Spider Man on Broadway: Just Turn It Off Already
Almost 8 months ago I was super excited when I first read about Spider Man slinging his web over to star in his own show on Broadway. There are times when the word impulsive just can’t begin to describe how over excited I get upon hearing news like this. Momentarily I become a little kid again without even thinking of previous disasters like the 1966 musical, It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman. I wasn’t even on Krypton let alone Earth when some genius let that outrage make it to Broadway. How could Spider Man be as bad as that? We’ve come so far since then, haven’t we? With 3 blockbuster films, an animated series, comics, and toy web slingers, could there possibly be another way of running this Marvel property into the ground? Why yes, as a matter of fact, Spidey on Broadway! Looking back, I have no idea how I didn’t see this disaster of epic proportions looming on the New York City skyline.
Why the f-ck did I even want to get tickets to this piece of trash anyway? First of all, no offense to the Marvel maniacs out there, but I’m a DC loyalist and have been since 1982. I still enjoy many Marvel characters and their films, but I have always enjoyed the DCU more. I would never EVER want to see any of the DC characters in a musical on Broadway, so hopefully if some marketing guru from DC Entertainment tosses that idea around…GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD IMMEDIATELY and then someone give that m-therfucker a swirlie.
So, yeah, I’m coming clean. I did something stupid. I bought tickets the moment they went on sale. Originally my excitement was high for no good reason other than sheer boredom and a lust for fanboy stimulation. There also seemed to be a bit of mystery involved since no details were available yet. Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark (dumb title) was set to premiere on January 16th, 2010. With no info available, I incessantly called Ticketmaster since the transaction wasn’t even appearing in my account history. There was no record of me even purchasing tickets to this crapshow. After several calls, I gave up. (I loathe Ticketmaster by the way.) A few months later, the Internet was buzzing with bad press about the budgetary issues, production problems, and set design perils that the Spider Man musical had run into. This almost sounded as bad as the time those mynocks latched onto the Falcon and started chowing down on those power cables.
The premiere date was pushed to the end of February. I hoped that the new date might give the producers enough time to get their shit together, but truthfully, I started to get fed up when I received an e-mail from terrible Ticketmaster. They wanted me to call them to EXCHANGE the tickets for the new date?!?!?! WTF? Shouldn’t they have just sent me tickets for the new date? I purchased the tickets and now I would risk losing the seats that I bought? That is pure bullshit, but like a shmuck, I called and exchanged the tickets like they asked. The employee who answered had no idea about anything I was referring to. She even snickered when I told her for the second time that I was calling about the Spider Man Musical. Clearly none of the Ticketmaster employees are made aware of postponements or cancellations. When she asked for an order number, I couldn’t even give her one because the transaction didn’t even exist and I was never given an order number, nor did it show up in my account. I was super pissed now. Finally, she figured it out, but the same seats I purchased were no longer available! They gave me seats at the end of the same row, which I settled for.
Today, more articles were published all over the Internet about Spider Man being postponed until Fall of 2010. Many of the news pieces reported that Ticketmaster would be offering refunds at this point. Earlier today I received an automated message on my phone from Ticketmaster stating that I was able to call them for a refund if I desired. If not, I would have to wait for a new sale date to exchange the tickets yet again. As soon as I got home, I called Ticketmaster and asked for a refund. Wouldn’t you know that the jackass who answered the phone had absolutely no clue about anything I was referring to. I told him that I received an automated call and that I was requesting a refund since the show would be postponed for a third time. I’d say it took a good 3 minutes of holding and listening to the same stupid music until he came back and asked more questions. By the end of the near 14 minute conversation full of needless back and forth, I got my refund. Now all I have to do is make sure it actually goes into my account or I’m suing Tickemaster for $200 bucks!
If you’ve been following the continuing debacle of the snowballing Spider Man Musical budget, you probably have a pretty good idea how I arrived at my decision. As of today, the budget is apparently in the realm of $50 million dollars and growing. Maybe I was sucked in by the thought of Edge working on the musical score for the show, or the idea that Mary Jane would be played by Evan Rachel Wood. Why don’t they just take those ideas, and before they shove them up their asses, put them to good use in either another feature film or an animated DVD movie? Considering that ticket sales for plays and musicals have been slumping for the past few years, the question here is…how many of you would be eager to go and shell out $100 bucks per ticket to see a Spider Man musical?
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 35: “Black Machismo” Jay Lethal
Black Machismo Foil T-Shirt available at shopTNA.com
Since there’s virtually no chance of seeing The Macho Man Randy Savage return to the ring, “Black Machismo” Jay Lethal is even better than the next best thing. Hailing from Elizabeth, New Jersey, Jamar Shipman began wrestling as Jay Lethal in Jersey All Pro Wrestling. Lethal won the JAPW Heavyweight title twice and has also been JAPW Light Heavyweight, Tag Team, and Television champion. Among other companies, Lethal has also appeared in Ring of Honor, and AWA.
Lethal has been doing his Savage shtick for several years now and it’s so faithful that it’s almost eerie at times. Obviously, many people, especially wrestling fans, can imitate the Macho Man, but Lethal literally becomes Savage! If you were there to experience the original wave of Macho Madness back in the day, then you’ll easily get sucked into the latest craze of Black Machismo Madness!
While Jay Lethal’s Macho Man impression might bring him attention, he also thrills inside the ring as well. You can check out Black Machismo on TNA Wrestling which airs on Spike TV on Thursday nights, but perhaps not for very long. Thanks in part to the addition of Hulk Hogan, TNA has positioned itself as a competitor against WWE so you may very well see Jay Lethal on Monday nights instead! Lethal also appears in a small role in 2008’s The Wrestler.
Happy Milk Day!
Milk is definitely not the beverage it used to be. As a kid, I would cringe watching my friends drink milk with dinner while eating over their houses. How could you possibly enjoy a fine feast of spaghetti and meatballs with a tall glass of…milk? No way, that was against the law in my house. It was iced tea or drink your own f’n saliva. This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a cold glass of milk with dessert or drenching my cereal in the morning. But things were a little different back on January 11th, in 1878, when the first bottles of milk were delivered to people’s homes. To celebrate that momentous occasion, The Sexy Armpit has dunked itself into a carton of milky trivia.
In 1991’s Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead, Sue Ellen (Christina Applegate) has to look after her brothers and sister. Sue Ellen is no Bobby Flay, so for breakfast it was Cap’n Crunch in a gigantic family style bowl doused with Jerseymaid milk.
If you’re the type of person who compulsively reads the container of the food that you’re eating, then you may have wondered why so many milk cartons say “Jersey” on them. Not to bring down this celebratory mood or anything, but it has nothing to do with the Garden State. Jersey cows are actually a well known breed of cow from the British Channel Isle of Jersey. This breed is small, well mannered, and economical for dairy companies. But if you delve further into milk lore, you will find, like mostly everything else in this world, that it somehow ties back to New Jersey. Man, am I a one trick pony or what?
It turns out that New Jersey is home to our fair share of popular dairy companies. Tuscan Dairy which began delivering in Union and Essex counties in 1918 and Cream-O-Land started distributing in the New Brunswick, NJ area in 1943.
Whymilk.com is the official Got Milk? website and you can also check out Facebook.com/milkmustache to keep updated on the milk mustache ad campaign. Here are links to other milk related posts from The Sexy Armpit:
New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol. 31: 21
The New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism really ought to think about updating their slogan to “Come to New Jersey where our women are easy and our Blackjack tables are even easier!” In 2008’s 21, Cowboy Curtis…eh…I mean, Laurence Fishburne plays hardened casino security chief, Cole Williams, who beats down anyone he suspects of counting cards or cheating the house. Morpheus ain’t f-cking around either, he even slides his gigantic tacky gold rings around his fingers before he beats the shit out of you.
Star Wars/Jersey Shore Mash Up Trading Cards
I try to refrain from posting so much about MTV’s Jersey Shore. The Internet is flooded with it, but I couldn’t help posting these Star Wars/Jersey Shore Mash Up Trading Cards. Thanks to my friend Steve who found them on Buzzfeed today via Starcasm.net. I couldn’t resist…these are genius, although they snubbed the REAL Jersey girl Sammi Sweetheart, as well as J-Wow for that matter.
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 34: The Situation from MTV’s Jersey Shore
Unfortunately, The Whereabouts just doesn’t have the same ring as The Situation. I’m absolutely furious that Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has tarnished one of the best words in the English language forever. All the hipsters who actually enjoy watching MTV will now associate the word SITUATION with a former male stripper from Staten Island. In fact, this guy helped make Jersey Shore the pop culture phenomenon that it is, and the m-therfucker is from Staten Island?!?! He’s what true Jersey Shore folks call a Benny! Or as you may remember in a scene from Star Wars: A New Hope “We don’t serve their kind here!”
When I was but a young whippersnapper, the word SITUATION was well respected. It was an esteemed word that didn’t come to mind when sweaty, fist pumping, ‘roided out, guidos were mentioned. The real situation is the puddles going on in their armpits! (That is not Sexy). Can you remember a simpler time not so long ago? Take a moment to think back to a period of your life when the mere mention of the word situation elicited such cool and recognizable song lyrics such as “OK, here’s the SITUATION my parents went away on a weeks vacation…” I’m going to make a safe wager that Will Smith doesn’t even care that whenever I hear one of his legendary rhymes, a Staten Island guido will completely cloud my mind and impair me from enjoying the rest of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s classic “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” Every time I hear the word situation, it feels like I’m having a little heart attack.
I used to chant along wild and passionate with Motley Crue’s frontman Vince Neil, and shout “It’s the saaame ol’, saaame ol’ SITUAAATION!” and now thank goodness I have a medical alert button around my neck or someone would literally have to kickstart my heart. This guy is frigging everywhere! I can’t think of a more appropriate time to say WTF? Have you ever been sitting around quietly reflecting on the events of the day and suddenly began to think to yourself…”What the hell happened to Yaz?” Well, coincidentally, that happens to me quite often and even when I looked them up and found out that they reunited in 2008, it still slips my mind what the hell happened to Yaz. So, in order to recall Yaz’s glory days of British synth pop stardom, I have to crank up the iPod and spin the click wheel to one of their biggest hits, yep, you f-cking guessed it…SITUATION!!! What a word killing bastard! I’m getting a class action lawsuit against this guy for ruining one of my favorite words ever!
To protect my heart from failure, I’ll be refraining from using the word S——-N from now on. Since Mike Sorrentino rose to fame thanks to MTV’s Jersey Shore, it was merely a week until I started seeing “I Love The S——-N” T-shirts.
Can’t we be a little more creative here people? At the very least I would have expected some illustrated abdominal muscles on the front or “Lift up my shirt to see The S——-N!” Dammit, I should be this assholes PR guy. They could’ve had a shirt that would give the tuxedo t-shirt a run for its money! (This eBay store should be ashamed of themselves for creating the most uninspired S——-N shirt ever.)
Shitty t-shirts aside, one of these days, The Sexy Armpit will inform The S——-N all about how he’s permanently massacred one of the finest words in our vernacular. Hopefully by that time I’ll have ruined the words SEXY and ARMPIT for him!
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the most influential idols in my life, George Carlin:
“…Newspeople like to say ‘police have responded to an emergency situation,’ no they haven’t, they’ve responded to an EMERGENCY, we know it’s a situation…everything is a situation!”
Where to find these shirts:
Garden State Parkway Inspired Tee designed by Skeezoid on CafePress.com
“I Love the…” at the official Jersey Shore store at Zazzle.com, and yes…they even have t-shirts for your dog.
Mike’s Quote Tee from mdunphy89 found in her Sweet T’s store at Zazzle.com
New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol. 30: Movie Madness!
National Lampoon’s Movie Madness – wow, what a crapfest. I originally began my mission to see this film because I noticed that Diane Lane had a bit part in it. Luckily, a few years back, the film also known as National Lampoon’s Goes to the Movies aired on cable, so I checked it out. I’m sure there’s other bloggers and reviewers on the internet who consider this film to be a forgotten gem, but it doesn’t have many redeeming qualities, so before you search it out I warn you not to even bother. I’m sure the parody aspect of the film was much more effective back in 1982, but looking back it’s weak. Even Diane Lane’s role is easily forgotten. I’m usually a fan of weird, dry, and absurd humor, but this film didn’t even elicit a chuckle from me.
Ann Dusenberry as Dominique Corsaire, or…Miss Dairy Doll
In the “Success Wanters” segment of the film, the young and attractive Dominique Corsaire (Ann Dusenberry), recently graduated college and is determined to be successful. Corsaire was desperate after failing to find a job within days of graduating, so she becomes a stripper. One night Corsaire has a gig to dance at the National Conference of Presidents of Dairy Companies. She’s introduced as Miss Dairy Doll and the presidents heckle her to “show us your tits!” The lords of dairy got so charged up as she was dancing that they rushed the stage with sticks of butter. I’m pretty sure the “butter bang” is not in the kama sutra. Ahh, old dairy moguls and their weird sexual fetishes. (guys, don’t get any ideas OK? you’re wife probably won’t be into that) Corsaire wasn’t going to let the incident get her down. Corsaire vowed revenge on the butter industry. She wound up sleeping her way to the top of the Everest Margarine Company, then got busy with a wealthy Greek tycoon and his son, and eventually scored with the President of the United States.
In a slimeball attempt to make Butter and Margarine coexist, Jeff Steele, butter rep, sleeps with Corsaire. His vision for years was that “butter and milk could merge with margarine and other non-dairy creamers.” It sounded like a grand scheme, but little does he know that Corsaire’s actually using him to take his father, Walter Steele, a supreme overlord of butter, out of the picture. Sounds like the plot of a terrible soap opera, right? Well, not until you find out where Steele took her for a seductive rendezvous…
you’ll be hard pressed to find a Lake Interlude in New Jersey.
If you’re thinking of pulling a Jeff Steele style merger, then you’re better off making a rez at The Loop Inn Motel, in beautiful Avenel, NJ.
Best of The Sexy Armpit 2009
There were many amazing moments for The Sexy Armpit in 2009. I was able to cover events like The New York Comic-Con, the eXXXotica expo, The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll, (an amazing film that I hope you will all be able to see very soon), as well as Rock of Ages, the only musical on Broadway worth seeing more than once. Moreover, possibly the most enduring effect that this blog has had on my life is meeting and starting friendships with a ton of awesome people who are not only in New Jersey, but literally all over the world. I know how risky it is becoming friends with a guy from Jersey, you wouldn’t want to get caught up in any underworld riff raff, so as the Golden Girls theme song states, “Thank you for being a friend!”
I continued some of the recurring columns that I enjoy posting regularly, and I also premiered a couple of new ones too. To read the installments of my recurring columns, just click on the icons on the right sidebar. There’s NJ’s Great Pop Culture Moments, Nocturna Mission, NJ T-Shirt Tuesday, Classic WWF/WWE Event Cards from New Jersey, and the best of all… The Garden State Playmates!
There’s no Dick here. No Carson Daly either. Just a Sexy Armpit wishing you a happy and healthy new year. The only ball dropping in New Jersey is watching the NY Giants and the NJ Nets drop the ball this season. I also want to thank each and every person who have visited this blog. Whether you’re a fan and have read it extensively or just skimmed through a few posts out of curiosity, I appreciate it. As 2009 comes to an end, here’s a list of the 25 best posts from 2009 as voted by me. These are the ones that are most worthy of reading if you haven’t checked them out already.
Brittany Murphy is December’s Garden State Playmate
The Sexy Armpit was extremely saddened by the recent death of actress Brittany Murphy. Although she was born in Georgia, she grew up in Edison, New Jersey. Murphy attended Herbert Hoover School in Edison, NJ and the Verne Fowler School of Dance in Colonia, NJ. At only 32 years old, Murphy was too young to die, but thankfully she left us with many memorable performances which may only receive the credit they deserve now that she’s not with us anymore. Life is kind of f-cked up isn’t it?
Many of us remember Brittany Murphy as Tai in 1995’s Clueless, but prior to that she appeared in Drexell’s Class, an episode of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, as well as an appearance on Kids Incorporated among many other shows. Standout performances in Don’t Say a Word, 8 Mile, and Sin City finally helped garner Brittany Murphy some much deserved credit. You can say what you will about Just Married, but I saw it in the theater when it came out just based on her starring in it and I actually enjoyed it. She was dating her co-star Ashton Kutcher at the time and it definitely showed on screen. (Upon learning of her death, Kutcher tweeted “2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine…” and “see you on the other side kid.”) Since then Murphy continued acting in addition to lending her voice to Happy Feet, King of the Hill, and Futurama.
If you happened to see Abby Elliot do an impression of her on Saturday Night Live about a week before she passed away, then you know that Murphy was one of a kind and quirky. In many of her roles, Murphy evoked an innocent, loveable quality similar to Drew Barrymore’s demeanor while still being undeniably sexy. What’s most disappointing about her death, is that she won’t be able to celebrate the premiere of The Expendables, one of the most anticipated films of 2010, starring a who’s who of action stars. If the film is a success, her stock in Hollywood may have went up.
Back in 2005, everyone I knew was buzzing about how Brittany Murphy came back to Edison for the tree lighting ceremony and was given the key to the town. The NJ.com article reporting her death also mentions this event.
