My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Dina Martina at the Laura Beechman Theater, NYC

Jimmy and I enjoyed a night at the theatah last night, because we are urban sophisticates who sometimes find something we both want to do on the same night. I recently discovered Dina Martina thanks to my secret conservative extra-marital boyfriend Andrew Sullivan and his blog. Andrew started featuring Ms. Martina on his web series Ask [Someone] Anything, in which he gets a prominent person--usually a political or cultural pundit--to sit down and field questions from readers. Dina Martina is a nice "lady" singer Andrew loves who performs all summer in Provincetown, where he summers like a big old gaywad, and so when she landed in NYC to do a stint of shows, he asked her to sit and preview her show/field questions from the unwashed Internet. It was her insightful and edumacational answers that convinced me that Jimmy and I could not spend our Sunday night doing anything more meaningful than basking in the glamor and clammy glow of La Martina.

She did all sorts of stuff from the great American songbook, from "Genius of Love" by the Tom Tom Club to "Legal Tender" by the B-52s, from the theme song from "The Love Boat" to a song for children that she'd written on a crumpled up piece of notebook paper she appeared to have found in a public toilet. It was, as Mitt Romney might say, "marvelous." She's on her way to London, so London peeps, she's playing at the Soho Theater from October 23 to November 3, get your tickets, it's good clean American comedy, like the Osmonds but so much better.

Jimmy darted out before I could force him to take my picture with her, but that's okay because I just took one myself, minus me, plus a nice woman with electric red hair.

Below, watch Dina take a question. You'll learn something, maybe.

The End of a (Very Short) Era: 9 to 5 Closes on Broadway

As you all no doubt have already heard (if not dealt with), Dolly Parton's 9 to 5: The Musical closed this past weekend after only about 5 months on Broadway. This is just appalling, obviously. Mama Mia, after all, is still on, relentlessly, night after dreary night, after how many grim years of blanding its audiences to death? Of course, I shouldn't expect the world to understand or appreciate such a brilliant, campy, tacky '80s boob odyssey as 9 to 5, which Dolly wrote each and every song for. After all, the world loved Cats, and that thing was awful and Satanic, was it not?

Well, I wasn't going to take this horrible news lying down, no no no. On Friday night my friend Sarah and I headed straight to the Marquis Theater to show our support for this office musical of our times. I just don't understand why negative critical reception and poor ticket sales have to sink a Broadway production. What about pizzazz, chutzpah, and moxie? Do these things count for nothing in the dog-eat-dog devil's daycare popularly known as Broadway? (Moxie is expensive.) Huh? The curtain was made of curled phone chords, for God's sake. What else do you people want?
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Sarah and I are smiling because we've just realized we're the skinniest people in the audience.
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Well, Sarah and I arrived at the show prepared to see an unmitigated disaster along the lines of Lestat or Titanic, the Musical. Sarah was wearing her smartest officewear in solidarity with the three women we would soon see on stage gagging their boss with a handkerchief; and I was wearing Superman Underoos under my H and M slim-leg slacks, in solidarity with what I used to wear when I watched the movie over and over on HBO as a child.

The show was nothing like Titanic. It was fun, in addition to being stupid, and it had Allison Janney playing the Lily Tomlin role. There's really not much more you can ask for. Its closing is a crying shame. But, much like the electric typewriter, this show will not soon be forgotten.



Beverages are much more delicious in an official 9 to 5: The Musical sippy cup.


Outside the Marquis in front of a pole advertising the show, a pole that, sadly, will probably soon be advertising the next piece of Disney trash they roll off the assembly line.