The Producers, and everything else we did in Cali.

Currently I’m waiting to get on my plane back to the Midwest, St. Louis specifically, and while I had a good time I’m glad to be going home. No one killed anyone else, and nothing major blew up on us, so all in all, it was a good trip. It was a little long for Lauren, and we won’t be staying that long at her parents house ever again, but it was still pretty good.

So, some things I did. I went to In-n-Out all but one day, and that was because we ate at an expensive steak place courteous of Laurens grandparents. We also played some board games with Amanda’s friends (Amanda is Laurens younger sister) and this was OK, but I ran out of juice pretty early and there were a lot of giggling girls there, so it wasn’t that great. We watched a bunch of movies. I have to say that the $5.50 DVD bin at walmart is going to be the death of my checking account. I’ve bought in the range of 5 movies for less then $30 including tax, and they are all great flicks like “Stand and Deliver,” “Dark City,” “With Honors,” “Don Juan DeMarco,” and “Titan AE. All of them are great movies, so that is super cool. Lauren got a DVD/VHS player, which means that we need to scrape together some cash and buy a TV, but we’re not too worried about it since we decided to keep the money for the wedding and she is working full time now at PowerWorld. I read a bunch of my church history book this week and I have to say that I find it amazing how the church in a period of about a decade can go from fearing the government like the plague to abusing a good relationship with the emperor to have a person who disagrees with you theologically exiled from Rome. Man, if I could do that today there would be no more stupid arguments of silly things…because they would all be starving on some island in a very cold part of the Atlantic or pacific. How’s that for idealogical natural selection….natural selection of ways of thinking….hmmmm….I could expand this, but I will save that for later.

Probably the coolest thing we did though, is we went to see “The Producers” starring Martin Short and Jason Alexander. It was an amazing show. It reminded me that everything I’ve ever been in or seen locally is largely crap. It reminded me what hard work, and a talented cast and director can accomplish with a big budget. Can you tell that I’m a little annoyed with everything I’ve seen lately in my brothers high schools, and the stuff I did at my high school. I sort got to thinking that I don’t really think that the people in this play were particularly better then me and my family at acting and singing. The dancers were amazing and I couldn’t hold a candle to most of them, but the actors were not wowing me. I have to say that Jason Alexander was just great, and he totally upstaged Martin Short, but big surprise, Short hasn’t acted a single role any differently then any of his other roles in 20 years. Am I the only one that doesn’t find him funny. I hated “Prime Time Glick” most the time, and I can’t stand that stupid dance that everyone thinks is funny when he puts his knees together and sort of walks around like that. Anyway, the rest of the cast was wonderful, like I said, I think I could have played the role of Bailystock about as well as Alexander. I suppose that is what happens when you grow up with a concert pianist and actor as parents who did professional Christian theater for the first 4 years of your life. But the sets were amazing. I think the sets in those kinds of plays are just awesome (yes awesome, …that was for you Rob). All in all I give it an 8.5 out of 10 because of Martin Shorts inability to recover completely from laughing at his own lines, and his general in-ability to act well. I would have given it a 9.5ish just for Jason Alexander’s performance if Short could have kept up through the whole thing. There were some scenes where Short was excellent, but he just couldn’t go the distance. I would have loved to see this with Nathan Lane and Mathew Broderick (sp?) perform this play. The play was an amazing piece of writing from the always funny Mel Brooks, and I can see how it practically swept the Tony’s a while back.

So, here I am in LAX, there is no free wireless here, so I’m going to save this and upload it when I get home. Also, my Father is having his surgery on the 7th, so I might not be home for a while after that so don’t expect me back in Cham-bana any time really quick. Finally, Dirk, you interested in coming down to my house for a few days just to relax since no one will be home for a while and I know your all alone in that house for the last couple weeks. If not, whatever, I’ll probably call you sometime later this weekend or something.

So, thanks for reading my long rant, and Goodnight.