The funniest show on TV is not on HBO and does not involve four single-ish women. It's on BBC and I hope your Cable has BBCAmerica because then you can start watching So Graham Norton. In LA it's on every night at 11:00 and occassionally is on throughout the day.

SGN is sort of a talk show. Maybe. A talk show mixed with Internet Sites, skits, audience participation and prank phone calls. It's actually a "Television Blog" that, like any Good Blog should, flows unfettered from the mind of it's host, Graham Norton. There's really nothing like it on American TV for so many reasons.

The most obvious reason is Norton is unabashedly and unequivocally Gay. Not this Jack from Will and Grace kind of Gay where the One Note Song becomes a Point-to-Prove Affectation. I find Norton's humor comforting, it reminds me of friends from the past. At the least, it's distinctly British and (although she's Australian, not a Brit) is very much in the vein of Dame Edna.

I personally love British Humor. I love it's self-deprication, I love how it doesn't take anything too seriously and I love how it's done with such fond affection. In America they call this "Camp" and the style has been historically embraced by Gay Men. Camp isn't about being a sissy or being a fag, Camp is about being willing to poke fun at everything - especially yourself.

So Graham Norton could easily be pigeon-holed for this frame of mind as being "too gay". Whatever. When you watch the male guests like Gerard Gepardieu and Anthony Head gladly joining in, it makes all the Sexual Orientation Crap just seem silly. Everyone and everything - gay, straight and in-between - is a target for a ribbing and the level playing field is fertile ground for unconscious giggling.

SGN is also pretty risqué and I was naively shocked at what they allow on British TV. Fuck, shit and cock are all spoken freely (just like Real Life!), and everyone, including the audience, is eager to talk about sex. It's difficult to imagine a society unconcerned with Prudity and Media Inhibition and yet, here it is! Every night! Who knew?

England for one. So Graham Norton is a smash across the ocean and the contrast to what the American Public is fed is shocking. Here's a TV show lauded by our closest Cross-Atlantic Counterparts but even on a show as silly as SGN, it's obvious how out of touch we are with European Thinking. It seems like a small distinction, the differences between Letterman and Norton, but I get the Gut Feeling it's a small part of a Bigger Picture. With the world heading the way it is, someone better start looking at the Bigger Picture and frankly I'd be happy to see less David and more Camp.

10:00:06 PM    sro home /

Inspired perhaps by Cecil Beaton, I've exercised my Gay Perogative and recognized the Importance of Accessorizing by adding yet another feature in the column to the right. Dancing Room Only will be a constantly changing record of my current iPod Hit List. Not all the songs are "dance music", I haven't Totally Fagged Out, but I tend to listen to music in waves of different styles and I'm currently listening to alot of "rhythmic" tunes.

I haven't talked about music on SRO alot though I'm usually always listening to something. Frequently I'll listen to music while watching TV, making dinner, editing SRO and having a Dunhill. I wish I could say I'm exaggerating but hey, I'm not.

If anything on the list ever strikes a chord (so to speak) feel free to e-mail any recommendations. I have quite a bit of music and always love finding something new I haven't heard.

5:02:49 PM    sro home /

There's an article in the LA Times today about the further publication in England of Cecil Beaton's diaries called The Unexpurgated Beaton. For those of you who don't know who Cecil Beaton is, well, go find out. "Unexpurgated" must be MensaSpeak for "Trash to Filth" because Cecil certainly let's loose on a number of celebrities he worked with.

On Katherine Hepburn: "That beautiful bone structure of cheekbone, nose and chin goes for nothing in its surrounding flesh of the New England shopkeeper. She has no generosity, no heart, no grace."

On Mae West: "She could hardly be considered human. The neck, cheeks and shoulders were hidden beneath a peroxide wig. The muzzle, which was all one could see of the face, with the pretty capped teeth, was like that of a nice little ape."

On The Duchess of Windsor: "She is more than ever a personality and character, but God, what she looks like, her face so pulled up that her mouth stretches from ear to ear."

On Elizabeth Taylor: "Her breasts, hanging and huge, were like those of a peasant woman sucking her young in Peru. They were seen in full shape, blotched and mauve, plum... on her fat coarse hands more of the biggest diamonds and emeralds. In comparision everyone else looked ladylike."

Well. Tell us what you really think, Cece. Some poor peasant woman in Peru is fucking pissed, that's for sure.

Were he still alive, his Blog would have been an eye-opener. Cecil's Virtual Blasphamy; Let The Glamour Begin Here. Ok, maybe the name wouldn't have been so lacking in creativity but I'm sure I'd have linked it in a heartbeat.

2:51:52 PM    sro home /

12:39:53 PM    sro home /

Cell phones are, in my humble opinion, one of the most amazing inventions during my lifetime. They have so quickly and easily become assimilated into our culture that even I often wonder what we did before we had them.

When I was a child, we had what was called a Party Line. No, it wasn't a Direct Link to some grooving Love Fest supposedly rampant during the sixties and seventies. You actually "shared" your phone with, well, another party. You would pick up the phone to call relatives in a distant state, and there would be another person, somewhere, already using the line and talking to their distant family. You could conceivably listen to their conversation if you picked up the receiver very carefully and remained extremely quiet. I mean, that's what they said and all. I would never breach another person's privacy like that. I may have seen it in a movie once.

Oh hell, I did it all the time. In what may have been a desperate attempt for friendship (I was an only child at the time, natch) I began to interject and offer my own 8-year old assessment of the Crisis at hand. This became a source of contention, if not for me, for the Anonymous Stranger who we shared our line with.

The next Big Phone Intervention was getting two phones in our house. We had one in my parent's bedroom and one in the kitchen. Phones were not dis-assembable or cordless and when you put a phone somewhere it was tethered to the spot. Talking on the phone meant either standing in the Kitchen or lolling on my parent's quilted satin bedspread and rummaging through the bedside drawers while half-heartedly listening to my Grandmother. The only big payoff for getting two phones was discovering I could call our home number on one phone, quickly hang up and the other phone would ring leading my Mother to believe someone was calling. This Mysterious Caller was an endless source of mirth to me, being the over-imaginative and bored child I was, not only because of Their Unrelenting Calls but the added addition of being able to go in the living room and initiate some Good Quality Conversation speculating who had been calling and hanging up for the last, oh, three years.

Answering Machines didn't appear on the horizon until years later and I was living on my own. They were initially about the size of a small suitcase and you couldn't even call in to get messages. Yes, you could finally return home to hear all the friends who'd called when you were out for hours, usually asking things like "Did I want to go to see Patti Labelle perform, we're leaving right now?" or "I wanted to see you again before I leave tonight for six months on an overseas trip". The messages were torturous little reminders of Where You'd Never Go Again, like souvenirs from LoserLand.

When the technology advanced to Machine Checkability, the act of calling for your messages became standard. By this point, I was in my late twenties and fully enmeshed in the maelstrom of Social Life. Checking my machine was the BlackJack of my daily existance and I had a big monkey on my back about the addiction. He called! Hurrah! Drinks for everyone! Or I hate men. I hate men. Fuck you.

Pretty.

It wasn't until I moved here to LA that I finally got a Cell. I believe it's actually a California Law that you must own one and if someone doesn't have one, I look at them as if they'd just said they don't know how to breath. I've even seen Questionably Homeless Looking People with them and I can only guess at who they have on Speed Dial.

My biggest gripe with a cell phone is the lack of privacy. When there were just Home Phones, you could easily screen calls or completely ignore them, the reasonable excuse being "I wasn't home". Case closed, understanding nods, life moves on. Now, of course, anyone with half a brain knows that excuse is not only Moot but it's bound to be a lie. Now I am Always Home because Home is a Star Trekky-looking flip-thingy that may as well be sutured to my hand. I concievably have the option of seeing who is calling, deciding how willing I am to talk to said person and whether or not to answer.

Of course everyone knows this gig by now and that takes out all the fun. If I don't answer, the person knows 1) I know who's calling because I can see the number and 2) I always have my Cellphone. My decision not to answer becomes fodder for suspicious debate as to my covert motives.

If the call is absolutely unavoidable, I've developed an "I'm in a huge hurry/emergency/involving project and can't really talk unless it's something particularly interesting" voice. I'll be having a leisurely coffee at my corner bistro, answer my cell and suddenly begin talking like I've just completed the Tour De France.

I've mulled over the Uni-Bomber-like idea of giving up my Cell, consciously choosing to revert to the quaint 20th Century notion of just having a phone at home. It might possibly restore some Glamour and Romance to the idea of the Unexpected Call that may change my life. Then again, the caller may just assume I'm a Guarded Recluse and unwilling to initiate conversation that isn't convenient. Their assumption would be mostly accurate and frankly, that's fine with me. If there's not a Huge Party on the other end, I'd rather finish my latté and wait till I get home to reclaim my Right to Choose.

11:23:31 AM    sro home /