Brooklyn Lager, the spookiest beer of all
2005-10-30

Have had a busy week of theatergoing and Halloween-type activities. On Wednesday a friend with a theater service subscription (which allows him to get $4.50 tickets to Broadway plays, well, the crap ones) got tickets to "In My Life," the theatrical masterpiece written and directed by "You Light Up My Life" songsmith Joseph Brooks.

It was utterly amazing. Somebody spent 7.2 million dollars on this thing, so there's an entire set of "Heaven" (visualized as a huge wall of light-up filing cabinets) as well as tons of elaborate and well-made (if not attractive) costuming. Otherwise it's possibly the most banal thing ever - the story is that two neurotics get together, only then some bad things happen like one of them gets cancer, and a gay angel observes and makes a "reality opera" of the whole thing. There are pirates involved. And rhymes like "dance/chance" and "rumor/tumor" an entire song about the hero... well, male protagonist's mother, which serves absolutely no purpose except to show off an "upstairs" set of the hero's memories of his mother singing opera in their idyllic ranch house (obviously it couldn't be anything other than a ranch house, even with $7.2 million you couldn't have a two-story heaven house). Near the end there's a entire number where God "Call me Al!" and the gay angel do a dance to one of Joseph Brooks's minor works, the Dr. Pepper jingle. It's about 5 minutes long.

The audience appeared to be mostly theater folk (who no doubt did not pay a quarter of the full hundred-dollar price) and seniors who couldn't get tickets to "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

Halloween was much more low-key. Basically I was Broke Girl Wearing Skirt From Hot Topic She Bought Seven Years Ago. Mmmm Gothick.