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I’ve been waiting for Rufus to announce new tour dates, and on checking his website, I find that next month he’ll be in Europe: Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Stockholm. Now that’s just cruel, tempting me like that. Grr. Hm, I do have some frequent-flyer miles saved up…
In other news, TV spots for the new album, Want, will start airing with Queer Eye on Bravo. Check it out: 56k and high-speed (QuickTime).
I was browsing through the Newseum website just now—they have an ongoing exhibit of front pages from newspapers around the world—and I was reminded that on Sept. 12, 2001, I bought a copy of the Washington Post and saved it. To this day, I haven’t even opened or read it. It’s not so much that I can’t deal with the emotional aspect of it, though that sentiment surely lingers—even looking at the front page on the screen is jarring, as perhaps it should always be—but now the paper has become for me a kind of time capsule. It’s as if I’m leaving it alone to age, to recede into memory, but with the inkling that I’ll rediscover it by chance in the future.
If you’ll permit me another, related thought: there’s something about the lowering of the flag that really affects me. I think it’s the symbolism, the grand sense of “national” mourning that gets to me. Yesterday morning I watched some of the TV news before I left the apartment, and filed away whatever thoughts I had at the time. But I felt a resurgence of emotion as I followed my usual route up Massachusetts Ave. to find all the embassy and other flags at half-staff. It’s a moving sight, I think. And when I arrived at my office, I looked out my window just as the huge flags at the bank building down the street were being lowered. I couldn’t help but stand and take a moment.
I’ve been watching Bravo’s The Reality of Reality, and it’s actually pretty good. I mean, we already knew that a lot of manipulation goes on behind the scenes of so-called “reality” shows, but the extent to which it goes on is pretty eye-opening. The episode I watched today (“America’s Instant Idols”) emphasizes how potential contestants will say and do anything to get on the air, and how TV executives eat it up. Remember Will Kirby, villain extraordinaire from Big Brother 2?
Will: I went to meet [CBS executive] Les Moonves, and they said, “What are you going to do to win the half-million dollars?” And I said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.” And he said, “What does that mean? What will you do?” And I said, “Les, I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
And he said, “What if it’s [down to] you and a gay guy? What will you do?” And I said, “I’ll f—k him in the ass and go make a sandwich.” The room erupted in laughter, and I was like, “See you in two weeks,” and I walked out and slammed the door.
Narrator: But a CBS spokesperson says that Les Moonves has no recollection of that conversation.
Well, okay, then. (I’ve read that later on Will recounted this story in the Big Brother house, and fellow houseguest Bunky quipped, “What kind of sandwich?”)