I saw the play Fat Pig last weekend and it's taken me a while to process it. It 's by Neil LaBute and it turns out he's one of those artists that people have a definite opinion about. This opinion is very often, "Ugh, no." I can understand why someone would think that although I find him entertaining although I don't wish he and I could hang out or anything.

The play is about a guy who falls in love with a woman who is really fat. His friends, who were mean to him before this woman, become especially mean once they find out that she is fat. It's a bit much to label this a "spoiler" but he dumps her so that he can be lonely instead of teased. The End.

I have been thinking of this as "Goddamn you fat woman for being so desirable, yet fat!" and one more example of LaBute's, uh, conflicted feelings towards women. But I've realized, after just reading the introduction to the published version of the script, that he himself is considerably overweight which is both stressful and also a point of pride because he believes that his writing and his girth are interconnected somehow. Kind of like artists being enamored of bourbon as a muse or Camel Lights but for him it's Pringles. So now I've refined my opinion as "Women should really restrain themselves because they'll get fat but I don't want to restrain myself because it's restraining."

Tom Shales, television critic of the Washington Post, thinks W's necktie was blue. So perhaps my theory is all fucked up. Anyway he has this note:

CBS viewers, especially those who are always suspecting the network of tilting left, may have been jolted by the recorded announcement played during the closing credits of "Armed & Famous," the show that preceded the president's speech on the network. Said an announcer: " 'Criminal Minds' is next, here on CBS."

I haven't heard this in a long time, but when I was a teenager, I remember hearing conservatives complain that the word "gay" had been unfairly appropriated by homosexuals and that there was now one less adjective available for use by ordinary, non-sodomites. "They took a perfectly good word and hijacked it."

I thought of this while looking at pictures of W's speech on the web (I listened on the radio since he's somewhat less infuriating without the visual) and I saw his purple tie. A gay tie? No, for purple is now the symbol of democratic blue states and republican red states blending together in a puppy pile of purple. Too sneering to wear a red tie, too pandering to wear blue, too unfashionable to wear gold.

I like the color red and I feel like they took a perfectly good 33% of the primary colors and hijacked it!