At a news conference early Saturday morning, a bleary-eyed Omar G. told even more bleary-eyed reporters that a recent funk that had been ravaging Omarlandia all the way to its outer edges, may finally be lifting.

"I think that funk thing might, uh... finally be lifting. You know?"

G., who recently had suffered a crimp in evening writing, bouts of unfunny blog entries and a general depressive stare fixed upon others, said he was hopeful this malaise would soon be a distant memory.

"I think that, uh... well, you guys just make up a quote about that or something," G. said Saturday morning.

Experts say that the funk-lift may have an immediate impact on the local economy, including expected revenue increases at video arcades, in ice cream sales and for the alcohol industry.

"And sales of nice new shirts," said one analyst at Forrester Research, who asked that his name not be used.

After the press conference, G. served orange juice and bagels. They were really good.

Yay! The Austin Chronicle did a feature about the LCP and our upcoming show Saturday. There's my head, looking like a bean again.

Adrian says that with that first line, "There's no getting a word in edgewise with Adrian Villegas," that this may be the most accurate story ever written about the troupe.

I got dental work done today. I'm all blubbery and numb.

EDITED TO ADD: I don't know if that's a weird HTML thing in that story only on my computer, but our troupe is not "512" years old. Sometimes rehearsing just makes it feel that way.

And Now Ladies and Gentlemen: Remember when Jeremy Irons starred in cool, Oscar-nominated movies with people like Glenn Close and Joan Chen and... hey, where did Joan Chen go? Let's just say the last time I seriously watched a Jeremy Irons movie, Bono was still wearing a ponytail and New Kids on the Block were still together. Not that I have anything against the French, but it doesn't help that this movie was made by a French New Wave director who apparently keeps making the same movie over and over again.

Buffalo Soldiers: I don't get Joaquin Phoenix. I just don't. He always just strikes me as... Joaquin Phoenix. And I know it's not his fault, but when he's in a movie, I can't stop staring at his lip. He did swing a mean baseball bat in Signs, though. Oh, what about the movie? Cold War military satire. Yawn.

Friday Night: For those who love French movies about being stuck in traffic.

Le Divorce: I was trying really hard to get through the book so that I could review this one, but instead, our books editor reviewed it and I lent her my copy of the novel. It sounds like the movie's not a very good adaptation anyway, so maybe I was better off this way. Maybe I'm the only person in the world who thinks so after How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, but Kate Hudson has got some comedy skills. She just needs to be in some decent comedies. My recent hero Thomas Lennon (The State, Reno-911) is in this. I'm very conflicted about this one.

Marci X: The studio is trying sooo hard to bury this one. I called their publicity people and they were like, "Marci who? Damon what?" They are completely disavowing knowledge of this movie. No press screenings. No nothing. A week from now, you'll be saying, "Marci whaaaa?" too. (And it breaks my heart that Paul Rudnick, who used to be one of my favorite writers, has got his name all over this.)

Masked and Anonymous: For hardcore Dylan fans only. And only those who want their retinas burned off painfully.

My Boss' Daughter: Another publicity casualty. You'd think they'd be all about pushing the Kutcher, but apparently the Kutcher needs no push. I guess you will enjoy this if you're into the Kutcher. Otherwise, Kutcher avoidance might be necessary here.

The Medallion (or, Forgettable Jackie Chan Movie #334): Claire Forlani is in it, in case you were wondering how she'd ever top Meet Joe Black.

What a depressing week for movies. My goodness. I did see Pirates, which I loved, but really have had no time for movies since my laptop decided to melt down and give me all kinds of video driver problems. (Necessitating a complete Windows XP reinstall, which has caused its own fun share of problems.) Damn you Toshiba!

Oh. Oh dear.

As I said in the Xl Blog yesterday, I've fallen for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to the point of actually making it part of my brain functions when shopping. Does that make me any less of a Straight Guy? I would think not.

(Incidentally, that new Nordstrom store in Austin has many gay men in its employ, as if it were on the job application, and these guys know their shit. And they do it with style and ruffly black see-through shirts. And that's just at the Mac counter.)

But this overexposure? First off, the Tonight Show appearance was a damn disaster, and this, this thing they're doing on Good Morning, Miami... Good Morning, Miami??? Couldn't they have used them on any number of other NBC shows, preferably one set in New York? What's the damn deal?

As much as I like the Fab Five (they're still capable of shocking: Last night's episode, featuring Carson and his comment on how the chocolate finger is frowned upon in the gay community was goddamned funny), they're in danger of becoming The Osbournes. How long before they do a Pepsi Twist commercial? Before they host the VMAs?

It's going to be impossible to avoid, though, because people just get tired of anything new and fun. You can only go on the Superman ride at Fiesta Texas so many times before you start feeling queasy and done. Does that make it any less of a kick-ass ride? not at all.

Mostly, though, I worry about my gay friends and how this show suddenly gives them a lot to live up to. Notice, it takes five gay guys to make over one schlubby straight one.

What about the gay men who aren't stylish? The ones who can't make their own vinagrette or who don't use layers to create a slimming line effect? Will they be left behind in this cultural shift? Do we only want the really witty, totally together gay men in our lives?

My Xl Blog entry is finally up.

I'm really going to stop stressing so much about these because as near as I can tell, A. nobody's reading, and B. stuff continues to get weirdly formatted or lopped off for whatever reason (in this case, the entire last paragraph).

So there ya go. Go read it or don't.

Feeling a little better today. Yesterday was just a crank fest. Be glad you weren't around.

One of the gleeful things about Al Franken is that he's smart enough to draw people into his little comedic ploys and make quite a lot of money for himself in the process. Just by titling his new book in such a way to get Fox News all up in a tizzy, he's created a nice little promotional storm for himself, causing his book to be published earlier and at a much larger press run. Whether you agree with Franken or not, you've got to admire the way he played Fox News and is milking it for all its worth. And you just know he was holding on to those clever quotes, waiting for this to happen.

The ongoing XL Blog continues, with another entry today from me. I'll post here later today when mine is actually live. Basically, it's become a way for me to talk about all the movies I see, TV shows I watch and videogames I play in one neat little place. If only I got paid extra for it.

The gray clouds covering sunny late-summer skies continue and I wish I had some answers for it, but nothing comes to mind.

Literally, nothing comes to mind. Very little that is whimsical or funny or clever or entertaining even to me floats to the muddy surface, and what's left, instead, is a kind of zombified living, a brain-seeking bare necessity momentum. Fix this. Patch that. Maintain.

The work funk has explored and grown like a cancer to become the home funk. It has also manifested itself as the rehearsal funk, the going-out funk and even the driving-alone-from-work funk.

This despite having one of the best meals of my life yesterday with good company, and finally seeing the Godamned Pirate Movie (which had, by my count, shitloads of pirates). Things are good. There shouldn't be any complaining or renting of shirt chests.

But the funk. It's still here. It's low-level, grumbling, like the hum of machinery where I work when the presses are running. I'm hard on myself because I'm a bootstrapper, one of those people who believes that the only way out of a hole is to dig yourself out, not taking pills or asking for help or blaming everyone but yourself.

There's something wrong, or something missing, and although I can think of ways to correct these problems, none of those paths is easy, or quick, or particularly fun. There are hard decisions ahead and maybe mistakes. I just think I've made an error letting the superficial things, the ones I'm not supposed to care about, the things that are just there for decoration and cashflow, infiltrate my innards. They've taken over until the separation I've worked so long to maintain has become a worn down, knocked-over wall, overgrown with weeds and dirt.

Everything is one thing: the low hum, the dark clouds, the feeling that an escape is very necessary, but also completely out of reach.

At about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, the power went out.

I flipped the breakers to see if that was the problem -- the day before, my dad had come out and helped me replace some outdoor GFI outlets that had burned out about a month ago. I figured maybe we wired something wrong and somehow had overloaded the circuit breaker. But, nothing.

I went to my office and heard one of my neighbors yell to another neighbor, "Are your lights out, too?"

The whole neighborhood was like that for almost two hours as the afternoon sun began to warm everything up.

I went to run some errands, and when I came back, everything was back on.

Karma, man. Watch you you say.