Centerfield

My high school did Oklahoma. When Judd was being carried off stage after being killed by his own knife a little kid in the audience shouted out, "Don't worry, it's only a rubber knife."

There wasn't a dry eye or an unbusted gut in the house.

We had a lot of fun pre prop 13. The school would put on everything form South Pacific to the Bald Soprano.

I’m hoping one of the more legally knowledgeable commenters can clear up something for me. This week the Federal appeals court upheld the recent Federal court ruling that prisoners at Guantanamo do not enjoy the right of habeas corpus and cannot appeal their detentions in US District Courts. The reasoning (at least according to Judge Raymond Randolph) was: "Cuba -- not the United States -- has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay."

OK, accept (for the sake of discussion) that this is a correct ruling. After all, the US does lease the base at Guantanamo from Cuba. Doesn’t that imply that detentions at Guantanamo could be appealed in Cuban courts? Is the sole bar to such an appeal the lack of habeas corpus in Cuba? And if a Cuban court ruled against the US government, would the courts try to enforce that ruling?

The only alternative (obviously not accepted by Judge Randolph) would seem to me to be to claim that nobody has sovereignty over Guantanamo. But perhaps there is a legal point that I’m missing. Anyone care to take a shot at educating me?

38 days and 2 hours til the first Red Sox game. (Widgets rule!!).

I'm very bummed that Dennis Johnson has died. At 52, heart attack of course. One of my favorite Celtics ever...a hard-nosed, old-school guy who ALWAYS showed up when it mattered. 5-time all star, a champ in Seattle plus 2 more in Boston. He was the guy who laid it in to beat Detroit in the 87 conference finals after Larry (just another white guy) Bird stole Isaiah Thomas's careless inbounds pass with 5 seconds left and Detroit up a point.

My high schoool is a tiny oasis of blue in the Red Sea, so we've had some interesting times. Our music director wanted to do "Hair" and "Godspell", but even "Godspell" proved too controversial. (OMG! Christ is dressed as a clown!) so we ended up doing "Guys And Dolls" and "The Sound Of Music" instead.

Speaking of music, any Beatles fans out there? Because there's a new movie out there for you all.

Be sure to turn the sound up, to get the full effect.

The greatest generation

What constitutes the Democrat blog

One can see the connection between the Party Blog and the links many "Democrats" post. I am surprised the DNC allows posters at their blog to call Joe a "scumbag" and pass off Kos material as a source for Democrat perspectives (while blasting FOX). You must be registered to post.

It was sad to hear about DJ. Some great Celtic runs. New York v Celtics used to be a great rivalry. Still waiting for the Knicks to be reborn. Kudos DJ....

Some Republican don't get it, do they? I doubt anyone here will defend this nonsense. Just when Democrats hoist their popular illusions, some Republicans manage to poop their own bright thoughts.

If you love baseball and hockey as I do you'll bust a gut over
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Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie

And if you've ever ridden a large motorcycle on the twisties (I put 155K on my Honda CB1100F on lots of Sunday Morning Rides)then watch a Gold Wing do the twisties
I remember seeing a guy on the SMR about 15 years ago riding up with his GW. Pretty funny to watch him scrape metal but impressive.

ooh just got an earthquake

A nice little shaker.

Shake Shake Shake

and my 8th grader got a 97 overall score on her ITBS!!

Jean,

Jesus didn't dress as a clown in the original production. His followers did, to symbolize their conversion. Now the biggest impediment to peforming GODSPELL in a public school is that it would be promoting religion.--it is, after all the Gospel of Matthew. Americans United for Separation of Church and State have leaned on enough schools that it's getting tougher and tougher to not get sued for it. They target smaller districts with small legal budgets.

I'm old enough to remember when pseudo-hippie "Jesus Freaks" used to occasionally compete for begging space with airport Krishnas, dressed as "Clowns for Jesus." :-)

I woulda liked to have seen the original Toronto production with Gilda Radner, and Paul Schaffer as the musical director.

Oh, and before I was old enough to drive, my parents took me to see the stage productions of HAIR, GODSPELL, and JC SUPERSTAR, the latter on Broadway with the original cast--including Elliman and Vereen. Awesome.

Frankly, HAIR was the least impressive of the bunch. But the touring company I saw had Meat Loaf in it!

Hey, I didn't say that Jesus was dressed as a clown in "Godspell". That's what the wingnuts thought it was about, and that's what they were objecting to, and no amount of arguing otherwise will sway them.

Sorta like when they say "If you believe in evolution, you must think that a tornado can assemble a 747 in a barnyard, just by accident!" When you start painstakingly explaining to them about survival of the fittest, and natural selection, they just doze off on you, even as you go on about how evolution took billions and billions and billions of years....

Zzzzz.....

*oops!* Where was I?

Oh, yes, theater. Well, I went to high school in rural Missouri, and if you think Kansas wingnuts are bad, you ought to see ours. (one nearby town actually banned high school *dancing* for heaven's sake.) If they think Jesus could be dressed as a clown, then it's because they think "Clowns For Jesus" is a great idea. My older sister belonged to a troop like that; she wanted "Sonshine" (get it?) as her clown name, but it was already taken.

You got to see the orginal Broadway cast of "JCS"? (turns green with envy) My dad took me to see "JCS" when Starlight Theater put it on. David Cassidy played Jesus Christ. Now that's blasphemy! :-D

one nearby town actually banned high school *dancing* for heaven's sake

Lived near Purdy, did you? :-) I had friends who lived down there for a while, and still have some "over the line" in northern Arkansas. "God's Country" country. Long story. (Actually Purdy was just one of several towns with that anti-dance virus--the movie was based on that disease striking Elmore City, OK.) And despite the widespread perceptions of Kansas (thanks to those Johnson County creationists) WE know it's downright sedate compared to the TRUE Buckle of the Bible Belt in the ex-Confederate states, where evolution moves veeeryyy sloooooowlyyyy at times.

Yeah, Godspell gets hit from both sides of the divide, from both secularists and religionists. Which sucks, as it's one of the most flexible of productions, making it good for high schools that way. Minimal sets, just need vocal talent. I've seen that particular "clown" objection sidestepped by directors who simply used other ways to "mark" the converts and followers, including do-rag bandannas. I mean, geez, it has NO detailed setting or costuming, it's totally adaptable. (And I still think it's hilarious that SNL had its genesis in the original production--Lorne Michaels "discovered" both Radner and Schafer in the original Toronto production, and they were his first two hires for the show.)

Yep yep, saw JCS with Elliman and Vereen. Which explains my otherwise inexplicable liking for Tim Rice musicals (Andrew Lloyd Weber-pfui). Also decent as far as sets go--you can minimalize it fairly easily into three basic sets. You can even fake it down to two, with some extra "furniture".

I can see how HAIR was thought a bit much for a high school musical, though.

Lived near Purdy, did you? :-)

LOL! God, you're right, we did, in spirit if not in geography. Columbia's a college town with lots of rural students, so you know the tension.

The way I heard the theater director explain it; "We'll do Hair in the fall, and then, to redeem ourselves, we'll do Godspell! Everyone will love it!" Well, the latter proved too controversial, never mind the former, so the school bowed to public pressure and we portrayed gangsters and Nazis instead of hippies and disciples.

But, hey, it could have been worse. If you want to offend left, right, and center, then announce that you're doing Assassins and watch the fur fly.

Yep yep, saw JCS with Elliman and Vereen. Which explains my otherwise inexplicable liking for Tim Rice musicals

So I take it that your boys are watching The Lion King and Aladdin? ;-)

I've always had a fondness for Rice myself, partly because his wife's name is a anagram of mine (no relation).

Didn't know that about SNL. You've given me my info high for the day. :-D

(Andrew Lloyd Weber-pfui).

Hey! You're talking to the soul who personally drove her floor of her college dorm nuts by playing Phantom of The Opera over and over again, until everyone had the score memorized.*

(Funnily enough, Joseph And the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a pretty popular school theater piece (mostly because it was written for kids) but very few do Jesus Christ Superstar or Cats. Score's too demanding, I suppose.)

*Of course, that was mostly because of Michael Crawford's magnificent turn as the mad, mutilated, murderous musician/magician, for which he rightly won a Best Actor Tony. Sometimes boyishly mischievous, sometimes terrifyingly mysterious, sometimes fatherly, sometimes lover like...*sigh*

Then Joel Schumacher got hold of it and (with Webber's help) applied his reverse Midas touch. So the fiery, wistful Christine became a helpless little girl, the handsome, upright Raoul turned into a bad Fabio knockoff, the Phantom himself became a sullen young hood with bad acne who lives in his step-mom's basement, and the tragedy turns into a bad episode of Love American Style. (Will Christine choose Raoul or the Phantom? Will she go out with Richie or the Fonz? Tune in and find out!)

OK. Rant over. Back to the topic.