USA Travel Blog 4 - Entertainment
Entertainment comes in many forms and this trip had most of them. With my nephew I sampled the delights of The Wiggles, a troupe of Australian idiots in bright costumes that sing silly songs that children enjoy, and re-acquainted myself with the world of Thomas the Tank Engine, most notably through the excellent CGI-animated Hero of the Rails about an old engine called Hiro who Thomas finds rusting in the woods and, with the help of his friends, restores to his former glory of ‘Master of the Rails’. I watched the start about a million times, because young children have no attention span, but it wasn’t until the last day, with Ryan safely at daycare, I finally managed to see the conclusion.
One of the evenings I went, along with Judith and Adam, to the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank to see notable director and Red Bank son Kevin Smith give a Q&A evening in honour of his 40th birthday. The event was filmed for TV and DVD and if you get a chance to see it then do. Kevin Smith is well known for giving entertaining evenings in this manner where literally anything goes. It’s not for children and it’s not for the faint-hearted - five hours is a short show - and whilst it’s not ‘stand-up comedy’ per se, it’s a frank and hilarious look into the normal life of a somewhat-famous person. The first half - the bit being filmed - started with a question along the lines of ‘how did it feel to finally get to direct Bruce Willis?’. As the questioner stood at the microphone awaiting his answer Kevin started with the words ‘This is going to be a long one; you might want to sit down’ much to the delight of the audience. And a long one it was because it took up the whole of the recording which, as he admitted in the second half, was something he’d always wanted to try. The story took us up and down seemingly-irrelevant alleys and through many rabbit holes until we finally knew every tiny aspect of exactly how he came to direct Cop Out, and thus Bruce Willis, via the means of marijuana. Wayne Gretsky and a prom bus. The second half consisted of much more concise answers to, frankly, more mundane questions but it was never boring and we each got a free towel out of it!
No trip to America would be complete without a few movies. As I mentioned in my Travel post, I managed three on the journey there and one on the journey home thanks to the V-Port entertainment system. These were, in order, Shutter Island, Kick Ass, Cemetery Junction and Cop Out. All four were well worth my time although Kick Ass was far and away the best of the lot. It is, in fact, one of the best movies I’ve seen for a long time. Cop Out - the Kevin Smith movie with Bruce Willis - was enjoyable but nothing to write home about. Shutter Island was deliciously conceived and realised and gave much to think about whilst Cemetery Junction was a welcome slice of England to keep me in mind of home.
I saw nothing on TV that bears much mention other than a reasonably entertaining MLS game between the New York Red Bulls and Chicago Fire. It ended 0-0 but, those of you who know association football know that that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a dull game.
Just as no visit to America would be complete without a few movies, so no visit to New York would be complete without seeing a play either on or off Broadway. Thanks to my friend Jack (@JackAaron on twitter) I knew exactly what I wanted to see and, fortunately, the TKTS booth had half-price tickets available. And so it was, with much anticipation, that Mother and I headed to the St James Theater on 44th street and saw American Idiot. Over recent years there have been many attempts to shoe-horn ‘popular music’ into a ‘musical theatre’ format - some successful and some not so. American Idiot is the same idea using the music of Green Day with which some of you will no doubt be familiar. The musical tells the story of a group of teenagers growing up in a post-9/11 world in small-town American. They make plans to leave for something better but it doesn’t quite all go to plan. The story is excellently told and the music, mostly from the American Idiot album, tells the story well. That may be to do with the fact that the American Idiot album is already telling the story to the extent where it often feels like it’s the soundtrack to a musical anyway. The combination of the music and visuals however, with an excellently versatile ‘single set’ stage peppered with televisions and an on-stage ‘orchestra’, makes what has to be the most enjoyable show I’ve seen at the theatre in a long time. I’d almost go so far as to say it’s worth the trip to New York in itself.
After the show the cast take to the stage with acoustic guitars to sing Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) which is probably the best way to end a show ever!
There were many others, but those were the entertainment highlights of my trip.
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