bostonman

The part that gets me most is "what you are comfortable spending." This feels more hustler than escort, and I tend to think that the client loses in all cases. Too bad - I love his look. I still have this suspicion that the ad may not be legit. But if it's really him, and he's already in the porn industry, etc, and he acts like this, that's really too bad.

Agreed completely. I did give it some thought but finally decided that no, I can't throw away my money like that. This particular guy does seem to target exactly stuff that I crave, in a very very tempting manner - but, there are plenty of things I would love to have in life but can't afford, and this guy is one of them. Ah, well...

Well, of course - that's why I started this thread. To perhaps keep myself from making one of those bad decisions lol.

Yeah, I know. Not quite the professional attitude we'd always hope for, huh? But sometimes the rational mind is no match for our hormones...and that's what he's probably counting on. If that's actually even him.

Any experience with this guy? I've seen a few porn clips of him online, but wondering if anyone out here has been with him as an escort. I also sometimes wonder with ads like this if the ad is really legit, or if this could be someone else posting Zane's pics. Any insight is appreciated. https://rentmen.eu/ZANEWILLIAMSXXX

I love Andrea Chenier. Wonderful score right from that bustling beginning. And I can imagine those 3 stars sounding great in that music.

Or, in other words, the thread isn't getting any attention and the poster wants to get it back up where people will see it again. New posts always cause a thread to rise back to the top of the list.

I'm sure she was. It's a comic song. But I also think (just as the satirical songs in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, for instance - a very similar show written right around the same time), that there's something more there to look at in the song itself. When Rosemary in How To Succeed sings "Happy To Keep His Dinner Warm," that's also to show off the actress' comedic side. But there's more to the song itself than just that. There is a social commentary there.

Ok, let's put it this way. NEITHER song was originally written with any political intent. That can be stated as fact. A few years after "Happy Days Are Here Again" had become a popular song of the day, it became associated with the FDR campaign. But I do not believe that Streisand picked the song for that reason, and I do not believe she was using the song in a political way. In the same way that if someone were to do a cover of "Don't Stop," it would not probably have anything to do with the Clintons. Looking back on "Miss Marmelstein," one can see that even if it was not intended as a social/political song, the lyrics as written address some of those issues. If the lyric in "Happy Days Are Here Again" (and it's truly a rather banal lyric, probably on purpose) has any true social/political leanings, it would be to distract from the effects of the Depression, as many songs of that era attempted to do. I can think of similar songs of the period, like the Gershwins' "Who Cares," which was even literally meant to be satirical at the time, but is not seen that way now. (And one of its more topical lyrics, "who cares what banks fail in Yonkers" is often replaced.) Certainly when "Happy Days Are Here Again" was featured - twice, as I recall - on "All In The Family," it had nothing to do with FDR. One time it was fitted with a new lyric (by Gloria) to celebrate Michael. The other time Archie sang it, and I can't remember why. But he HATED Roosevelt, so that certainly wasn't the association. (The association is more likely that for Archie and Edith, this was the music they grew up with - something that was a bit of a recurring idea in the series.) I tend to think that Streisand was also not singing the song because it had anything to do with FDR, rather that it was a popular/nostalgic song from an earlier time. What she did with it - slowing it down in a way no one seems to have done before - was the thing that made her version unique. Writing about Roosevelt in grad school does not have anything to do with the meaning behind Streisand's cover of "Happy Days Are Here Again." And the original point of this whole thing is that even if Streisand DID intend some sort of political leaning with "Happy Days Are Here Again," one such song does not make her a politically-leaning performer. So that when she chooses to start talking politics during her concerts, she might not always find a receptive audience, because people are coming to hear her sing, not necessarily opine. Which is surely why she got some boos the other night. Enough. Please. Thank you.

I'm not incorrect. "Miss Marmelstein" is all about an ordinary secretary who is treated as if she has no other identity. She could bust, lol. Even in the era before official "women's lib" this was a political statement, couched in a comic cameo. "Happy Days" was a rather generic song that was already popular as simply a depression-era uptempo Tin Pan Alley song (1929) before Roosevelt used it for his campaign (1932). It's not a political song (look at the lyrics) any more than Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)" is. And Streisand's take on the song is remembered entirely for its "daring" change in tempo, not its non-existent ties to Roosevelt.

Her song from Wholesale - a commentary on her anonymity as a secretary - to me has more of a social/political message than her slowed-down version of Happy Days Are Here Again, lol. And since the majority of her current audience wouldn't know who Roosevelt was aside from a president in a history book, I don't think it's a good example. Streisand is not a political entertainer.

Yes, but singers like Baez and Dylan already often had a social/political bent to their music, so that was part of their rasion d'etre as a performer. I can't offhand think of a Streisand song that's overtly political, so her comments might seem much less connected to her concert.

Indeed - I tend to think that the majority of people coming to see a concert - no matter who the performer is - are wanting to ESCAPE the news, not get too much of the singer's political views. I know everyone feels they need to have their say, Babs included, but I probably would have booed her too. Sing for us, entertain us. Help us forget the world outside the theatre for a few hours. This is not a political rally, no matter how outspoken you may be.

I can enjoy sex in the dark when it's with someone I'm used to being intimate with - but normally I like a low light, so it can be somewhat dark but we can still see each other. I remember this hookup encounter I had once, some years back - it was a very jock-ish young guy (the kind that I normally don't get, except when hiring -- it's the kind of guy I often go crazy for). I do remember that we both got naked but he really just wanted to jerk me off. He had a playful cockiness about him that really got me turned on. Problem was, that he kept coaxing me to look deep into his eyes as he stroked me. I tended to want to avoid that because frankly, it would get me too aroused too fast. I remember trying to pull away at one point when I was getting close, which made him chuckle (he was clearly enjoying his sensual power over me), but he didn't want to stop, and he wound up getting me off much sooner than I wanted to. And naturally, he wanted me looking into his eyes when I came. Which made the orgasm very intense. I may have forgotten those eyes specifically, or what his face looked like, but I'll never forget the feeling that looking in his eyes was the most vulnerable, naked, and arousing sensation. So yeah, eye contact can be a powerful thing.

In this here part of the Northeast, you can often hear someone saying they're going to "Dunks." Which of course is Dunkin' Donuts. Though not anymore, as the chain is officially changing their name to Dunkin'. Though it's pretty rare that I've heard someone say "I'm going to Dunks - do you want to come with?"

In George Carlin's famous "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV" routine, he also makes a list of terms that describe porn - among them are both "blue" and "off color."

And, although Fosse's film version of the show was very different in many ways, he kept that mirror concept. It was, in both cases, also a warped mirror, so the images the audience saw in the theatre, and the images we see in the film, were distorted.

As a boy in my mid-teens (in the late 1970's), still a bit more of a classical/opera nerd lol, I discovered Company, the first of the Sondheim/Prince collaborations, and that's one of those shows that I feel really changed my life lol - or at least really perked my interest in musical theatre. At this time, Sweeney Todd was on Broadway, and I soon fell in love with that score as well as A Little Night Music and Follies (Pacific Overtures would follow soon after). Certainly Sondheim was the focus of my new-found love for musicals, but without Prince, none of those shows would have been, or at least would have been what they were. I'm not a huge Phantom lover either, but I do think that Prince successfully captured the mysterious/fantastical world that the story (and that ALW's music) demanded, and really made the show better than it's score. His contribution to that show is immeasurable. He also really saved Evita, IMO - taking the rather fragmented Webber/Rice concept album and really finding a way to make it work creditably onstage. Evita's look was as spare as Phantom's was opulent, but both were distinctive, inventive physicalizations of the material that have become iconic. BTW - Sondheim envisioned Sweeney as being a much more small-scale production (as it has been done since, albeit with too much fussy silly konzept-ishness, by John Doyle), but Prince had a large-scale vision for the production (along with, I believe, the ideas surrounding the Industrial Revolution and the British class system), and I'm glad they went with that. Like many shows, Sweeney can be done in many ways, but that original production also feels iconic to me.

I am so sad to report that one of the most giant giants in the world of musical theatre, Harold Prince, left us today. I met him several years ago. Great and gracious man. Left us an indispensable legacy and really changed the shape of where musicals would go. One of my heroes. May he rest in very deserved peace. I may write more later, but for now, here's the NY Times obit. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/theater/hal-prince-dead.html

Just contacted him about seeing him when he's in Boston in August. $400/hr. Much as I want to meet him, I just can't see paying that. I may give it a thought, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

Are you saying there was an escort with that name, lol?

Well, it IS visually excellent. And I'll admit the show has its shortcomings (the plot is way thin, the show is, IMO, a bit overlong to really sustain that plot, and the "megamix" ending overstayed its welcome) - but I can't reduce it to being a "karaoke night." I thought it was much more worthy than that. One caveat I have made, though, is that seeing it in Boston last summer, part of the built-in occasion was the reopening of the Colonial Theatre, which has a long and important history in Boston, and that was in danger of being shuttered and used for other purposes. So, part of the joy of seeing Moulin Rouge there was the joy of the newly renovated, newly reopened landmark theatre. Perhaps I might not have been quite so into the show if it had just been any other tryout/touring production? I can't really say. But I know I came out of the performance in a great mood - and as a theatre professional, I can be a very tough audience lol.

Just looked back at the stage management reports from our production in Boston, Jan/Feb 2018. We ran pretty consistently at 1:32 -- 92 minutes. I can't imagine why the Encores production was 2 hours plus. Must have been V E R Y S L O W T E M P O S...

2+ hours??? That seems very long for this show. I could swear my production was a lot shorter, and we didn’t cut anything. I’ll have to look back to see if I can find our average running time. It should work just fine with no intermission, but it should also run faster than it seems to have.

I'm wondering if the overall device of the radio show, as done in this production, made sense when the show gets to the *real* radio show sales pitch for Boca Raton. Did that work, or was that confusing? I did a production of the show last year. I would agree that it's certainly not Sondheim's greatest show, or score, but it does still have a lot of great stuff in it, IMO. It's an enjoyable show, even if not as sophisticated or emotionally satisfying as many of his other shows. I do think that two of the ballads, "Isn't He Something" and "The Best Thing That Ever Has Happened" are particularly great songs (though both songs also existed in earlier incarnations of the material). "Talent" is also quite a good song. I also like "The Game" and "Gold" quite a bit. I think the framing device worked better in Bounce ("Bounce" instead of the rewrite into "What A Waste") - and there are other moments from that previous incarnation that I think worked better. But that's just my own opinion. An interesting bit of trivia - the father's deathbed song, "It's In Your Hands Now," is a rewrite of a song called "Flag Song" meant for Assassins. (A fragment of that melody can still be heard in Assassins, as sung by the Balladeer in "Another National Anthem.")