Spring Awakening? Where Did the Buzz Come From?

I LOVE musicals...I've seen several and I'm always trying to go to new ones. I knew nothing about Spring Awakening, but I read the reviews and I was totally prepared for it to be the best thing I've seen since The Phantom...I read the review on the Portland Mercury website and I was offended the reviewer was so hard on this play I was sure I was going to love.

Then I saw it...well, most of it...I left towards the end because I wasn't entertained enough to ride it out until the end and have to wait in the parking garage traffic. If you click the link above and go read the Mercury review it says everything I'm thinking after seeing it. The only thing I could add is that my big question was, "Where was the choreography?" And for the little bit of choreography there was: "Who thought that up? Madonna's Vogue Dancers from her Blond Ambition Tour?" Not good.

The biggest epiphany I was having is that I feel like I'd seen this play before, only a much better version...it felt like it was sort of trying to be Rent, without the great storyline, characters you cared about and really great choreography.

This smoldering terd of a play has won a bunch of Tony Awards and has received much critical acclaim. I guess either I am too old, or too young to relate quite right to this...I was very disappointed. Portland has a great lineup of musicals coming up this Winter: The Color Purple, Moving Out and Wicked. Of those three, I've only seen Moving Out, but I will go again because THAT was some truly fine choreography combined with some of the greatest music ever written in our time. I'll let you know about The Color Purple after I make the trip to the theater. Hopefully I'm more satisfied than I was with this tonight...at least the ticket wasn't very expensive. Whew....

The Lost Pips Audition

This is sort of old, it was played on the American Idol final last year...doesn't matter, this just gets funnier to me the more times I watch it...Hope others think it's as funny as I do. Click on Midnight Train to Georgia to get there.

PS: The video has nothing to do with this picture...I just thought it was sort of funny.

An Even Better Paul Newman Story!!!

I received this via e-mail and thought it was great. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

A woman and her family were vacationing in a small New England town where Paul Newman and his family often visited.

One Sunday morning the woman got up early to take a long walk. After a brisk 5 mile hike she decided to treat herself to a double dip ice cream cone. She hopped in the car, drove to the center of the village and went directly to the combination bakery/ice cream parlor. There was only one other patron, Paul Newman, sitting at the counter having coffee and a doughnut.

The woman’s heart skipped a beat as her eyes made contact with those famous baby blue eyes. The actor nodded graciously and the star struck woman smiled demurely. “Put yourself together” she chided herself, “you’re a happily married woman with three children. You’re 45 years old, not a teenager!”

The clerk filled her order and she took the double dip ice cream cone in one hand and her change in the other. Then she went out the door, avoiding even a glance in Paul Newman’s direction. When she reached the car she realized she had her change in one hand but her other hand was empty. “Where’s my ice cream cone? Did I leave it in the store?” Back into the store she went expecting to see the cone still in the clerk’s other hand or in a holder on the counter or something. No ice cream cone was in sight.

With that she happened to look over at Paul Newman his face broke into his familiar warm, friendly grin and he said to the woman, “You put it in your purse”.

More Great Lyrics of Note

This song Shattered by O.A.R.? GREAT lyrics. My favorite line: "How many times can I break til I shatter?" I wish I'd thought of that....

In a way, I need a change
From this burnout scene
Another time, another town
Another everything
But it's always back to you

Stumble out, in the night
From the pouring rain
Made the block, sat and thought
There's more I need
It's always back to you

But I'm good without ya
Yeah, I'm good without you
Yeah, yeah, yeah

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
Give me a break let me make my own pattern
All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered
I always turn the car around

I had no idea that the night
Would take so damn long
Took it out, on the street
While the rain still falls
Push me back to you

But I'm good without ya
Yeah, I'm good without you
Yeah, yeah, yeah

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
Give me a break let me make my own pattern
All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered
I always turn the car around

Give it up, give it up, baby
Give it up, give it up, now
Now

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
All that I feel is the realness I'm faking
Taking my time but it's time that I'm wasting
Always turn the car around

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around

Don't wanna turn that car around
I gotta turn this thing around

Goodbye George and Paul (And I don't mean Beatles!)

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I guess I got around to chewing Bono out before I found the time to say my goodbye to two recently deceased and very important culture figures for me: George Carlin and Paul Newman.

George I remember from the infamous "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV". What was more scandalous than that bit? Nothing I can think of. He showed great scope and depth, and most importantly he spent his life saying all the things the rest of us were afraid to. To put his death more in perspective, here is George's view on death and dying, from his own lips.


Then there is Paul Newman...I remember him first from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...who doesn't? I loved him doing a reprise of Fast Eddy Felson in The Color of Money, and I truly fell in love with him in one of his final performances in Nobody's Fool. That movie is in one of my Top 5 favorites if the truth be told. One of my favorite lines, "I AM hurrying. It just LOOKS like slow motion". Paul, you will be missed. I found a nice tribute to his career on YouTube which you can watch here.

Shame On You Bono...

Anybody who has spent any time on my blog knows I am a huge Bono fan. I have several posts about him on this blog, I've met him and I have his signature tattooed on my calf. I'm a big fan. However, as of late a little tarnish has collected on the armor from my perspective. It's been a slow deterioration for me; maybe I know to much about Bono's life. I belong to the @u2 website which sends me an e-mail anytime anybody from U2 is mentioned anywhere in the world. You know, I get really tired of reading about how Bono has been spending his time on the French Riviera with Bradgelina and miscellaneous other celebrities. I don't need to know about the lavish parties and the expensive meals and bottles of wine. Yes, he's earned it and he's a big celebrity, but the thought started to creep in,

"How does Bono spend $3500 on a bottle of wine and then look one of these impoverished African folks he is trying to help in the eye? Isn't there more than a little hypocracy in jet setting in South France, spending more in a day that several of those families will see in a year and then asking ME for more money to support the cause?"

I even have tried to rationalize past that..."Well, maybe he works so hard on the cause that he deserves the splurge in order to relax on his down time". I've tried...Then I watched his interview on CNN a.m. a week or so ago...and I snapped. When asked what he thinks about the current financial crisis in America, he went off on some canned speech about how much malaria has been cured in Africa and then said something totally trite about the financial crisis. Immediately after that he went into his mechanical speech he's probably given 1,000,000 times about who has given money, who has not, and threw in a barb about how America hasn't come through with several million they original promised....

WHAT?????!!!! Did he not hear the part about "financial crisis"? Does he not understand how terrifying it is to be an average Joe in America faced with possible Depression Era circumstances? Let's take that a little farther: Does he not understand how embarrassing it is to watch what is happening to our native country as a consequence of an administration I NEVER voted for and had nothing to do with putting into power? Where does he get off saying what our country is shorting his cause on when "we" at large had very little to do with the current state of things. The majority of us didn't want this war, didn't want this administration and didn't want a lot of the travesty that has occurred during the last 8 years....Bono, how DARE you state what we haven't done to help YOU? We are just trying to keep our heads above water until we can actually get somebody into power who can roll up his sleeves and go to work trying to fix the mess that has been left for them.

I've enjoyed U2's music for 20 years now....A U2 concert has been my place I've found myself to be the happiest. I attended 5 different shows on the Vertigo Tour and I loved every one of them. I'm really curious as to how I'm going to react when the new album comes out...it better be a really good album, because right now Bono's politics and insensitivity has left a really bad taste in my mouth. I hope the one thing I used to enjoy more than any other isn't ruined as a result of it. Bono, I love what you've done for Africa, but you've been able to do it because we all adored you to celebrity status in the first place....and America played a huge part in that. I think I'd remember how to cluck cluck in sympathy in the right places right now and maybe drop the soap box for a minute once in awhile...