Month: October 2003

We just came back from seeing “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” the new play starring Mark Hamill and Polly Bergen currently in previews on Broadway at the Belasco Theater. Seeing a show in previews, when the kinks are supposed to be worked out, can always be an adventure. In last night’s performance, for instance, the sound system was so out of whack that three minutes into the show, the feedback was practically rupturing everyone’s eardrums. Bergen suddenly dropped character, announced that this was simply unacceptable and she walked off the stage. Mark stood there flummoxed for a moment, then turned to the audience and said hopefully, “So…want to know how a light saber works?”

Twenty minutes later they finally got the sound running properly, earning the gratitude of both cast and audience, and the play started over again.

Fortunately enough, the performance we saw tonight went off without a hitch. Hamill plays a dance instructor hired to come to the home of a baptist minister’s wife and, as the title would imply, spend the next six weeks giving her dance lessons. The reason I call it “Dancing Miss Daisy” is that, at its core, it’s about an aging Southern woman, disconnected from the world, who finds a way of coping with her environment through the most unlikely of touchstones (her character is actually named Lily, but hey…daisy. Lily. Close enough). The characters are engaging, the show is briskly paced, and there’s enough unexpected revelations about both protagonists (it’s a two-person play) to keep you wondering what’s going to be sprung on you next.

What was also classy about Mark was that his throat was getting so strained by the end of the show that the theater personnel had arranged for him to be brought directly to an emergency room afterward to have it treated. Yet despite that, he stopped and signed autographs and posed for pictures with waiting fans.

Support the theater, support Broadway, and support Mark (whose “Comic Book: The Movie” comes out in January on DVD from Miramax.)

PAD

Well, the beans have been spilled about new Captain Marvel artist Aaron Lopresti coming aboard as of issue #19. Newsarama has the item, along with artwork that has every single fan saying, “Yea! Captain Marvel is back in his old costume!”

What’s great is: Every fan who says that is wrong.

Mwaahaha. Dance, puppets, dance…

PAD

Issue #15 is out. What’d’ja think?

PAD

And so the world can continue to turn peacefully on its axis, with no imminent threat of any so-called curses being broken. Let us consider the following:

1) By blowing the 7th game, the Sox spared us the sadness of watching them go to a Cub-less World Series. It would have been like arriving at the Prom and discovering your date had a flat tire and never made it. Here, it’s more like you and your date were driving along, had a blowout which sent you plummeting off a cliff to a fiery doom and thus never made it to the prom.

2) Had the Sox made to the Series, they likely would have lost. Losing to the Cubs would have been a big deal because, y’know, the Cubs would’ve won. Losing to the Marlins…who cares? The only way history would have been made in a Sox/Marlins game is if the Sox had won the first three games and everyone would have been saying, “Well, that’s it, no team has ever come back from a three-game deficit in a best-of-seven Series, it’s a lock,” at which point the Sox could have been the first team to blow a three game advantage. That would’ve been kind of cool.

3) If it had been a Cubs/Sox game…one of the teams would have lost their mystique. I mean, one of the things that’s so legendary about them is their constant inability to win. If one of them had won, they would have been reduced in status to a team that wins on rare occasions, and we’ve got a bunch of those. This way, parity remains between the AL and NL.

4) If it had been Cubs/Yankees, I would have felt compelled to watch, and thus suffer through another twenty showings per game of that dámņëd Visa Check cashing card commercial. Since it’s Yankees/Marlins, I can skip it and thus not have to be badgered by it anymore.

Thus ends the baseball blog entries for the year 2003.

PAD

The Cubs should hire him.

Seriously. Find a job in the organization for him. He’s not stupid. Guys’ a finance major. Must be something on the business side he can do. Plus he coaches youngsters. Let’s keep in mind that he, an amateur, displayed the most often quoted baseball axiom that even many pros forget: Keep your eye on the ball. He did that. So if the Cubs have a youth club (as many ball organizations do) put him in charge of that.

And just imagine the commercials for next year: “I’m Steve Bartman. As Chicago Cubs associate business manager, I have permanent seats at Wrigley…nine rows back of home plate. I’m nowhere near the front row. NOTHING can stop us now.”

PAD

If anyone is interested in seeing current pictures of Caroline, the Cutest Baby in the World, you can check out Kathleen’s new website at: http://homepage.mac.com/kathodavid/PhotoAlbum1.html

PAD