Lock has clearly outlined his continuing plans to defy my directives:

"War or no war, let's let the good times roll...
SCALING THE SURFACE HOTEL
Tuesday: Views from the Top
Wednesday: Building the Hotel: A Retrospective
Thursday: An Architectural Review
Friday: Questions and Answers"

In the interests of fair play, I have agreed to make available to the public the detailed plan of attack for the War on Lock:

Wednesday: Begin campaign with angry post on website.
Thursday: Snarky phone calls, passive aggressive email attack.
Friday: Balled-up paper napkin initiative, coupled with gentle kicking.
Saturday: Total nuclear annihilation.

UPDATE: [5/30/03] War on hold, as Steele is clearly running scared.

Of course you realize, this means war. Defy me if you will, Steele. The price you pay for your arrogance will be great.

In Providence today to face off with the FBI.

They've got nothing on me. Nothing.

7th Avenue Books, 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, 3:15pm

"Ohmigod, if the Times does any more breast-beating, I'm just gonna vomit."

Graduation day. The children are lined up around the coliseum. The circus is about to perform their last performance — ever. I take my seat in the second balcony. The dictator: "I hope none of the performers lose their heads. Of course, some of them already have." He chuckles. I lean over the railing to see the dwarf take his place on the baclony below. He catches my eye, nods. His beard is white. Somewhere on the ground level, two of the children attempt to plan the best graduation prank of all time. Little do they know.

The parents must know: I stand up. "We have discovered who publishes their book," I say. My cohorts on the other side of the room rise and announce: "The People's Press, Ohio." A startled gasp. I continue my speech. One woman stands, she has red streaks in her hair. I tear banners bearing the dictator's slogans from the columns. They fall, piece by piece, into the circle below. The banners don't say what I thought they said.

I start the chant: "Do. Not. Obey." No need for a prank this year. "Do. Not. Obey." More people are standing, chanting. Our voices echo across the amphitheater. "Do. Not. Obey. Do. Not. Obey."

After reading her mention of me in the Times Online UK and on Salon.com, I wondered — as I'm sure you did — who is this Tina Brown person?

A minimal amount of research reveals her website, TinaBrown.net. Tina, it seems, is a 25-year-old cellist/web designer who lives in Burbank, CA. She notes:

"My main focus these days is getting a job. I have worked hard getting here and I am trying to find a good place to start and enter the entertainment industry."

• The Problem with Being Nice [timesonline.co.uk via Gawker]
• TinaBrown.net

And thereby calls at 1:05am to submit this report:

"Blue Ribbon is painfully overpriced and the service sucks."

Schroeder notes, over on his blog:

...the bloggers mentioned in [the Times article] (Jonathan Van Gieson, Lockhart Steele) are definitely obnoxious, pretentious, and, worst of all, boring. Van Gieson, for instance, who has only been blogging since December, perpetually refers to how "famous" he is, and how "exciting" he and his "famous" friends are, without the slightest trace of sarcasm or irony or self-deprecation. (Lockhart, at least, provides occasional scoops about goings-on in my neighborhood.) Can he really be so myopic and self-absorbed as to think that because he writes about himself he's somehow notable or worthy of attention? Isn't that taking the whole "I think, therefore I am" business a bit too far? It's not like the Times is an arbiter of cool, after all...

I salute you, Schroeder! You have my permission to continue blogging.

Being the fourth in an ongoing series of rare and unpublished works by the author which, for one reason or another, were never presented to the public at large.

Title: "Paging Dr. Strangle"
Date: c. 1998
Created for: Beth Israel Boston Hospitalwide Customer Service Improvement Presentation
Intended purpose: Teach doctors not to strangle medical technicians, patients
Success rate: Undetermined

Responding to rumor control, Wiley's Dawg submits this report on current gay hotspots.

"silly boy, the backroom at urge closed ages ago... hotspots tend to be different each night of the week. last night, for example, i went to 'park' which is the hottest gay bar for a sunday. the slide is the newest. the cock is the sleaziest. b-bar on tuesdays (beige) is still pretty trendy for the upscale fashion-loving people-spotting gays.

wow. i need to stop going out so much."

UPDATE: Aaron writes "Wiley's Dawg knows nothing! Therapy in Hell's Kitchen is *the* It-spot for trendy, good-looking gay boys, although it just opened, so he probably hasn't heard of it."

DAWG BITES BACK: He writes:
"from a friend about therapy...

'Then they started 'Queer Factor' with Danny Pantaro...and I couldn't take it...so I left...didn't even get a drink so I don't even know if it's expensive or not...'

hmmm. Danny Pantaro. doesn't sound trendy or cool to me..."

One of the problems with being this famous is the constant deluge of malicious gossip. For my own peace of mind, and for the safety of my family, I'd like to set the record straight:

• Any photos of me topless, smoking and pregnant on a balcony, being fondled by Michael Douglas, are likely to be forgeries.
• Whatever Gothamist may think, Warren St. John is not one of my many pseudonyms.
• I was never seen making out with Graydon Carter in the back room of Urge.
• Everything I ever made up for the Times was true, coke habit or no coke habit.

Almost six months of being famous, and the New York Times only now gets around to writing about me? Scandalous. And they think they can make it up to me by featuring me in two articles at once? I think not, Grey Lady. I think not.

• Dating a Blogger, Reading All About It [NYTimes.com]
• A New York State of Blog [NYTimes.com]

With the new, high-technology Movable Type category archives (available in the sidebar), it's easy to find the jvg.com posts that best match your interest, whether that be my exciting life now that I'm famous or in my instructive early years, whether it be my little-known artistic works or my cash-cow theatrical endeavors, my inebriated gallivants or my sobering thoughts, my press, my hard-hitting journalism, or my insightful news analysis, my far-ranging travels, my loosely-hinged famous friends, or my somewhat disturbing dreams.

A Sobering Thought | Detritus | Dreamlog | Famous Friends | From The Files | Inbox | NYC | News Analysis | Now That I'm Famous | Observed/Overheard | Press | Production Updates | Quotation Ad Propositum | Reviews & Awards | The Early Years | The Gallivants of Fame | Today in History | Travels | Works

In 1992, at the tender age of 18, I was required to submit a 25 page portfolio for my writing class. After much discussion, our teacher settled on this definition of a "page" of poetry: 10 lines.

The result: no less than five poems in my portfolio titled "filler," each one a masterpiece of lyrical avoidance, and all exactly 10 lines. Finally, three of these poems are available for public enjoyment.

Filler 4: the final straw
Power Books are kind of cool
they help me do my work for school
They are made by Macintosh
And do not look much like galosh
es. Macintosh is made by Apple
A fact that makes me very happle
I am typing on the keyboard
The Power Book is helping meboard
And though this poem is very fine
I end it now, on the tenth line.

Filler, Too
Now poor Jonny he felt like a sap
as he read the past work in his lap
He said "All this writing
I thought was exciting
is in truth unmistakable crap."

Poor Van Gieson discovered the date
was completely, unerringly late
"This portfolio mine
is due, in days, nine
and of the thing this is page eight."

The Ultimate Filler Poem
This
poem
is
filler,
filler,
filler,
and
nothing
but
filler.

For those of you wondering what I am so studiously typing in tonight's "Buddy" segment on Eyewitness News Providence (Fox 64, WNAC @ 10pm or CBS 12, WPRI @ 11pm), here's a peek at the actual unedited text created during the filming:

Fake Channel12 News Writing
Look at me, “im sitting here writing a musical. Wheee! Can you believe it, I’m writing a musical and they’re tap[ibn me dfor the news! News! News! Musical! Wheee!

My mother toild me to pull my hair back, so I would’nt be playing with it, but I didn’t that may have been a mistake. NoeI’m going ot yoig yoig yoig fleep.

Ah, waterplace park! Still has that empty patch of dirt nea`rby! I can hardly see what – oops he’s coming to film from behiod, better go to the real writing/

Over at Gawker, they're having a lot of fun verbing the famous. (exempli gratia: "I jaysonblaired my way into Nobu and zeta-jonesed a fistful of eel.")

It seems inevitable that I be the next luminary chosen for such treatment. However, for the record, I'd like to point out that "verbing" may not be sufficient for a celebrity of my calibre. A more appropriate linguistic homage would be to use my name in a manner similar to the way the Smurfs used the word "smurf" in the popular 80s television show "The Smurfs."

exempli gratia: "Hey, what the jonathanvangieson are you jonathanvangiesoning to that jonathanvangieson? You better jonathanvangieson the hell out of here before I jonathanvangieson a 6-foot jonathanvangieson up your jonathanvangieson."

Apropos "Buddy", Wiley's Dawg sends in this scan from his tax instruction book:

To round out the jvg.com week of theater-related posts, a staggering announcement:

"Buddy" Cianci: the musical has been accepted to the 2003 New York Fringe Festival (FringeNYC), the spawning ground for such hits as Broadway's Urinetown, Tiny Ninja Theater, and Man of Infinite Desire.

The Van Gieson/Tarantino-penned epic about the much beloved and twice convicted ex-mayor of Providence, R.I., produced by 4Panel Productions, will feature such rollicking new neo-swing tunes as "The Armpit of New England," "Operation: Plunderdome," and "The Ass You Have to Kiss Today."

FringeNYC runs Friday, August 8 through Sunday, August 24.

For your enjoyment, the official blurb:
"Everybody loved Mayor “Buddy,” except the FBI. The true story of Rhode Island’s most popular politician, six times elected, twice convicted. A modern gangster musical about the man who turned Providence from The Armpit of New England into The Renaissance City."

• "Buddy" Cianci: the musical official website

May I recommend the vaudevillian antics of The Golden Age in their newest show Is There A Doctor in the House? I caught opening night on Wednesday at the Metropolitan Playhouse, which delivered a cavalcade of great bits stolen from the "era of lunatic virtuosity." In fact, I stole many of the same bits — including the classic line "A girl backed into an airplane propeller: disaster" — for my junior year playwriting effort, Burlesque, written at the tender age of 20. The Golden Age does it much better than I did, but then again, I only wrote the damn thing to meet girls. Is There a Doctor in the House? runs through May 17th. More info here.

(Full disclosure: the show is produced by Cagey Productions, 4Panel's partner-in-crime for the upcoming 1980s Teen Movie Bronte extravaganza Wuthering High.)

While we're on the subject of Tiny Ninja Theater, you've only got six chances left to see the vending machine thespians before they head out to Germany and Sweden. Tonight is one of them.

Tiny Ninja Theater presents Romeo & Juliet runs Thursday at 6pm and Sunday at 1pm for the next two weeks, and Tiny Ninja Theater presents MACBETH shows Saturdays at 2pm, both at the Bowery Poetry Club. More info and advance tickets here.

Anne racks up another rave review, this time from The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Dov will be on the radio tonight, talking about, of all things, Tiny Ninjas. In NYC, tune in to 89.1 FM at 7:30, or listen online.

Following Lock in to the wonderful realm of Movable Type means I'll be rolling out some delightful new features on jvg.com. First out of the gate: Live DreamLog Analysis. Yes, now you can stick your finger into the juicy pie of my unconcious right here on the site.

For those of you have already submitted you analyses via email, no need no worry: I've plugged them all in already. For those of you who need to catch up, a brand new DreamLog archive, where you can sniff your way into the muskiest corners of my mind, then tell the world what you found there.