Tuesday, March 6, 2012

American Idiot Date

Well, we've been a touch busy. The hubby and I spent the other weekend up north with my family, where we had "Christmas" 2 months too late. Festive is a difficult thing to force but we gave it a go. Was good to get out of the house and have a little road trip and see everyone. The hubby drove AND he fixed my parents' computer. So he was on fire. Good husband.

Sunday night, we went back to the Peabody Opera House, now my favorite venue in St. Louis.


It took forever to get my camera to take this picture.
*Someone* needs a new camera.

We were very close to the stage and had excellent seats. Incredible seats. Great seats!

Hooray... for our seats.

We saw American Idiot. Which I thought would be nice and testosterone-y for the hubby. I would like to say for the record that I actually really like Green Day. I also like the theater and I like musicals.

SO WHAT THE F^%$!#)*&^&*%$!#(**&%^%$)!!#$%$%^**?

Yes, I know that is not even the right length for any word up there, but I needed to punch something and the keys were right there and just let me have my little typing tantrum, will you?

The cast was good - they sounded a lot like Green Day. Yay, Green Day. We knew a lot of the songs. Yay, catchy Green Day songs. We were able to see the details of everything - sets, costumes, facial expressions... There was a lot to see, so that was good. Yay! Yes, Happy Wife, focus on the positive!

GAHHHHHHHHH, I CAN'T!

The thing that is missing from the show is, oh, I don't know, a story of some kind and really anything coherent. We're Green Day! Sort of!

Character one: I had a lot of sex and did a lot of drugs (Sold! Believable! You are Green Day!).

Character two: I knocked up my girlfriend and that made life sucky because I had responsibilities and sh*t. (I know, Green Day, I know. You want to be a little punk until your senior citizen days but life got in the way. Instead of drugs and sex, you have boatloads of beer and a very defiant pouty face.)

Character three: This show is about America! so I am a soldier and I lost my leg in a pointless war and I have something important to say about America! but the commentary I want to get across is vague and I am failing miserably at conveying much of anything. (Um... Green Day? Where did you go? I don't know a ton about you but I know zero of your band members are vets.) Oh, also I, character number 3, spent my time doing things like having wild dreams about a super clothed Islamic woman who then turns into a genie stripper.

*Happy Wife managed to both laugh inappropriately and hang her head in shame at dragging her husband to this*

The genie stripper flew through the air on wires, so that was impressive.

Positive thoughts! Say something positive!

The same cast member also hung upside down at one point in her non-stripper slutty clothes and head banged. Upside down. From about 3 stories up. So that was, you know, something you don't see every day.

Entertainment!

*Jazz hands*

The music of choice for Muslim-stripper-genie there was non-Green Day. It was your generic Middle Eastern woman singing a very stereotypical song complete with matching scribbly foreign language words on all the screens behind her that no one could read. Even though the husband can, I believe, speak some Urdu, I just crossed my fingers that he couldn't read whatever that said since I'm pretty sure it would be better for everyone if no one ever translates that.

I just get my feathers tussled a little whenever something tries to be anti-anything-different-from-here and sort of anti-soldier, which I am also super not okay with. The whole time I was like, what are you trying to say here? I know we're not mocking the damn military. Right? I mean, what?

The soldiers are fighting for our freedom to do things like watch this stupid musical.

And, Guys, maybe put your pants back on. Guys, Green Day did not perform naked all the time, did they? And zero of these 3 main characters really need to be in their skivvies. Plus the 10 or so background people? Not necessary, thanks. Did I miss that part of their act back when I was young and knew more about Green Day? Were they exhibitionists? Every one in this show was in their underwear WAY too much. I just kept thinking, "Way to commit, Everybody. I guess."

In some regards, the seats were too good. I did not need to see that.

I do not know what your point is, American Idiot, other than that everyone is an idiot and maybe then one of your main characters shouldn't be an injured frickin' soldier.

The husband had to go into work Saturday, then he slept all day Sunday in order to take me to the show Sunday night. We had Starbucks on the way there, which was awesome and something we never do. So he was full of caffeine and really just doing this whole thing for me.

Within the first 15 minutes of the show, they flashed 2 names on the screen as "evil" and the first was Halliburton and the second was where my husband has been working for over 10 years. Just what he wanted to see after he's been working so many long hours lately. He did say on the way there, "I hope they don't bash me."

And I said, "HAHA! What? They won't. Have you never heard a Green Day song? They're walking the boulevard of broken dreams, Honey. They're not political masterminds. They're not all f-you, software engineers, you're ruining the world!" Ha. Ha ha. Lord.

The people in the row behind us had a lengthy conversation before the show about why there wasn't a synopsis in the playbill. Afterwards, I think we were all like, "Oh, that's why. Because the synopsis would have said, 'There is a lot of headbanging and dancing in our underwear, then some more headbanging.'" A synopsis would have had to make sense.

Maybe I'm just not appropriately artsy anymore. Also, the hubby and I had a discussion and came to the realization that we're at a weird age. Too young to want to see things like Fiddler and Mary Poppins (coming soon to the Peabody!) and too old to enjoy stuff like American Idiot. I fussed about this at length in the car on the way home.

The husband said, "We're in the tv age. We're the same age as the people who write SNL and The Office and that's why we like those things. Now we just have to wait for them to get older and write other things, and then we'll like other things."

I just kept thinking that the show we just saw was a really crappy version of Rent and a pretty decent version of Green Day, whatever that even means.

Then we passed a billboard for the next show to come to The Fox, our other favorite venue in town.

Bring It On. The Musical.

...

So we're going to go ahead and stay home with our cats and watch a lot of DVRed programming and call that good. Yeah.

Riverdance and Yanni are also coming to The Fox.

Please. Shoot. Me. I'm at an age where EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE! EVERYTHING! HORRIBLE!

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