Michael's Musings

Say Hello To My Little Friend
Michael Shinafelt

Meet my newest friend Alastair, I encountered him on my way to one of my favorite locals The Kitchen in Silverlake. I love walking to places in my neighborhood, you get to see things through a very different set of eyes than when you are mobile.

Not to mention you get to interact with new and interesting people. Alastair and I are gonna get the party started Minions, join us!!!

Prostitutes are people too, and they have a lot of disposable income. The more you know...

FYI Daddy can't help you now!

I tried to put myself in your shoes but they were cheap and ugly

Ryan Gosling crooning I'm Just Ken is number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100

You really don't hate Mondays, you hate the pain of existence 

Not everything in the Bible is wrong, the page numbering is accurate 

Saw Babylon finally. Can't believe that someone read the script and actually greenlighted it, let alone spent 80 million on it

Since I referenced my local The Kitchen let me tell you what I ate the day I met Alastair. You can build your own grilled cheese sandwich there which they serve on sourdough bread. I had mine with sharp cheddar and garlic aioli, yummy to the max!!!

Woman Crush of the Week - since I am currently binging Gossip Girl, Leighton Meester for her deliciously naughty performance as Blair Waldorf

Wayne Brady announced he's pansexual, now my life is complete (note the sarcasm)

Barking seals need love too 

After Wrong Turn and The Hole comes The Wrong Hole

Currently listening to the sweet sound of all the F#cks I'm not going to give today 

Now to find out what's in my wallet 

For that and other 411 follow me here -

https://www.instagram.com/michaelshinafelt/

https://twitter.com/MShinafelt   

Hump Day & Chill

I know I am late to this particular game, but currently I am binging Gossip Girl on MAX and am almost done with season three. I am hooked! Thus when all is said and done today guess what I will Hump Day & Chill to? Gossip Girl, naturally, gotta finish every delectable season!!!

Why didn't I watch it when it aired initially? The title was a turn off so I didn't bother to find out anything past that about the show. When I found out it was about teenagers behaving badly who can not hide their secrets from a ruthless blogger who publishes them online, well I just had to see it! 

There are many things to like about GG my favorite is the well rounded believable characters and the acting. "Yes" sometimes the storylines are somewhat over the top, but if you have well written believable characters with actors who can inhabit them and make even the most outlandish of situations grounded in reality, you can do that sort of thing. 

Above is a poster for an ad campaign the clever marketing team behind the show did using quotes from negative reviews for it. 

There is one character on the show I do identify with and I'm not telling you who or it is, or what sex they are. Let's put it this way I'm no Dan Humphrey!

Guess away and Hump Day & Chill Minions...

GG on Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_Girl   

Alaska...A Christmas Show

You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why…International starlet of stage and screen Alaska Thunderfuck is coming to town- and she’s not only checked her list twice- she’s checked it thrice.

Gather round the open fire and join Alaska and her longtime musical collaborator Jeremy in a heartwarming evening of story and song that will melt your heart and the polar icecaps. This show promises to be a magical, fun night with holiday classics, not-so-holiday classics, and yuletide tomfoolery.  

The “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like ALASKA …A Christmas Show” tour begins in Seattle on December 6, 2023, and travels to 11 cities, including Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, and New York City.

Tickets for this very special one-night-only holiday extravaganza, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like ALASKA …A Christmas Show” go on sale today, August 7, at 10 AM. Ticket prices fluctuate but there's GA, VIP, Ultimate VIP tickets in all cities including access to see Alaska before the show during her soundcheck and priority access to the meet and greet experience and photo opportunity. Tickets are available on Alaskathunderfuck.com

 

Tour Dates

 

December:

 

6^th: Seattle, WA @ Neptune

7^th: Vancouver, BC @ The Vogue

8^th: Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater

10^th: San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 365

12^th: Montreal, QC @ Le National

14^th: New York, NY @ Town Hall

15^th: Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Hall

16^th: Boston, MA @ Big Night Live

17^th: Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall

22^nd: Chicago, IL @ House of Blues

23^rd: Erie, PA @ Erie Playhouse

 

About Alaska Thunderfuck 5000

A bizarre cosmic collision propelled Alaska to Earth…and onto the fifth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” where she finished in the final 3 before returning and taking the crown as winner of season two of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.” She has released four chart-topping studio albums, “Anus,” “Poundcake,” “Vagina” and “Red 4 Filth.” Alaska was nominated for a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her feature role as Queen Gynecia in the Go Go’s scored musical comedy “Head Over Heels,” been a cast member of VH1’s hit reality series “Scared Famous,” starred as Hattie in the short horror film “The Quiet Room” directed by Sam Wineman, guested in the ever-popular science fiction action comedy horror disaster film Sharknado as well as Hulu’s hit series “Drag Me To Dinner.” In addition, Alaska has released a young adult novel titled “Alaska Thunderfun and the Inner Space Odyssey,”released her memoir "My Name's Yours, What's Alaska?: A Memoir" and has toured the globe spreading her otherworldly message of love, kindness and gender non-conformity. Alaska also co-hosts the wildly popular Race Chaser podcast with Willam here and her YouTube videos boast over 60 million views with 15 million views alone (and counting) for 2017's "The T." She has over 1.8 million Instagram followers and over 1.3 million Twitter & Facebook followers. You can watch her first-ever stand-up comedy special "The Alaska Thunderf**k Extra Special Comedy Special" on the OUTtv USA Apple TV Channel. In addition, Alaska co-founded the LGBTQ+ Moguls of Media (MOM) podcast channel here on the Forever Dog Network, co-created the Drag Queen of the Year Pageant Competition Award Contest Competition Here and is the face of one of six featured flavors with SERV Vodka Here. She debuted a new live stage show in the fall of 2022 called DRAG: The Musical which she co-starred in and co-wrote with certified platinum selling songwriter/producer Tomas Costanza & Ashley Gordon. Her latest foray finds her in the world of smells with her “Red For Filth” fragrance HERE which was a decade in the making.  And, in her spare time she stars in Divatronic icon tribute shows (Gaga, Britney, Taylor, Miley) that she founded and created with director Nick Laughlin. Her message to humankind?  "Anus-thing is possible." Find her online at: alaskathunderfuck.com.

 

Monday Motivation

No pretending anymore, it's time to take a risk and potentially embarrass yourself. 

Taking risks is one of the keys to life I have learned of late, not pretending is a road to happiness.

Monday Motivation indeed.

Bend it like Drew (and yours truly.)

Drew Barrymore on IG -

https://www.instagram.com/drewbarrymore/reels/?hl=en   

Wrong Answers Only

You know that thing that people do on Social Media to add some levity to your life, post a still from a movie asking what it is and imploring you to give wrong off the cuff, fun/funny answers?

Well today I thought we should take a crack at it here at Entertain Me, it is Sunday Funday after all...

Here's My Wrong Answer: Kramer v Kramer 

While I'm sure the majority of you know what film this really is, for those who don't, or for those who simply want to know more about it, the correct answer is at the Wikipedia link below.

Cheers!

Creature From The Black Lagoon on Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_from_the_Black_Lagoon 

24th Street Blues

Tom Heyman

When speaking of San Francisco these days, it seems like it is stereotypically presented as either a city full of young tech nomads lining up for artisanal coffee, or as a blighted, urban hellscape of fentanyl zombies and street crime. But with his sixth solo album 24^th Street Blues, Tom Heyman sings of a more rank-and-file San Francisco, balancing the encroaching darkness of an overdeveloped cityscape with the fragile, abiding beauty of the Golden Gate City. 

 

“If you stay in one place long enough you really start to see it change.” He explains, “Around 2010, the city started to feel like a movie that was sped up, jerking and lurching forward at a dangerously fast, celluloid-shredding pace with market forces feeling like a locomotive bearing down on anything or anyone in its path.”

 

For over two decades, Heyman and his wife have lived in a sprawling, dilapidated, converted-storefront rental on 24^th Street – deep in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district. 24^th Street Blues details his observations and interactions from years of living and working in the neighborhood as it weathered the storms and the aftermath of plutocratic expansion. When listening to the hardscrabble sagas that thread these songs together, it doesn’t sound like Heyman deliberately sought to create a concept album so much as he inadvertently followed the Mark Twain credo, “Write what you know.”

 

Here, the characters of his songs strive to exist (and sometimes perish) under looming cranes that dot the city skyline. Heyman braids timeless sounding singer-songwriter narratives with Barbary Coastal Americana that at times recalls the rusty, boiler-room reverberations of The Basement Tapes or the smoldering boogie of JJ Cale. Other moments are reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot’s beautifully sparse melodies and John Prine’s penchant for an economy of words. Over mostly acoustic tapestries, Heyman sings stories of displaced families, endangered bohemians, migrant workers, sidewalk hustlers, surviving musicians, juvenile delinquents, weathered barkeeps, junkie friends, unhoused encampments, cannabis farmers, and slumlord arsonists. 

 

24^th Street Blues arrives packaged with a 60-page songbook comprising lyrics and music charts accompanied by a gorgeous collection of paintings and drawings that were designed as companion pieces for each song. These were created by Heyman’s wife Deirdre F. White, an artist and educator acutely tuned into composing images of modern dystopian inequality and the housing/mobility challenges of the American West. 

                                                                                                            

In addition to his solo work, Heyman has spent many years as a sought-after journeyman guitarist and pedal steel player recording and touring with a varied array of artists including John Doe,  Alejandro Escovedo, Chuck Prophet, Penelope Houston, Roy Loney, Hiss Golden Messenger, Sonny Smith and Kelley Stoltz . His pedal steel playing is one of the distinct sonic threads woven through many of the songs on 24^th Street Blues. The record was produced Mike Coykendall (M. Ward ) and mixed by Scott Hirsch (Hiss Golden Messenger). 

 

24^th Street Blues presents portraits of a San Francisco where dues are never paid in full, but flowers still bloom from the ashes of the digital goldrush. Like any good long-player, these songs work a deeper magic on the listener with repeated listens. His lyrics take residence in the periphery of your mind like the spectral passages of a Denis Johnson novel. Whether he’s darkening the doors of the city’s Victorians or sharing a drink with a veteran bartender, Heyman has haunted the enduring and evaporating pockets of San Francisco’s heyday long enough to become one of the living ghosts of his own songs.

 

www.tomheymanmusic.net

Remembering Marilyn Monroe

Today is the 61st anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's passing. To commemorate it here is a still from my favorite Marilyn movie The Misfits written by her then husband Arthur Miller and directed to the great John Houston.

Marilyn's portrayal of Roslyn Taber was simply one of her best. The photo is from my favorite scene in the film where Roslyn dances with abandon among the trees. I'm really not sure how else to describe it, other than the scene itself is mesmerizing.

Rest In Power 

Marilyn on Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe