I missed it

... I missed the All-Star game last night, I think for the first time in my life ... or at least since I was old enough to start watching MLB all-star games. Or old enough to remember watching them.

... Kates and I went down to Chicago for a show. So I set the DVR to record the game , and I had planned to try hard today to avoid any All-Star coverage so I could watch the game tonight.

... It was not to be. We arrived home last night, and I flipped on the DVR, only to see the game didn't record.

... Too bad. It looked like a pretty good game. I had to catch the coverage on Sportscenter.

* * *

... So about that show.

... Kates and I were down at the refurbished Chicago Theatre Downstairs for the premiere of 'The Big Bang' ...

HA-larious!!

The tagline:

Have you ever dreamed of getting involved in a big-time Broadway production? Join us in the elegant Park Avenue apartment of Dr. Sid and Sylvia Lipbalm as two wannabe producers, Jed and Boyd (Ben Dibble and Tony Braithwaite), try to line up backers for The Big Bang, the most expensive and lavish Broadway musical ever written. With a budget of $83 million a cast of 318; 6,428 costumes, 1,400 wigs and 302 prosthetic devices, this show will depict the entire history of the world - from the formation of the planets, to the building of the pyramid. From Napolean's France to the present . Adam and Eve, Nefertiti and the slaves, Ceaser, Mrs. Ghandi, Attila, Columbus, Minnehaha, Tokyo Rose, Eva Braun and more. Will Broadway ever be the same? Surely, the Lipbalm apartment won't!

... While the audience takes the role as the possible suitors for the show, Dibble and Braithwaite, as the wannabe producers pitching their expansive show.

Think Abbott & Costello, or Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby playing off each other in White Christmas. Or better yet, Lenny & Squiggy. The chemistry and comedy chops of Dibble and Braithwaite were striking as they threw a whirlwind of scene changes, product placements and songs at the audience, and tore apart the apartment using linens, drapes, pillows, wall decorations, fruit and more as props for their show -- only have to hurriedly put it all back when the sudden phone call came that the Lipbalms were coming home.

... the 'production' never got dull or boring, and Kates and I barely stopped laughing. Before we knew it, the 90-minute show was over ... and, in what might be the show's only downfall, we were left wanting more ...

Highly recommended.

* * *

... So Kates and I started watching the Grey's Anatomy Season One DVD tonight ... Woo Hoo!

... Episode 3 is playing as I write this ...

... Kates and I haven't missed an episode since the show started airing last year and said then that it was the new best show on television and yada, yada, yada ...

... But here we are again, recapturing the magic of the first episodes when we met Meredith, George, Alex, Izzie, Yang, Burke, Shepard, Bailey, Chief -- the whole gang. ... our newest 'Friends' on TV ...

... Not only is it fun to connect the episodes with the music Kates and I have been downloading and listening to for months (it's great stuff!), but as always it's amazing to catch all the stuff you didn't see the first time, and see the story unfold in a new light, given all the things we've learned up to the 36th episode (aka, the season 2 finale) ... like the fact that Izzie was showing her crazy side even in the first couple episodes.

Miracle on State Street 7

Months of waiting and anticipation gone by, Friday was the night -- Miracle on State Street 7 at the historic Chicago Theatre, presented by 101.9 The Mix, featuring The Fray, Alanis Morissette and Ben Folds ...

I took the day off to relax, while Kates celebrated her last day of work in 2005. ...By about 2:30 p.m. I was parked in front of her school ready to help pack up her classroom (...as if having summers off isn't a nice enough perk of being a teacher, you should see all the teachers coming out of the school with laundry baskets full of gifts from their students.)

By 3:30, we were off, cruising down I-94 to Chicago. Rush hour traffic was hardly a problem and we were spinning into the theater district shortly after 4:30. ... Our parking pass validated, we strolled down Michigan Avenue to Bennigan's and grabbed a table for two. Kates had the tortilla soup and salad, I had the Mediterranean Chicken...

Blistering cold, Michigan Avenue Christmas decorations and all, this was definitely a night to suck up everything life could offer. From dinner, we found a Starbucks -- I had the hot caramel apple cider, Kates had the white chocolate mocha -- and then crossed the street to Millennium Park and watched the ice skaters -- if only we had time to join them ...

A pit stop at Borders and some light reading later, we merged with the crowds (which by the way was an older, more affluent and behaved crowd -- a defining and pleasant difference from the immature teenies that flood Summerfest every year) entering the Chicago Theatre and were ushered to our seats on the floor level. ... The theater couldn't have looked more perfect. Add to its ornate decorum, the stage was set for The Fray with a huge, glowing 'Miracle on State Street' backdrop that morphed from shades of green to purple to blue to red and came complete with giant snowflake-shaped illuminations. Kates just smiled as we entered. I let out an excited, sinister laugh ...


Before we knew it, Eric, Kathy & Tommy Lee were appearing on the stage, attempting to warm the crowd and introducing the acts ... Although it remains as much a mystery to me as it was before the concert why Tommy Lee was picked to host the show. Despite some prodding from the DJs, he never did take off his shirt. He was on the stage for maybe 10 minutes the entire night and never said anything mildly interesting or amusing, or really coherent for that matter. And he didn't appear to be at all interested in the bands that were playing ...

Nonetheless. The Fray led off the show and were ... Predictable? In an attempt to have some familiarity with their work, I downloaded their latest album shortly after buying the tickets. But found nothing to be overly excited about. ...Their sound could be compared to a Coldplay or REM, I guess, and 'Over My Head' is getting good radio play for obvious reasons. But I haven't been able to get over lead singer Isaac Slade's whiny, nasally, Rufus Wainwright-like voice. (We saw Rufus two summers ago -- interesting enough, before another Ben Folds performance. Rufus is a good piano player, perhaps, but we couldn't stand him then, and still can't ...) ... Based off my listens to the Fray's album, their performance was as much as I could expect. Slade was positioned front and center, sitting at his keyboard with his bandmates strumming their guitars and falling in behind him. Their set lasted about 30 minutes and featured five or six songs (which ones, I couldn't tell you because I haven't learned the names of all of them yet -- but I can tell you they were all from their latest album...). The music was good, and they finished --to no surprise -- with 'Over My Head.'

It kind of hurts to say it, but that was largely the theme for the rest of the show -- predictable. Good music. But nothing to blow you away.

Another bit by Eric, Kathy and Tommy and out came Alanis -- and with gold-colored frizzy hair to match her gold top! She went right into to 'Hands Clean' and followed with 'You Learn,' 'All I Really Want,' and of course 'Crazy' -- which sounded way better as a live cover then her recorded album version. ... Finally the energy level was upped a little bit when the band's last 'Crazy' cord streamed right into 'You Oughta Know.' The crowd sang along nearly drowning out Alanis. ... Then the crowd REALLY did drown out Alanis when she ended with 'Ironic' -- hearing the crowd sing at the top of their lungs and the cool guitar arrangement to back it, that one song was possibly my favorite moment of the entire show. ... But she too played for barely 30 minutes and left us saying, 'Too short, too short, too short.'


Ben would be better, right? Sort of. ... My eighth time seeing him, I know exactly what to expect and can still be surprised. The quality of the music aside, more and more, it's like reuniting with an old friend. You just sit back and pick up where you left off ... But, much like Alanis, I found the choice of music a bit odd. He led off with 'Bitches Ain't S**t.' -- humorous and fun, yes. But hardly the upbeat, energizer he usually leads with. He followed with 'Gone' and then 'Zak and Sara' -- one of those that always make me smile and never grows old. 'Still Fighting It,' 'Bastard' and 'Landed' were there too.

Midway through, and true to form, Ben announced he would play a Christmas song. The obvious thought is 'Lonely Christmas Eve' off the Grinch soundtrack. But he tells the crowd instead he will play a song he originally wrote for the movie and was deemed 'unacceptable.' He rolled into its jazzy, pounding intro, and then, of course, stopped to tell more of the story -- that his inspiration for the song was some guy who broke into a restaurant to steal money and died when he fell on a fryer -- or something like that. My attention kind of drifted off the during the story ... and aside from hearing Ben play the piano, I don't recall the song being all that memorable either.

There was 'The Ascent of Stan' and then 'Narcolepsy.' ... If there was anything surprising about Ben's performance, this was it for me. Never a big fan of 'Narcolepsy,' which is arguably his darkest and loudest tune, I found Friday night's performance of it, um, awesomely rambunctious. (I don't know, that's the first description that came to mind.) The piano roared on it and the band accompaniment was tight and together. Period.

'Not the Same' came next, and, as always, featured all of the cool crowd interaction and harmonies the song typically evokes. In fact, as Ben was teaching each of the parts to the crowd, he remarked it was the best he had heard. ... Ha!


Next the fast-paced, piano pounding One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces. And then it was over. ...No 'Army'? No 'Philosophy'? No 'Rockin the Suburbs'? Not even (thankfully) 'Brick'? This time, the performance lasted barely 45 minutes. And again, too short, too short, too short.

Not perfect. Nothing extraordinary ... But. Sigh. A very enjoyable night.

Crazy-quiet

The baseball season is over. Most of the good TV shows are reruns this week. Aside from the whole washer and dryer thing, it’s been a pretty crazy-quiet week. … What’s a blogger to do?

Yes, the washer and dryer. … See, we bought the house a year and a half ago with a washer and dryer set that were virtually antique. Well, late ‘80s models. They worked well … at the time.

But Kates started getting on me last spring about getting a new set. Being the man, I was in denial. ‘They’re fine,’ I said. …

That was until a couple weeks ago, while doing a couple loads of laundry, I took note of the waterfall of water gushing from the bottom of the washer. …on top of that, it usually took about two 70-minute cycles in the dryer just to get our clothes dry.

So after talking it over with the elders, we declared the ol’ washer and dryer defunct. On Friday night, we purchased a new set. And it was good.

Today, they arrived …

I think they might be the most beautiful appliances I’ve ever seen …

* * *

I’ve never really been able to put my finger on why -- but very few things make me more overjoyed or give me a rush of excitement like Ben Folds. A new album. A well-written magazine article. News of a concert date. ANYthing about the piano-pounding prodigy from Chapel Hill, N.C.

All of that has made this week doubly fun …

… I learned several months ago of BF’s appearance on ‘Austin City Limits.’ I marked it on my calendar and when the date drew close enough, began checking the TV listings. I discovered I had four chances to catch it, set my VCR tape and got it right on the first try -- 1 a.m. Monday.

I, of course, reviewed the tape the first chance I got during my lunch break on Monday afternoon …

Yes. Overjoyed.

It’s a short 15-20 minute set, but it’s worth every minute -- if you can get past some bad acoustics and off-key harmonies in a couple of the songs (Ben’s music in general, some great camera shots of his plucky fingers and the antics of drummer Lindsay Jamieson all make up for it). As he has with a lot of his recent shows, Ben and his boys start out with their thumping ‘In Between Days.’ From there, the band plows through ‘Jesusland,’ ‘Still Fighting It,’ ‘Gracie,’ ‘Zak and Sara’ and eventually ending with the always crowd-pleasing ‘Not the Same,’ which features Ben standing on his piano and directing the crowd like a choir. … the second half of the show features Ray LaMontagne, a songwriting guitarist who Rolling Stone apparently called ‘the backwoods Van Morrison.’ I haven’t watched his entire set yet, but the first couple songs sure show a lot of promise …

But back to Ben.

Crushed when I couldn’t see Ben last week at the historic Chicago Theatre, I got word last night that I have a shot at redemption -- The Mix has scheduled him to appear on Dec. 16 with Alanis Morissette and The Fray at the annual Miracle on State Street bash at (... cue angel chorus) the Chicago Theatre …

Yes. Overjoyed again.

So when tickets go on sale Saturday morning, I will sever all -- ok, most -- ties with the rest of the world. There will be no phone calls answered. No e-mails to write. No TV to watch. No yard work or chores to do. Just me and my cell phone and the Ticketmaster rep on the other side, doing anything to get a pair of tickets to see that show …

Wish me luck.