The New York Cherney Journey: Send in the Dancing Mormons!

I finally broke my Broadway cherry.

When planning our New York adventure, Laurie and I agreed that we most definitely had to take in a Broadway show just like every other dumb hick travellin' to the Big City for the first time. (I being the hick in this equation. She already had the pleasure.) Technically, I had visited Manhattan once before back in the mid seventies, but I only spent an afternoon, almost got killed by a cabbie and went to a movie ROLLERBALL, to be exact. Therefore, even though I'd been to Broadway, I hadn't given my regards or to translate : No show for this Joe. I was a Broadway show virgin, longing to be touched for the very first time. So the question became "What to see?" After much research and deliberation, I reluctantly offered, "I dunno.

Nothing against that show which I am sure is just mah-velous. It just didn't didn't float our boat. Maybe time had taken its toll on said Disney musical's relevance in our eyes. In the good ol' wintertime of 2011, going to THE LION KING held about as much appeal as a musical version of THE KING'S SPEECH starring Mel Tillis.

One morning in the good ol' wintertime, we were watching a re-broadcast of THE DAILY SHOW as Jon Stewart was just shamelessly fawning over his guests, Trey Parker and Matt Stone from SOUTH PARK and heaping buckets of accolades about their brand spanking new Broadway musical. That's when it hit us simultaneously. We had to see THE BOOK OF MORMON. Miraculously (and I don't use that word lightly here), I scored a pair of matinee tickets for us online. This turned out to be the first serendipitous green light of our foray to the Great White Way.

Honored daughter Lindsay managed to obtain a lunch reservation for us at Ma Peche, the hot-as-balls Manhattan French/Vietnamese eatery from chef David Chang (seen most recently on the second season of TREME). And under her skilled subway tutelage, she felt confident we could navigate our way from Brooklyn to the downtown area without provocation. In other words, she released us into the wild.

She was right. The subway line to the theater district was pretty much of a straight line and basically idiot-proof. Along the way, we were serenaded by a quartet performing a little doo-wop version of “Shake, Rattle & Roll” finishing and passing the hat the moment we pulled into our station. With time a'tickin' quickly toward our High Noon reservation, Laurie and I navigated our way toward (what we hoped) was the right direction. Along the way, I couldn't help but to be still enthralled by various landmarks like Radio City Music Hall ( playing a new Cirque de Soleil show. Acrobatic Rockettes? The mond boggles...) and 30 Rockefeller Center, but we had to trudge on. No time to ice skate now. Our final destination was supposedly at the end of the block, but that was a New York City block, five times the size of what we were used to. But, sho’ nuff, we found Ma Peche and walked in its front doors at straight up twelve o’clock. Impeccable timing.

We started with a superb shrimp curry, probably the most luscious I’ve ever eaten. I'd give it an A-, the minus only because the portion size wasn't large enough. This was followed by their take on a banh minh sandwich. I found it quite tasty, but not the explosion of flavor I hoped for, so I graded it a solid B. Since we were sharing anyway, we decided to order another sandwich and were so glad we did. This was they called a Beef and Pork Belly Hero with crab mayonnaise and green papaya, one of the single best things I’ve ever had the pleasure to have in my mouth in my life. Make of that what you will, it was a grand slam home run and an A+. You see, I'm not so much of a food critic as I am a substitute teacher.

Finding the Eugene O’Neill Theatre took basically no time or effort at all, just a hop, skip and a jump until we reached a line that extended from the entrance, down 49th and around the corner to 5th Avenue. This was one hot ticket. Once inside this hallowed structure, we found our seats in the last row of the upper mezzanine, a tight squeeze to be sure with less leg room than Michael Jordan would get on Southwest Airlines. Still, we were dead freaking center with a complete panoramic view of the stage. That is, until Bob and Mitzi arrived, taking the seats in the row in front of us. I called her Mitzi because, well, she looked like a Mitzi. And we named him Bob because he kept bobbing his head back and forth no matter which way Laurie tried to look throughout the first act. She’d lean to the left and he bobbed left. She went right, Bob went right. I was more fortunate since Mitzi was a little thing though I felt wedged in like a piece of carry-on luggage in the overhead compartment. (We switched for Act II and all was well)

Now on with the show…

Have you ever had an experience not only met your expectations but actually exceeded them? After reading all the praise this show had received along with its multiple Tony awards, I just knew THE BOOK OF MORMON was going to be a great experience. I just didn’t know how great. The first thing heard is a doorbell and an ultra clean cut young man in a short sleeve white shirt and tie begins to sing “Hello. My name is Elder Price…” From that moment on I was hooked, line and sinker. Parker, Stone and Robert Lopez, who co-wrote another show I admired AVENUE Q, have rebooted American musical theater with this tale of Mormon missionaries in Uganda, a show that is at turns sharp, vulgar, rousing, satirical and ultimately on target and gut-bustingly hilarious. My two favorite songs had to be THE LION KING parody (how apropos) "Hasa Diga Eebowai" (it ain't no "Hakuna Matata", that's for sure) and probably the finest but certainly the funniest production numbers I've ever seen "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream". The two leads, Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad, admirably carry the show on their Latter-Day Saint shoulders. Rannels perfectly fits the bill as uber-Mormon Elder Price, channelling his inner Osmond broadly but to great effect. As his half-a-bubble-off-plum co-hort Arnold, Gad comes across as the bastard child of Chris Farley and Zero Mostel and that's a good thing. The entire production, as directed by Parker and Casey Nicholaw, was absolutely top notch from start to finish. Oddly enough, the last time I felt so exhilarated in the theater was LES MISERABLES, a show that is the polar opposite of MORMON. Somehow, they both tapped into the core of the love of theater I used to have. Once I was lost, but thanks to THE BOOK OF MORMON, now I am found. It's certainly not a show for the easily-offended or even the faint of heart. That are comedic gasps in this show that will either tickle you relentlessly or make you cringe in horror. Fortunately, I'm the former. Then again, I have a sense of humor, a modicum of intelligence and a (mostly) open mind.

But was it (gasp) profane? Sure it was. It mocks the Mormon religion inside and out, using it as the scapegoat for all organized religions and their origins. Is the tale of the Mormons more ludicrous than the rest due to its more recent history? Not necessarily. Fairy tales to one person may be somebody else's belief system. It's all a matter of perception, isn't it? That's probably the most difficult concept of all to swallow. That is, unless you happen to be a rational human being. Good luck with that one. But deep down, in all of its ridicule, I found that THE BOOK OF MORMON carries a positive message of the power of faith in this wicked world. On the other hand, it also contains the catch-phrase "I have maggots in my scrotum!"

After THE BOOK OF MORMON, Laurie and I headed for Times Square, the only real landmark I took in back '75. We stood by the statue of George M. Cohan and I showed her the exact spot where that taxi nearly mowed me down 36 years before. We soaked in the atmosphere, the hustle, bustle and spectacle of it all. In the midst of all the huddled masses and every day chaos all about us, it was there and then I realized that we were having the best date we've had in years. Someone might have been smiling upon us that Wednesday in New York City. Maybe it was even the city itself. What-or who-ever it was, we had an absolutely perfect day.

How many of those do you ever get in your life?

Bye, Bye LOVE

Didn't Fred MacMurray have a TV series where he played a polygamist? Yeah, you know...

MY THREE WIVES.

Oh, silly me. That was Bill Paxton in BIG LOVE. My goof.

The saga of Bill Hendrickson and his hat trick marriage came to a sad, but somehow fitting conclusion on HBO. I'll miss this ragtag bunch of Utah-ites and their plural relationships. Boy, talk about extended families... As uneven as this show could be, BIG LOVE was always a better show all around than the similarly formatted DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, often airing at the same time, ironically enough. HOUSEWIVES bills itself, at least for Emmy consideration, as a comedy, but I've always found the humor, well, desperate. It was never as good as its first season. BIG LOVE, on the other hand, played it straight, even at its soap operatic craziest. It helped that it was always fast paced, sometimes at such a quick clip that it lost control. But it never strayed far off track always thanks to its core themes of family, faith and richly developed characters portrayed by a finely honed ensemble cast. Bill Paxton reinvented himself with BIG LOVE as patriarch Bill Hendrickson. Before this, Paxton was probably the most reviled (not by me) character actor of the last twenty five years.

He believably conveyed the strong moral fiber and inflexibility of a man who was willing to sacrifice anything for his family and proved it right up the very end. As the wives, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ginnifer Goodwin and particularly Chloe Sevigny as the duplicitous and eternally conflicted Nicky worked like an Olympic acrobatic team, balancing both comedy and tragedy effortlessly. BIG LOVE also gave sensational old pros another chance to shine, some brighter than ever. Harry Dean Stanton was sensational as the villainous Roman Grant, ably abetted by a soberly droll Mary Kay Place as his first wife. Bruce Dern chewed up the scenery ravenously as Paxton's rat bastard father. And Grace Zabriskie had her day in the sun every episode she appeared as Bill's mother, a typification of absolutely pure and true grit.

Yeah, I'm going to miss these wacky folk, but the writing was on the fall for the conclusion to this saga before it ran completely out of gas. The ending was handled rather clumsily however with the fate of one its main characters sacrificed in a too abrupt manner, almost as an afterthought to get to the final wrap-up. But I'll be damned if they didn't make it work just like they always did on this show. The tears at the end of BIG LOVE were well earned and the final reprise of The Beach Boys'"God Only Knows", covered by Natalie Maines was a perfect bookend to the best show about plural marriage ever. Take that, SISTER WIVES.

P.S. For more Mormon fun that you can shake a stick at, I recommend Jon Krakauer's book

UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN.

P.S.S. I just scored a couple of tickets to THE BOOK OF MORMON, the brand new Broadway musical written by those irascible South Park boys, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Can I hear an AMEN?

Mind Farts

I came up with this title, thinking I was being all witty and creative and absolutely original...until I realized that George Carlin has a book out called BRAIN DROPPINGS. Who cares? I am me and he is he and we are all together. Koo-koo-ka-choo. A Mind Fart is just wind passing through my head. It isn't exactly an entire thought. Basically it's just crap I think about on a daily basis and this is pretty much of a clearing house for my brain. A porcelain receptacle, as it were. No truer words have ever been spoken than... HERE GOES NOTHING!

What if...Oprah suddenly turned evil? Lately she's been so benevolent, giving away free cars and last week, a bunch o' junk to a group of teachers (though it should be noted, she didn't pay for any of them. They were DONATED for free advertising). Anyway, I've noticed that while she has been such a frigging saint in the past year, she's also becoming more and more of an uber-diva in the process. If suddenly Opie just turned to the Dark Side, how many of her minions would follow her into the the fiery pits of Hell? Would they actually KILL for Oprah? I believe those lemmings would do anything for her. Somehow I could see the Big O becoming the vengeful goddess Kali in the next year if she hasn't taken down a few notches. She needs another failure. How's about a sequel to BELOVED? As it is, she's about to spin out of control...like a balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade who just broken its tethers. "Look out...OPRAH'S LOOSE!"

Is Jude Law in every single movie this year or does it just seem that way? Who does he think he is...Ben Stiller? Look at the partial list: ALFIE, SKY CAPTAIN, CLOSER, I HEART HUCKABEES, LEMONY SNICKET. I think he plays some algae in the SPONGEBOB movie too. "What's it all about...Algae?"

In my last entry, I talked about who I would kick in the nuts or ass if I had the chance and I didn't mention the 2 Democratic losers. Losing was bad enough for these schmoes and I think I would give them until after the holidays to get over it. But when January 3 (a Monday) rolls around...look out. I'd want to show them a picture of our esteemed Prez and say, "Hey! Look what you lost to! You lost to a chimp! In fact, you got a chimp RE-ELECTED!" Then I'd turn around and boot John Edwards' bad boys into the uprights. It's really too bad. I didn't really dislike him. At first I though he was an okay candidate but it soon became apparent that he was really just a better looking Barney Fife. When he became what he considered "forceful", I was expecting him to pull his bullet out of his shirt pocket. But he was too complacent. As for John-boy...Senator Kerry...KA-CHOW! Into the uprights! You mealy-mouthed son of a bitch! Why did you wait for the last second to get tough? The problem started the moment you got nominated. Are you such a political gadfly that you thought that putting your Vietnam service in the forefront would not be attacked? You might as well have stripped naked, smeared yourself with Alpo and visited a pitbull puppy farm, then wonder why you were bit. As for Mrs. Kerry, she became a liability the moment she stepped up to a microphone. She needed to be muzzled and no one had the guts to do the job. You guys once again underestimated the Chimp Boy. It turned out that the fabled "Undecided" were going to vote for Bush all along, but didn't want to admit it in public. Everyone else was making too much fun of him to realize that it just made him more entertaining. Obviously, the general public enjoyed the antics of President Chimpy. Also, did no one get a clue from the huge success of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST where a lot of this country stands? Ignorance is no longer bliss, people. It's a goddamn shame.

In other news...just when I'm wondering what could be done about the monster known as Paris Hilton, the SOUTH PARK boys took care of her for all of us. Try to catch a rerun of this episode when Paris opens up a "Stupid Spoiled Whore Boutique" in South Park selling items like her personal cologne Skanque. What happens to her at the episode's end is more than just the grossest, funniest thing I've seen all year...it's sweet justice.

And finally...
Band names I find funny:
Bowling for Soup
The TunaHelpers
I Can Lick Any Son of a Bitch in the House
Lesbians on Ecstasy