palin survives to the next round

All right, I admit I was deeply disappointed the governor didn't freeze up and vomit all over the podium or run shrieking off the stage, but that was a less than stellar performance last night.

Here's my big-city, 21st century bias:

Any adult who says "doggone it" is either

A. a class A moron

or

B. hustling you

When you say "doggone it" you mean "goddamnit" so say that or don't say anything at all.

End of the day, it changed no minds either way, so we move on to the heavyweight card on Tuesday.

I'm hustling New Zealand and other points down under for a screwmachine/eyecandy tour in the spring, maybe some Fatboy action as well. We've been offered a deal in Adelaide, trying to pick up extra dates in other cities to make it work.

Anyone got a venue and a stack of cash down there?

Do let me know.

And in heavy pre-production and scheduling for The Truth About Santa. My least favorite part of this carnival ride. It never makes any sense or feels like it will ever possibly happen until you're in rehearsal and it starts singing.

The L.A. Times liked Fatboy, so we like those sunburnt, smooth-talking bastards.

Here's some of what they said:

Fatboy succeeds as sheer satire

"Fatboy" commences with a barked expletive -- an "m" word not uttered in polite company. It's a fitting opening for John Clancy's playful take on Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi," which also opens with a verboten French "m" word of a more scatological variety.

Legendarily, that single opening word of "Ubu Roi" so shocked playgoers at its 1896 Paris premiere that they erupted in screaming riot. The opening night patrons at Clancy's play, now in its West Coast nod at the Imagined Life Theater (formerly 2100 Square Feet), merely guffawed appreciatively during a blue streak of crudity that would make Lenny Bruce flip in his grave...Clancy delivers his message with a refreshing lack of pretension that sets him apart from the typically self-righteous agitprop crowd.

Clancy's eponymous hero Fatboy (née Ubu), played by the amply padded Alexander Wells, is a deceptively comical cartoon. Punch to his shrewish Judy of a wife (Rebecca Jordan), Fatboy demands pancakes. When they are not forthcoming, he devours chairs -- courtesy of prop designer Renee Peffer's marshmallow inserts.

Don't let the gaudy trappings of Mark Mendelson's sideshow set and Vandy Scoates' vaudevillian costumes fool you. It's no accident that Fatboy's name is an amalgam of the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Paradoxically, on-stage anarchy requires dictatorial direction and pinpoint pacing to come to a point. Director Ian Forester is bracingly cheeky, as is his engaging cast.

I'll take that.