Trust Us, Mike Lee Will Scream Crackpot When the Moment’s Right

“In the future, Lee is likely to attract a little more attention. In fact, he just might be the platonic ideal for the new Constitution-obsessed, Tea Party-infused GOP: a lawyer who knows how to muster constitutional arguments to justify extreme ideas — and do it with a surprisingly genial, rational disposition. If, going forward, the Tea Party movement wants a national leader who doesn’t scream crackpot, Mike Lee is likely to be the guy.” [TNR, via Political Wire]

14 Comments

Nah. Scandals will take him down. Plus he associates with some really disreputable people.

Didn’t work out so well for Ralphie Reed, the Pizza Delivery Boy for Abrahmoff.

Platonic? Is that what we’re calling it now?

@Benedick: Well, y’know, The Symposium and all…

ADD: Amazon is suggesting “Disney Princess Sing Along Songs”. Mike Lee brings that out in bots.

@Benedick: Rut roh. Spiderman THE MUSICAL has more issues, like actors quitting. And Taymor may have had a wee too many Vicodin:

Ms. Mendoza played Arachne, a spider villainess who has a major role in Peter Parker’s becoming Spider-Man and who becomes obsessed with the superhero. Arachne is a signature creation of the show’s director, Julie Taymor, who said in an interview last month that she conceived of the character several years ago after having a dream about the transformation of a normal teenage boy into a powerful superhuman.

Mike Lee did his Mormon mission in Texas?

Bwwwaaaa haaaa haaa.

Where, at the Yearning for Zion compound?

Wimp.

ADD: That smug pudgy face of his just screams closet case.

@JNOV: I’m not shy about being the biggest U2 fan around here, but even I knew this would be a dog from the moment I heard that Bono and the Edge were writing the music for this. I didn’t see them as Broadway types and was unaware of them having any interest in or association with comics or American superheros. I think a musical about Bono’s early 90s alter ego McPhisto (a play on McDonald’s and Mephisto) would have been more interesting and something that they could have done right. I’ve seen videos of the ironically titled “The Boy That Fell From the Sky” they wrote for Spiderman and thought was was a second or third rate outtake, like the floor sweepings we get in our fan club cds once a year. (Pay $50 and get a “special edition” cd and access to concert ticket pre-sales. I also did that with Metallica in 2008. Anyway . . . )

I don’t blame the U2 guys for what this show has become. They just wrote some tunes, dashed off in down time on the megatour they’ve been on since June 2009 after a year of writing and recording their last record, most of which I really like. They are not the people who decided to hang actors 30 feet in the air, or who wrote a crappy script for the show.

U2 with Bono as McPhisto, “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6Sb6C-rSRY&feature=related

@JNOV: It sounds like they’re firing her. If you quit you don’t get paid. Or perhaps it has to do with being injured and then allowing her to play. Doctors always tell you to stay home for two weeks but no one ever does.

@redmanlaw: I’ve no idea what they’ve ever written. The producers probably felt it would give the show a star name and help to create anticipation. So far as I understand it the hero is bitten by a spider and is then transformed. Which makes the transformation passive. It happens to the hero through no effort of his own. So what’s the story? Clearly that doesn’t matter in a comic but it does in a dramatic form. You don’t really need to have good music in a musical though it helps. What you need is a compelling story. Sounds like they were trying to create a villain, which would seem to be a good idea. But it still leaves a vacuum at the heart of the piece.

I wish I didn’t wish it ill. But it’s very bad news for the theatre. Women on the Verge is the only new musical of the year with something to say for itself and it’s been a disaster. It’s too bad.

@JNOV: she conceived of the character several years ago after having a dream about the transformation of a normal teenage boy into a powerful superhuman.
In other words, after seeing the original Spiderman movie. Lame.

@redmanlaw: I’m not criticizing U2; I’m criticizing Taymore. Like Mistress Cynica pointed out, she’s taking animated and CGI movies and trying to make them theater. She throws in a newish twist and calls it her own. Problem is, live performances don’t tend to have green screens, numerous takes, editing, etc. While I heard that The Lion King costumes were outstanding, they were also damaging the actors’ health.

I say make a good musical, and then turn it into a movie. Taymor is working backwards, and she’s trying to dazzle people, but it’s not a movie. It’s also not Cirque du Soleil.

@Benedick: I think she also kinda flipped out. I can’t imagine how painful it would be to be spun upside down with a concussion. That poor guy that fell on the 20th is seriously injured. This thing is all kinds of wrong.

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