There Goes Rhyme & Slime

OH NO! It can't be!

But there it is, on a POSTER at a bus stop!

I was so surprised, I took a step back and was run over by a bus.

I said, "You should watch where you're going, Adele."

What passes for entertainment makes me want to pass out.

Near the top of the list for low-life disgustingness, are weird shows where a "celebrity" takes the stage and is asked questions for 90 minutes by some effete critic.

Then there are these "special appearance" tours where people who really have no talent simply tell anecdotes about themselves and KEEP the money they would've spent on an interviewer. Mike Tyson did it. So did William Shatner.

And, yes, we have ageless professionals (Chita Rivera, Dick Van Dyke, Ken Dodd, etc.) on Broadway, The West End or touring, who have a built-in nostalgic audience who will forgive anything the star forgets. Why, they'll even laugh and shout the lyrics out to help things along.

Then there's the horrible "juke box" musical. AKA, "puke pox" musical.

What to do when almost all the great composers of musical theater have died? Rely on Andrew Dwarf Webber? "May his trousers fall down," sang Crowded House.

While Broadway always has a revival or two, most classic shows are old and creaky in story, and dated in song. So how about..."juke box" musicals instead?

Yes, I saw "Beatlemania." There were several shows like that over the years, but soon people got tired of spending Broadway prices on Vegas cheese. Lookalikes singing songs on stage? NOT good enough!

Next idea? Take all of Billy Joel's songs and have a famous woman choreograph them! Great costumes for the Italian restaurant. And everyone in soldier outfits for that Vietnam song. And...

Yeah. Saw that, too. Actually, just the last half. Back then, pre Muzzies, it was easy to sneak into the second half of a show during intermission. Now, everyone's afraid a Muzzie will blow up the theater, so guards carefully monitor who is coming in from a cigarette break.

The Billy Joel thing held my attention, but it was a fairly daft notion, and this is coming from somebody who doesn't totally hate the ballet, and actually saw Marcel Marceau in performance. Twice.

Next idea? Take the songs and patch them around some kind of story. You know, ALMOST like a real musical. Only it's the reverse, and you already have the songs instead of having the story inspire the songs.

"Lennon: The Musical" was not horrible. It was a valid theatrical attempt at trying to explain a bit about Lennon and his times, and given Yoko's involvement, there had to be SOME kind of avant garde twist. In this case, it was the cast taking turns playing John, no matter what color or gender. Yes, it was somewhat of a mess. But it had some touching moments. Yoko even found some obscure song about Shanghai or Singapore or something, that nobody'd heard before, but, surprise-surprise, the show didn't last long and nobody bothered doing a cast album.

Figuring Lennon was too controversial, and didn't appeal to lowlife idiots, in came "Jersey Boys," the fascinating story of Frankie Fuckin' Valli and his sound-alike hit songs with the Four Seasons.

No, I didn't see the Clint Eastwood movie version that disappeared a week or two after release. I do have a bootleg of the show but these things look pretty bad on a home screen. Haven't watched THAT either. Since the show was written by Marshall Brickman (once a folkie who was part of groups that made albums, and once a co-writer on Woody Allen films) maybe it DOES have more to offer than just a formulaic "Godfather meets Falsetto" mess.

The fucking show is STILL running, even with competition from another similar effort, "Beautiful," the story of CAROLE KING. Jeez.

So yeah, why not do anyone that would allow it? A Simon and Garfunkel look-alike sound-alike show? I don't think anything could improve on the three or four minutes from the Not Necessarily the News people. But now that Garfunkel can't really tour too often (he seems to tell more anecdotes than sing songs) and Simon might need money and a good reminder of who he is, we might end up seeing five, ten, even twenty different versions of the show all over the globe, featuring any Mutt & Jeff combo. What do "fans" care? They are eager for holograms! They'll accept most anything!

The 21st Century is so influenced by the Internet and the TV screen, that all people want from a stage production is a 3D version of what they've already seen. That is, if they absolutely have to go SOMEWHERE because the upstairs neighbor is acting up, or the spouse is whining "it's my BIRTHDAY, take me somewhere besides Applebees."

Gotta go take her to a show. I mean, how often can you use this excuse: "No, no, I can NOT take you to Applebees, I have diverticulitis!"