#UnwantedIvanka

We’re badger hot in our Michael Jordon hats!

And I’m vagueblogging some Full Monty inside jokes!

The entire family is up at the sparkle fingers of dawn to volunteer at MoShow, the epic show choir competition at my (and then my sister’s and eventually then my nephew’s and now my niece’s) high school

Every year I end up volunteering in the kitchen, which is next to the gyms, which are where the trophies and athletic-hall-of-fame pictures are ... and my state-winning gymnastics team photo still hangs in all its glory there, where generations of fully wowed students have paid homage at this fading shrine to my JV-lettering pommel-horse athletic grace and stylings:

That’s right, kids: In addition to my award-winning high-school sparkle-fingering, I’M ALSO A SPORTSY LETTERMAN.

You may all now bow and exalt.

Movin' the chains

I’m home from another delightfully exhausting weekend, I have the house quietly to myself and an ice-cold cherry-lime La Croix on a coaster next to me, and I’m going to spend my evening listening to Mozart and reading a book. And being thankful for many, many things.

How fitting that the memory of my TCR shirtless debut pops up during production week for my TCR more-than-shirtless debut

Back then, you had to buy tickets in person or over the phone. Now you just go to theatrecr.org

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Whorehouse Edition

What's so funny about this picture? Let me count:
1. I'm playing a football player.
2. I'm playing a football player who utilizes the services of female prostitutes.
3. I'm shirtless on stage for the first time in my life. I know it's hard to believe there was once a time where me taking my shirt off on stage was a novelty, but you have to start somewhere. And I started in 1998, rompin' and stompin' with the Aggie Boys in Theatre Cedar Rapids' The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. This show also predates all my big tattoos, so I look like a pristine little infant in this picture. A pristine little infant who dances around shirtless and goes to whorehouses.

"Power play" is a hockey word. Look it up.

Last year today I was singing a power-play arrangement of “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth” sporting authentic hockey gear and two magic-of-theater missing teeth in front of the power-play Orchestra Iowa in my beloved (and, obvs, power-play) Paramount Theatre.

Today today I’ll be tap-dancing with a merry band of bejinglebelled elves in the last of an eminently delightful five-week run of Elf the Musical at the always-eminently-delightful Theatre Cedar Rapids.

The only arguable difference here is I’ll be wearing brand-new work gloves to strike our set tonight.

Happy 79th birthday to my dad!

My awesome father taught me how to throw a football (sorry that pastime didn’t stick) and cheat at cribbage (or that one) and swear more creatively than the other kids on the playground (that TOTALLY did), showed me how to drive a stick shift even on a steep hill, instilled in me a fascination with history, bought me My First Toolbox™ when I bought my first house, embraced me wholly as his gay son in an era when other dads would treat homosexuality as a family shame, dutifully cheered me on whether I was in a boring show or running a boring race, patiently and determinedly worked to help bring me back from and daily manage the unfathomable depths of bipolar depression—often just by telling me he’s glad I’m here—and accepted his blindness from macular degeneration with grace and humor and dignity. He continues to set a daily example of kindness and altruism that inspires me to try to be loving and decent and fair in every situation I encounter. I'm guessing you're probably having this read to you, Dad, so tell Mom to say this part with dramatic emphasis: I love you!

Hello, ESPN First Take anchorman Max Kellerman

I can see you staring at me every morning from the TV at my gym and probably so can everyone else it’s embarrassing so just give me your address and any codes a person would hypothetically need to get into your building and I’ll send you my phone number thanks.

Oh, nothing

Just sitting on a panel of judges draconianly judging the team names and uniforms for two separate middle-school and high-school dodgeball tournaments, and no doubt destroying uncountable spirits, hopes and dreams along the way. I am DRUNK! WITH! POWER!

How’s YOUR pathetically-meaningless-by-comparison Saturday morning?

Flashback Friday: Texas Has A Whorehouse In It Edition

What's so adorable about this picture? Let me count: 

1. I'm playing a football player.

2. I'm playing a football player who utilizes the services of female prostitutes.

3. I'm shirtless on stage for the first time in my life. I know it's hard to believe there was once a time where me taking my shirt off on stage was a novelty, but you have to start somewhere. And I started in 1998, rompin' and stompin' with the Aggie Boys in Theatre Cedar Rapids' The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. This show also predates all my big tattoos, so I look like a pristine little infant in this picture. A pristine little infant who dances around shirtless and goes to whorehouses.

Our final cast picture from our final performance as a team before we all get drafted into ... um, wherever it is that singing, dancing hockey players get drafted into

We’ve really become a tight-knit family over these last few days of rehearsals and five-minute performances, and it’s sad to say goodbye, my friends. But we've gotta grow. We've got to try. It's hard, so hard. We have to say goodbye.

Oh, nothing

Just wiping the last of the slavish devotion that got all over me during my 2,000-seat standing ovation. How was YOUR night?

And how sweet is this hockey gig? We wait in our lavishly appointed dressing room sipping complimentary RC products and getting unlimited tarot readings until we’re summoned to star in the second-to-last number, catch our breath during the last number, and then soak up cheering applause in my beloved Paramount Theatre as Orchestra Iowa plays a robustly joyful “Sleigh Ride” mere feet behind us. Just getting to stand on the Paramount stage is all I need to brighten my whole week ... but RC PRODUCTS TOO?

Also, how adorable is my mom’s childhood toy Rudolph (or maybe it’s just a charmingly disfigured dog — the jury’s still out) that we recently found buried in a box of stuff and added to our standard under-tree decoration collection? It’s twice as old as I am, but we both still look 28 — which is more like 25 when we’re not in the direct glare of the tree lights.

At least I have a dressing room, I guess

I am an EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL singing BASS/BARITONE as a TOOTHLESS HOCKEY PLAYER with a dressing room labeled ... KICKLINE DANCERS.

I just sang “All I Want for Christmas is my Two Front Teeth”

in authentic soccer gear with my teeth blacked out at the stunning Paramount Theatre with the magnificent Orchestra Iowa behind me. Plus I get to do it again tonight. And then again tomorrow. Bliss.

Get your pucks to the Paramount

for your first and undoubtedly last opportunity to watch me (and four other brutes) sing and dance merry holiday tunes IN REAL HOCKEY VESTMENTS. Because it’s not Christmas without the traditional Dance of the Slapshotplum Fairies and Straightpeople. Or something like that.

I am now in the temporary possession of a well-worn hockey stick and a Cedar Rapids RoughRiders jersey -- just like in my senior picture!

If you're wondering exactly WHY I'm now in the temporary possession of a well-worn hockey stick and a Cedar Rapids RoughRiders jersey just like in my senior picture -- because of course you are -- you're just going to have to come see the Orchestra Iowa Holiday Spectacular pops concert at the architecturally extravagant Paramount Theatre this weekend to find out. It's guaranteed to be a Christmas touchdown!

Get your tickets right now this very minute by clicking here.

Happy birthday to my awesome brother-in-law

and father to my children. Well, technically, they're not MY children but I love them more because I used to buy them candy on the sly when they were much younger because THAT'S WHAT UNCLES DO. Oops ... where was I? Oh, yes: My brother-in-law has helped raise two decent, thoughtful, informed, involved kids (one of whom is co-authoring a play celebrating cultural and human diversities as we speak and the other of whom is in college as we speak studying political science so he can improve our country and world), obsessively power-washed his driveway on every day that ends in y, missed a few big sportsball games on occasion so the rest of us could watch musicals populated with frolicking men in ill-fitting tights as a family, and volunteered to climb the high, scary, pants-wetting ladder so I could stay safely close to the ground on the low, scary, pants-wetting ladder when we painted his house. Most importantly, he has always, without fail or even slightly crumbling resolve, shooed the entire family out of his kitchen so he could do all the dishes -- even after the 14-course state dinner we hosted for Angela Merkel just because we enjoy saying her name -- and thus saved me from having to do dishes, which I hate more than folding laundry or watching Donald Trump do that anus thing with his lips. So everybody call my brother-in-law at work today and sing Happy Birthday in long, fermata-ed whole notes so he can really savor the experience. And buy him gift cards from Michaels because that place gives him hives and I think if he could just buy some dried branches and styrofoam cones without using his own money, it could be like a gateway drug and he could conquer his fears and start making pipe-cleaner snowmen skating merrily on oddly shaped mirrored ponds to give as Christmas gifts or maybe Epiphany gifts for those of you at the end of the alphabet.

First Immutable Rule of the Copy Desk:

Never -- NEVER! -- enter copy into the system that you don't want accidentally overlooked and sent to press.

Sweet 16!

Happy 16th birthday to my delightful niece, who has grown from being a squirmy toddler who refused to be snuggled to an adorable little girl who charmed everyone into giving her cookies and hosted clown- and cheerleader-themed birthday parties to an inquisitive student who’s rocked at basketball and tennis and cello and show choir and debate to a kind, talented, brilliant young woman whose passions for academics and social justice (and I suppose I should mention the Dodgers) inspire all of us to be better people.

Happy 78th birthday to my dad!

Happy 78th birthday to my dad, who taught me how to throw a football (sorry that pastime didn’t stick) and cheat at cribbage (or that one) and swear more creatively than the other kids on the playground (that TOTALLY did), showed me how to drive a stick shift even on a steep hill, instilled in me a fascination with history, bought me My First Toolbox™ when I bought my first house, embraced me wholly as his gay son in an era when other dads would treat homosexuality as a family shame, dutifully cheered me on whether I was in a boring show or running a boring race, patiently and determinedly worked to help bring me back from and daily manage the unfathomable depths of bipolar depression — often just by telling me he was glad I’m here — and accepted his blindness from macular degeneration with grace and humor and dignity. He continues to set a daily example of kindness and altruism that inspires me to try to be loving and decent and fair in every situation I encounter. I'm guessing you're probably having this read to you, Dad, so tell Mom to say this part with dramatic emphasis: I love you!