To Russia, With Love

Dear Friends and Family;

If you notice that I am wearing worn-out shoes, recycling tea bags, or that I am trying to stretch an economy sized peanut butter to last another week, it is because I am saving up for my own Russian mail-order husband. Here are some of my favorites:



Artem Chigvinsev

Dmitri on this season's So You Think You Can Dance (Booja Booja Booja OW!) is a pale shadow of last year's sexy Russian ballroom guy, Artem. One of the "hottest" moments of this year was him smooching octogenarian choreographer Mary Murphy, leading me to ask: what happened to the white-trash blonde he was married to when he auditioned last year? Answer: Who cares?


Gocha Choertkoev

Gocha may seem gay, because he dances ballroom and designs his wife/partner's competition clothes and occasionally dresses like a leisure pirate, but he's just European. I watched him compete in Latin on PBS all through the 90's, and if there was a movie of his life, I think Alan Cumming should play him. He's been on the awful Ballroom Bootcamp show on TLC.

Apparently, the streets of the former USSR are littered with lithe male ballroom dancers, and that's just a waste.

Eugene Mirman

I know it seems like one of these things is not like the others, and you'd be correct. Gocha and Artem are sexy, but Eugene is the sexiest of all. He made comedy at Dante's in Portland last Thursday, making a hot, muggy, packed room forget that we were sweating out all our component molecules. His humor is like a fist made of sweet, sweet endorphins. It hurts and it heals in the same stroke. In a couple days, Eugene will be playing Eugene, OR, and I have considered going to see if the synchronicity causes the universe to vibrate. If we were a "couple", people hearing about us might assume that we lived in Civil-War times, as in: Eugene and Virginia worked the land while trying to avoid marauding Yankees.

Postscript: And it's his birthday today, July 24th, so if you see him- tell him happy birthday.