The Underminer

The Underminer



last night Thurston and i headed to Joe's Pub, expanded our horizons and saw the hysterically funny benefit celebrating the paperback release of The Underminer (by Mike Albo with Virginia Heffernan).

full disclosure: our friend Nancy Balbirer was behind the production, with her husband/our friend Joel contributing original music, playing the keyboards and singing back-up.

the show was insanely hilarious and featured readings from The Underminer as well as people sharing their own experiences with being undermined. Alan Cumming was (is he ever not?) fabulous and Nancy definitely stunned the crowd with the scathing and oh-so-thinly-veiled story of her own personal underminer. the simultaneous conveyance of heartbreak *and* snark is a hell of a combination to pull off, but she sure did it... Mike Albo was the kind of funny that makes you unexpectedly laugh so hard you spit a full mouthful of pinot grigio on the person in front of you. (hypothetically speaking, obviously.)

Thurston was once again impressed (read: indifferent) to my gleeful recognition* of Lindsay Robertson but i still was happy that a) she was part of the show and b) i knew who she was. although i don't read lindsayism daily (it's blocked at work-- damn web sense!), i always find it a good read when i do. (much appreciated her candid take on the Stephanie Klein pregnancy/miscarriage fiasco).

anyway, i have yet to read The Underminer but have already ordered it (2-day shipping with Amazon Prime, bitches!) and will have it in hand shortly. i have a feeling that this book will definitely evoke friends that have come and gone. some of the excerpts/underminer quotes might as well have been transcriptions of morsels shared with me by a one frenemy or another. more on this (i'm sure) once i've read the book!

on top of all that relevancy, there were a couple of performances that were unexpected but intriguing no less. definitely not what T and i had expected. See The Dazzle Dancers (hello naked!); Pu Pu Platter (doing to Rent what we've all dreamed of doing); and Murray Hill (whom i'd met back in my "i work at a night club" days and have always found to be a great entertainer!).

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* ok, maybe recognizing a well known blogger is no coup, but since i sometimes don't even recognize people who were at my own parties, i think it was a decent showing.