Give Me a Effing Break, A-Ho. Poop!

Amble over to SF Theater Blog to see the phenomenon of Superfandom. Plotnik has never before received more disagreements over one of his reviews. You can read the review but the far more interesting part is the commentary from people across the country.

What could be happening here?

1) "Shlock of Shmages" (not its real name) has a PR department mobilized to refute every negative review. They wear their hair in huge perms and sit in their cubicles waving around those stupid free lighters.

2) There actually are people in the world who are, as Steve Winn says in this morning's Chron, caught up in a time warp. Anybody not there with them just doesn't get it.

3) Is the SF road company spectacularly worse than any of the other touring companies? Certainly the two leads were as lame as a three legged horse, and yet the lead male, in particular, appears to be beloved by his faithful legions.

4) Maybe Plotnik and Ducknik ambled into the wrong theater -- could they have seen Pinter's "The Homecoming" which is next door? Pinter is really depressing, true, but maybe they decided to use '80s rock and roll to punch it up for modern audiences already half zonked by Prozac and American Idol?

5) The woman who has seen it ten times -- what can you say? Plottie loves getting reader's comments and at least she didn't call him an asshole.

6) No one has called him an asshole. Yet. It may be the bad language filter on the budget browser they're using over at the insane asylum.

6a) ...but come to think of it, in the show they say 'effing' and 'poop.' 'Asshole' would probably be 'a-ho." Refer to (1.)

7) There's the gay factor too -- the really irritating narrator seemed to be switching sexual identity with every monologue. Now he's Jack Black. Now he's the Village People. The SF audience roared at all quasi-gay jokes and references, and there were many, perhaps more here than in Indianapolis?

8) Maybe Plottie IS an a-ho.

9) He's pretty sure all his writers are women. Why does he think so? For one thing, they're literate. But read the comments and tell him if you agree. So, is "Rock of Ages" another "The Vagina Monologues" or "Shopping, The Musical?" Do these women purposely ignore the bad acting, awful hair and mediocre singing in the same way they would ignore the obvious red lights when falling for Mr. Bad? Is getting bonked in a stall in the men's room by superstar Tracy Jaxx what we are aspiring to here?

Ane yet, that's what the heroine does, before joining a whore house (run by, we think, Tina Turner). (Well, wouldn't you? After all, she is in severe depression after being let go from her job as a barmaid and discovering Tracy Jaxx doesn't cherish her skanky ass.)

And we're supposed to feel her pain. Well, it's true. Have YOU ever gotten laid in a stall in the men's room? It's not the Ritz. Pain, or at least discomfort, would be involved.

9-a) Apropos of nothing, have you ever noticed that "Palin' is just 'pain' with an 'l?'

10) So who's the a-ho now? Hahh?