Be Well, Caleb

Go ahead and cancel the whole tour and please get the help you need.  It seems to me (and Lainey) that your management is a bunch of assholes.  Lean on your family, instead.  Listen to them.  Take your time.  Take however long it takes.  I will still love your cold, cold sailor's heart no matter how long it takes.

Max Vadukul for Rolling Stone

Just please don't break my heart.

Man of the Hour: Eric Northman

Because he pulls good string.

I'll Take Nerd Alert for $400, Alex

Remember when I took the annual online test to qualify to be a contestant on Jeopardy!?  I must not have done very well because I never heard from them.

But a life goal isn't something you attempt once and then give up on.  So, I took the test again this year.

And I passed.

I've been invited to audition in person in Lexington, KY next month!

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this: I haven't been this excited about something in years.

Professional Cycling Never Fails to Entertain

It's like the most deliciously, juicy episode of my favorite, trashy, soap opera.  Some people have General Hospital or Gossip Girl.  I have professional cycling.



Let me be perfectly clear: I am 100% certain that many many many competitive cyclists use performance enhancing drugs.  And yet, I still adore professional cycling.  That they use PEDs is as non-controversial to me as the fact that they use aerodynamics labs to fine-tune their form.  Doping is part of the culture of the sport.  And I don't give a damn.  I still love Lance Armstrong.  I will always love Tyler Hamilton.

Because, even with the drugs, what those men do is astonishing.  Mind-boggling.  Super-human.  Above all, it's immensely entertaining.

And that's all I want from cycling.  Another juicy installment in the on-going soap opera.

Gallant Forty Twa

It's been over two weeks since I saw Gregory Burke's Black Watch and it's still with me.  So much so that the actor who played Cammy showed up in my dream last night.  It's haunting.



The staging of the show, at Chicago's Broadway Armory, was so striking, such a perfect fusion of theater and space, that I can't imagine seeing it any other way.  Surely they don't also produce this show on traditional proscenium stages?  So much would be lost.  No, you have to sit on those risers, in an homage to (mockery of?) a military tattoo.  You have to feel the reverberations of the explosions.  You have to stare through the action at your fellow man across the way (the night I saw the show, my fellow man happened to be Mayor Daley).

In watching these men - these beautiful, strong, silly, angry, brave, lost, crude, noble men - you can begin to see them as more than war story archetypes.  Their personalities emerge.  They peel back their layers of vulgarity to reveal an astonishing depth of character.

This show doesn't feel directed, it feels choreographed.  But to say "choreography" suggests the qualities of an effeminate dancer.  Happily, these men steer clear of such any such missteps.  This is movement.  Sometimes violent, at other times tender.  But always masculine.  Manly, but with the voices of choir boys:



I watched a good portion of this show breathless, tears streaming down my face.  The juxtaposition of horror and gallantry quite simply broke my heart.  Thanks to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the National Theatre of Scotland for one of the best theater experiences of my life.

Man of the Hour: Raylan Givens

I never realized I have such a thing for cowboys.

Quick-witted and even quicker on the draw, Raylan Givens (as played by Timothy Olyphant on FX's terrific Justified) is driving me wild.

He's old-fashioned in all the right ways and brimming with charm and confidence.  Mix the righteousness of a Wild West lawman with the scrappy instincts of a backwoods bootlegger.  Add a sardonic sense of humor and a genuinely sweet chivalry.  Toss in some renegade rebelliousness and a quaintly formal wardrobe.  Work in a streak of recklessness and more than a whiff of danger.  And don't forget the wildly expressive face, the ever-so-slightly salt-and-pepper hair, and a sexy-as-sin smile to make me week-in-the-knees.

Pour yourself a mason jar of "apple pie," Raylan.  You are the Man of the Hour.

Countdown

In just under two weeks, I'll be in Las Vegas.  It's for Work but, since I'll be staying at the brand-spanking-new Cosmopolitan, it's a safe bet that there will be some Play, too.



God only knows what debauchery I'll get myself into this time.

I.cannot.wait.

UPDATE:  It's just as hot as the commercial. Naughty but oh so comfortable. Surprisingly chic in a town that is decidedly not. This is a hotel for grown ups.


Thank you to Corey, my mysteriously prescient roulette buddy.  I should have found a way to thank you properly...


People who say that you can't win money in Vegas don't know what they're doing.