Month: August 2008

REVIEW: Menopause the Musical


My wife and I used to go to the movies, go to the theater, attend concerts. The last four years, we’ve done it far less. I have seen far fewer movies, hardly any concerts, and virtually no theatrical shows. The season tickets to Capital Rep, the Equity theater in Albany, right now are a thing of the past.

But a confluence of events allowed me to go see Menopause: the Musical last month. My wife was away at college for a couple weeks. During the first week, I took our daughter to day care and picked her up at a friend’s house, well, except for one day when I decided to pick her up.

That first weekend, I took the daughter to Grandma and Grandpa’s house a little over an hour away, where she stayed during the second week of my wife’s educational sojourn.

Since my wife had suggested that she wasn’t interested in seeing Menopause: the Musical, I decided to go myself. One of my co-workers had gone, once in Boston and again at Cap Rep last summer. She had to go twice because everyone was laughing so hard, she was missing some of the dialogue.

I opted to go Wednesday night, July 9, which turned out to be opening night for this run. I had been “warned” by my colleague that there wouldn’t be many men there. Au contraire! There were eight, maybe nine guys in the audience, a couple guys together, a handful who appeared to be with their wives or girlfriends, and me. This does not count the two “Mr. Wonderful” gentlemen who accompanied Maggie, the chief wrangler for the theater, and another Cap Rep rep on stage to introduce the production.

In short, I enjoyed it tremendously. The conceit of this program is that these four very disparate women, meeting in Bloomingdale’s, bond over “the change”. It is made uproarious by the writer Jeanie Linders taking the tunes of popular songs, every single one of which I knew, and changing the lyrics. “Puff, the Magic Dragon” becomes “Puff, My God, I’m Draggin'”. “My Guy” becomes “My Thighs”.

I bought the soundtrack from the production in Chicago, but I found the cast in this production even more appealing. Only one of the four, Satori Shakoor (Professional Woman), was in last year’s Cap Rep production, but she and her colleagues, Ellen Kingston (Soap Star), Stephanie Pascaris (Earth Mother), and Liz Hyde (Iowa Housewife) worked together as though it were mid-run, not the premiere.

There were a couple things, though. A young woman sitting next to me was texting during parts of the performance, which I found not only distracting, but silly; watch the performance! Also, afterwards, several women gave me this LOOK, which I perceived to mean “Are you shocked by all this? Are you OK?” Yes, I am fine, thank you, and well entertained.

Menopoause is currently playing in Louisville and Las Vegas, in addition to Albany, and will be come coming to a theater (more or less) near you in the coming weeks.
ROG

ROG

Walk-Off Balk


There’s this fun website Win Expectancy Finder that determines the likelihood that a baseball team with a lead of X in the Y inning is likely to win the game.

I discovered it in a conversation in salon about one game in which a team with a five-run lead in the sixth inning stole a base. The losing team seemed to think that this was somehow unsporting and (allegedly) threw at a subsequent batter. The WEF shows that a team with a one-run lead in the eighth inning was statistically more likely to win the game than the team in the first scenario, yet no one would chastise a team up 3-2 to try to pad its lead.
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I have a Google alert for Roger Green. What I get a lot of is the Brett Favre drama, with NFL commissioner ROGER Goodell arbitrating between Favre and the GREEN Bay Packers.
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I understand why teams play preseason football games. What I don’t know is why anyone WATCHES them, let alone thinks they’re significant. It’s August; football weather requires at least a sweater. At least when they play hockey in June – another anomaly in my mind – it means something.
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Synchronized librarians.
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I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m intrigued by this guy who you call up and he writes your life story. On a postcard. Any of you done this?
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We had an intern this summer, and she said that this website “captures the essence of Roger”. I think that’s good thing.
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It pains me, it really does, for tI used to ban the very mention of her name from this blog: I’ve begun to see Paris Hilton in a more positive light.
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The Psychology of Color.

ROG

ROG

Songs That Move Me, 20-11

20. Strawberry Letter #23 – Brothers Johnson
Starts off with circus music, then kicks a groove. That swirling sound at the bridge is extraordinary.
Feeling: loving.

19. Eleanore – the Turtles.
The story goes that their record company wanted another “Happy Together”, so the group gave them one. It has the same minor to major transition, very similar – though lovely – harmonies, and the like. So why is this song, rather than “Happy Together” on the list? Two reasons, really. One: HT was really overplayed. Two: the line “you’re my pride and joy, et cet’ra,” a throwaway line if ever I heard one. (It rhymes with “better” or more correctly, “betta”.) Love singing along.
Feeling: swell.

18. Drive My Car – Beatles.
I read once the intricacy of the chord structure. It’s the minor key feel of the verse and major chord feel of the chorus that grabbed me from first hearing. First song that Paul McCartney played in some 23008 concerts.
Feeling: ironic.

17. Isaac Hayes – Shaft
Even before the great vocal comes up, an orchestral delight, as the melody shifts from section to section.
Feeling: damn right.

16. Can We Still Be Friends – Todd Rundgren
The changing meter in the bridge makes it.
feeling: You know the answer is no.

15. Sly & The Family Stone – Hot Fun In The Summertime
Harmonies, shared vocals and an “ooo-Lord” worth waiting for.
Feeling: sweaty.

14. Jerks on the Loose – the Roches.
The album Keep On Doing was produced by Robert Fripp, so there are odd sonic twists and turns throughout. this song has one of my favorite (and used) couplets:
“You work too ard to take this abuse
Be on your guard jerks on the loose.
This 30-second taste (Track 11) hardly gives the full sense of how great this song is.
Feeling: on my guard.

13. (Just Like) Starting Over – John Lennon.
In the fall of 1980, when the single was released, there was a lot of anticipation about it and the forthcoming Double Fantasy album. I didn’t think it was a great song, but it was sort of fun, with that faux Elvis vocal in the beginning of the verse. Then John died, and the irony of the title – we waited five years and THAT had to happen? – made me tear up for months, if not years.
Feeling: still makes me very sad.

12. River – Joni Mitchell.
There’s a lot of Joni I could have picked, but this one, based on Jingle Bells, is just so beautiful. The piano variations at the end seal the deal.
Feeling: longing.

11. In My Room – the Beach Boys.
I liked being in my room when I was a kid. I could entertain myself for hours, reading, looking at my baseball cards and listening to the radio. Yet I was somehow supposed to feel guilty for doing so. Anyway, lives on the vocals, in this case – single voice, then two-part harmony, then full harmony; very effective.
Feeling: cloistered.

ROG

ROG

VIDEO REVIEW: Who Killed the Electric Car?


Back in March, I watched the video of the movie Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) and have neglected to write about it because I found it so amazingly depressing and infuriating simultaneously. The film, narrated by The West Wing’s Martin Sheen, documented how the Ford Motor Company developed a viable electric vehicle in the mid-1990s, the EV1, that had a small but fervent fan base and was in the process of developing a significant infrastructure to fuel these cars, and then took it away. You’ll see how actors such as Tom Hanks, Ed Begley Jr., and especially Peter Horton of “thirtysomething” were huge advocates for the car, which required minimal maintenance.

Yet, for reasons that are still not clear to me, the car was removed from the marketplace. The people who wanted to keep the cars were unable to do so because the cars were leased to them, and if they didn’t return them to the company, they were threatened with arrest for grand theft auto. Not only were they unable to keep them, they had to stand by helplessly as Ford had these perfectly good cars destroyed. I’m not even a car guy, and I found it utterly painful.

The movie’s director Chris Paine suggests that the blame for the failure of electric cars lies with the car company, the petroleum industry, and the government, among others. He also blame the consumers, and I will take issue with this. For the “sales job” that Ford did on this vehicle was to point out all its deficiencies such as its limited range of miles traveled before refueling, rather than emphasizing the economic and ecological benefits. He gave a pass on the battery, which did have a 40- or 50-mile limit, because it was improved to double that; this information never got to the consumer.

I was watching the news for the past several weeks, and there’s conversation about a new viable electric car, but it seems that the industry wasted the last decade in continuing to be dependent on foreign oil. The argument in the 1990s was that everyone charging their cars wouldn’t work because it’d blow the energy grid. But if people were charging overnight, when demand is less, this argument doesn’t hold water (or gasoline). In any case, a tragedy.

ROG

ROG
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