom brushes for an image editing program, though, so my night hasn't been totally unproductive.

EDIT: ...and so I continue to be more interested in Victor Marton's backstory with Mr. Waverly than the actual plot of the episode.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Illya whistling "Hava Nagila"

The History Channel is on in the background and one of the men speaking, oh-so-very officially and seriously, just said, "The whole phenomenon would have died a death."

I am both amused, and slightly vindicated.

Current Mood: nerdy

Really, 2016? I'm still depressed about Bowie, then Alan Rickman not a week later, and now we're down an Eagle. That's no way to start a new year.

Also, this is no way to break that kind of news: if you are being decent enough to give someone a ride to work, and that someone has already been vocally upset over the loss of the Goblin King, and friggin' "Space Oddity" is playing, and there are no smiles to be had in the vehicle, do not turn to them and say, "oh, Professor Snape died this morning" just as you pull up to the office. Some of us need more than ten seconds to rearrange our expressions into something work-appropriate.

2015 was...busy. The new job takes up more time than the old job, but comes with things like insurance and sick time and paid holidays off, so I'm disinclined to complain too too much, even if we're routinely stiffed on overtime. Work aside, I did more things this year...prior to this year, I could count the number of concerts I've been to on two fingers (the Monkees and Dethklok, in that order). In February, I saw Jukebox the Ghost with Gautam, and recommend everyone trudge through the snow to see a power pop band in a converted church at least once. In May, Pirate and I saw the new Night Vale show, which isn't a concert but isn't really anything else in particular, either ("live podcast" never seems to cover it adequately), and it wasn't quite as good as the last one story-wise but was still wildly entertaining. Our seats were awesome, and actually seeing Cecil is always a trip, and looking at Mara Wilson and remembering she was Matilda is just weird. Went to the Imagine Dragons concert with Gautam in June and it was amaaaaaaaziiiiing. They're so enthusiastic, and seem so utterly delighted that people actually came out to hear them perform, and the energy in the place was fantastic, and hearing the gasping part of "Radioactive" done by 9,000+ people is kind of totally hilarious. Bonus: the man smiling while I geeked out over a display of Tim Cantor's artwork turned out to be Tim Cantor. He signed my ticket and posed for a picture with me, and I made no intelligent noises for the next twenty minutes or so. Near the end of June Gautam scored free tickets to an outdoor Blues Traveler concert from someone who scored free tickets to an outdoor Blues Traveler concert and couldn't go. It was hot and sticky and mostly a blur of weed smoke and harmonica music, but lots of fun. Note: it turns out that I have no tolerance to secondhand weed smoke.

Last month Gautam flew me out to Chicago for my birthday. The whole trip was chronicled in photos that I've been too busy/tired/lazy to upload anywhere, but chances are that if you've talked to me at all since then you've seen some of them. There was a lot of drinking, and a four-hour wait in the cold, cold wind to get into a Star Wars-themed bar to drink blue milk and watch a bunch of guys dressed as the cantina band and one girl dressed as an Ewok play jazz remixes of the soundtrack. I hugged a Wookiee. There was deep-dish pizza and gourmet hot chocolate and more drinking, and a trip to a book store that looked like the forgotten child of Half-Price Book and an unfinished seaside manor, abandoned and raised by Hogwarts. On the plane ride home I sat next to a guy who totally wasn't Brian Posehn, but could've been if you squinted right.

The Christmas season involved laryngitis (AGAIN) and the flu, but this time around I have a boss decent enough to send me home when I look and sound like I'm dying.

I'm still working on stories and mixes that end up taking much, much longer to finish than I planned. I'm still hoping to actually finish some of them.

And, as happens every couple of months, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of updating this thing.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Moulin Rouge soundtrack - "Fool to Believe/It All Ends Today"

"What would you do if an evil wizard showed up at your door with a plot to kill you and your friends? Call the police? Because magic doesn't exist and he's probably just a local crazy person who should be in prison? Well congratulations, Aristotle, your lack of childlike wonder just ruined Halloween. Close your browser and go destroy something else with your logic, like Christmas."

Have I mentioned recently how much I love Team Fortress 2?

Look at these precious dorks halfheartedly agreeing to battle the supernatural in their Halloween costumes out of boredom.

EDIT: As of getting the browser to cooperate long enough to actually post, it is currently ten minutes after Halloween.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Svengoolie's on in the background

Oh, hey, The Full Monty is on.

Wow, the main character seems really familiar. Really familiar. Huhn.

...who is that guy? I know I've seen him in something.

Let's just hit the info button for a second, here...huhn. Robert Carlyle. I know that name, why do I know that name, I...

...oh.

OH.

Oh my god that's Rumpelstiltskin.

And that...is Rumpelstiltskin's butt.

Current Mood: shocked
Current Music: Village People - "YMCA"

So a guy came into the office and tried to flirt while squinting at my name tag.

Only they still haven't gotten around to ordering me an official name tag, so what I ended up hearing was, "You got pretty eyes, In Training. You live around here?"

Current Mood: *snort*
Current Music: Rockapella - "Bed of Nails"

"And what brings you in to see us today?"

"THAT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!"

Uh. When I'm working reception, it's kind of my job to know where to send you.

In other words, what brings you in to see us is the very definition of my business.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Gogol Bordello - "Start Wearing Purple"

Saw Jurassic World awhile back, expecting it to be decent. It kind of sucked.

Saw The Man from U.N.C.L.E. this week, expecting it to suck. It...was actually pretty great?

There were some "darker and edgier" adjustments that had me groaning a little, but it was for the most part respectful of the source material, with plenty of A+ snark and bickering between the leads. Lots of action, lots of giggles, and I wanted all of the major antagonist's clothes. The sheer size of Armie Hammer takes some getting used to, but by the end of the movie all I wanted was for giant Illya to cradle me gently in his enormous hands.

It's worth a watch if you're a fan of the TV series, or even if you're just down for a spy movie that doesn't take itself too, too seriously.

I got to see Napoleon and Illya mock each other's fashion sense, and that alone would've been worth it.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Steven Universe - "Giant Woman"

Between a new job and new so-many-other-things, a new journal didn't seem like the worst idea in the world.

So hello, new journal. Here's hoping I update you a little more than once in a while.

Current Mood: still paying off sleep-debt
Current Music: Imagine Dragons - "Shots"

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Bury Me In Ruffles

Continuing that Hypothetical Staging of Jesus Christ Superstar...

Because it’s Easter, and because it’s good to have theatre-dweeb friends...

Maybe she needs a night-light.

Is "doo-wopping" proper grammar? Or should it be "mournfully wopping doo?"

One way or another, this means I need more sleep.

Yikes.

Look, I can still wring a little more productivity out of this weekend, really!

I was dying to see that one again and my season 2 set isn't here yet, so.

Take that, everyone who's ever replied to me using that phrase with, "as opposed to dying a life?"

One of Those (late but only sort of!) Year in Review Entries

It's Halloween for five more minutes!

I was not prepared.

Could've been worse, really.

SHE WASN'T EVEN THE FIRST ONE TO DO IT.

David McCallum and Armie Hammer shall henceforth be known as Fun-Size Illya and King-Size Illya.

But I'm still no better at titles.

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