Tag: entertainment

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The Tour de France

Mr. Man and I started watching the Tour de France back in the Lance Armstrong days.  We would turn the TV on as soon as we woke up and spend the morning rooting for the US Postal Service team.  Those days are long gone, but we still look forward to watching one of our favorite sporting events every July.

The television coverage of the Tour de France is really exceptional. It is 50% compelling race coverage and 50% gorgeous travelogue.  Either of those elements alone make for a great viewing experience.

After a while, I began to see the Tour de France as a metaphor for the human condition.  Today, I’m going to explain just a few of the aspects that I find compelling and encourage you to think about how they apply to more than just cycle racing.

The Power of the Peloton

The term “peloton” literally translates to “little ball” and refers to the main field of cyclists in a race.  There are a lot of physics at play in cycling and the peloton creates advantages for the riders in the group through certain aerodynamic effects. The bottom line is that a group of cyclists, working together in a tight-knit group is eminently more powerful than the same number of riders would be if they were all working independently.

The Danger of the Peloton

While the peloton is eminently more powerful than the sum of its parts, it can also be a very dangerous place to be.  If one rider loses his line going around a curve, he can wipe out a whole mess of others.  Also, when someone in the middle begins to lag, the riders behind him are affected because there is no room for them to maneuver.  There is a trade-off between the advantage of the group and the peril of sacrificing one’s independence.

The Tragedy of the Break-Away

One of the most exciting parts of any stage is a break-away. An individual or small group of riders can often jump out to a substantial lead over the peloton.  I am always rooting for whoever makes the break to be able to hold on until the end of the stage.  Isn’t it natural to want to see someone’s extraordinary effort rewarded?

Here is where the tragedy of the break-away comes in.  No matter how strong or exceptional an individual is, he can rarely hold out long enough to win the stage. And while the entire peloton might not catch up to the break-away, at some point they will send a chase group who will.  It’s like a fox hunt.

The Advantage of the Privileged

One irony of the Tour de France is that although it is theoretically an individual competition, an individual can only succeed through the efforts of his team. In some ways, a cycle racing team is like any other team, with each member assigned a role.  There are sprinters and climbers and domestiques (they carry and distribute supplies to the rest of the team during the course of a stage).  However, the entire team effort is put toward the success of an anointed individual.  It’s as if at the end of the Superbowl, Tom Brady was declared the winner rather than the New England Patriots.

I’m not saying that this is good or bad, I don’t have any opinion about it in those terms.  What I find fascinating about it is how the game is, for lack of a better term, rigged to ensure that only certain individuals have a shot at winning.  As Americans, we are really big on the concept of a level playing field, where anyone who has the facility and determination at least gets to start from the same line.  But, in reality, there are a thousand little advantages sprinkled unevenly throughout the field.

Who knew that sports could be so deep?

I look forward to watching the Tour de France every year.  Not only because it is such a compelling sporting event held in such a spectacular venue, but because of the way that it illuminates the human condition.

The Tour de France runs through July 28 this year.  If you haven’t watched it before, I encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think!

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Redemption of a Dogg

When your friend calls and asks if she should get tickets to the Snoop Dogg musical, you say, “YES!” Then once she’s got the tickets all lined up, you ask, “so what exactly are we going to see?”

Turns out that producer/director/playwright Je’Caryous Johnson has created a musical about Snoop Dogg called, Redemption of a Dogg.  Snoop plays himself and Tamar Braxton plays the angel trying to get her wings by helping the D-O-double G set things right.

I would describe the plot as sort-of A Christmas Carol meets It’s a Wonderful Life. Except that it was set at Easter rather than Christmas.  I kind-of would have loved it if it had been set at Christmastime, it could become another holiday entertainment classic like The Nutcracker or Diehard.  But maybe, because we were seeing it just before Thanksgiving that was probably the holiday that I had on the brain.

The inciting action is that rather than going to church with his family, Snoop books a big show for Easter Sunday.  Which of course means that we got a mini concert.  It was so fun, everyone was on their feet.  Then, when Snoop is leaving the gig, he gets shot by some gang members who have had a beef with him for all these years.  As he lays there dying, an angel appears and offers him a chance of going back to change what brought him to that moment.  The best part of this scene to me was the way that Snoop, as he lay there dramatically suffering from a gunshot, was in a very Martha Graham-style posture.  I like the idea that Snoop may have studied Graham technique (he is very graceful).

So, Snoop thinks he knows what he needs to do, and they go back in time to set young Snoop straight.  From here the show gets funny for me in a Scooby Doo kind-of way.  First the designated moment in time will play out, then they (Snoop and the Angel) will arrive and LITERALLY rewind the scene so that Snoop can make the change.  I’m not kidding, the soundtrack plays that cassette tape rewind sound and all the actors move backwards through the scene to where it began.  It is fantastic.  But when they return to the present, it turns out that whatever the change was had unintended consequences.  Snoop’s reactions when this happens are just priceless.  So, they go back again and try something else!

In the end, the moral of the story (my interpretation) is that if you changed your past, you wouldn’t be the person you are today; all you can do is do your best from this moment forward to be the best you that you can be.  Also, to respect your loved ones and not take them for granted.

And then, everyone lives happily ever after!

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Costa Mesa Speedway

Mr. Man has been a huge Speedway fan for years.  He likes to tell me about back in the day when there was a speedway race any night of the week around Southern California.  These days it’s a once or twice a year occasion for us to make it down to the Costa Mesa Speedway for some hot racing action.

See all that dirt on the boards? It wasn’t there when we started.

A speedway motorbike is a little methanol-fueled missile.  These bikes are f-a-s-t.  And, no breaks!  So, when they go around this little, oval dirt track, they have to skid out the back tire of the bike while holding the front wheel pointing in the direction they are trying to go to make the turn.  Boy does the dirt fly!  If you’re sitting in one of the turns, be sure to cover your beer. As soon as they get straightened out, they’re at the other end, throwing it sideways into the other turn.

 

The other week when we went they were running sidecars among other things.  There was a lot of drama in the sidecar class with the #1 bike. It broke down in pretty much every heat and kept causing the races to be red-flagged.  They somehow made it to the final round.  Where they broke down again.  At some point you’ve got to just get out of everyone else’s way, come on!

You can see the #31 sidecar trapped behind #1. Oops!

It was also “Knobby Night” where dirt bike riders race the speedway on their dirt bikes with grippy, off-road tires (hence the “knobby” designation).  These races are pretty hilarious to watch because the bikes are not built to make those turns. They put out a “limiting” cone that the leader must pass to the outside of which means that the leader changes pretty much every lap.  Everyone has a great time during these races, you can tell that the riders all laughing the whole time too.

The actual speedway class included some OGs of speedway racing: Bobby “Boogaloo” Schwartz and Sean “Mad Dog” McConnell.  These guys are classic.  Boogaloo’s leathers are all old and worn looking and Mad Dog has this matchy-matchy red-and-white checkerboard racing suit and bike and floppy dog ears attached to his helmet.  They both are amazing racers.  I can’t explain what it is, but they are so obviously better at what they do than their competition.  It’s one of those things that is beautiful to watch.

This night, the final was something else.  In the first turn, Mad Dog came up a little tight under Chris “The Kid” Manchester and the dude got flicked off.  He flipped over the high side of the bike and landed flat on his back.  His bike squirmed away from under him and crashed into the wall.  I don’t remember ever seeing something like that before.  It was a bummer to see him laying there on the track, fortunately, he was ok and once he caught his breath, he got up and walked off.  In the time that it took to restart the race, he borrowed someone else’s bike, came out and won the whole thing!

Heading for the finish line.

Don’t you love a happy ending?

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A Fun Night at the Theatre

Guys, I saw a really fun play the other night!  We were laughing out loud.  I didn’t look at my watch once, I didn’t start squirming in my seat hoping for intermission, none of that.  The play, by Christopher Durang, is called Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

It’s about a middle-aged brother and his adopted sister who still live in their dead parents’ home. Then the other sister, who is a successful actress, comes home with her twenty-something boy toy and hijinks ensues.  I went in completely cold, I didn’t look at the program before the show started or anything.  Sometimes that is the best way to enjoy a performance because you don’t bother to develop any expectations about what you think you are going to see.

For me, the play starts off maybe sort-of melancholy, there is a lot of talking about missed opportunities and dissatisfaction with how their lives have turned out by Sonia and Vanya.   Fortunately, all the bellyaching is broken up by shots of wackiness which gives all the brooding a funny air.  And then there is this underlying, irrepressible optimism that is manifested in the character of Irina, the young ingénue from next door.

The highlight of the show by far is the character of Cassandra the housekeeper.  In this production, the role is played by Svetlana Efremova who is just delightful.  She plays this wacky character with effervescence and a graceful physicality.  She’s like a lovely, playful kitten romping in and out of everyone’s drama.  And her Russian accent just makes it so much better.  She steals the show.

I think there are other Chekhov references beyond the names of the brother and sisters, but I’m not enough of a theatre buff to know what they were.  I guess that is a testament to how good the play is because I totally enjoyed it without getting the inside jokes.  If you know Chekhov, you may appreciate the play on a deeper level.

Toward the end of the play, Vanya has this eight-minute monologue about the world that he grew up in.  It was wistful and sweet, and it went on long enough to make everyone a little uncomfortable.  To me it sounded exactly like when Mr. Man goes on one of his “back in the day” rants, which made me laugh.  I guess that everyone has heard someone’s version of that same thing at least a few million times.

If you are looking for a culture fix in the next couple weeks, this would be a fun show to catch.  It was funny.  The acting was great. I really enjoyed it.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at South Coast Repertory through October 21, 2018

https://www.scr.org/calendar/view?id=10010

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World Ballet Day 2018

I found out that October 2 was World Ballet Day and thought that would make a great excuse to talk about ballet today.

First, I had to find out what World Ballet Day is.  The first World Ballet Day happened in 2014. The original host companies participating were the Australian Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Royal Ballet, National Ballet of Canada and the San Francisco Ballet participated.  2016 was the first year that it became a live Facebook event, the idea being that there would be 24 hours of dance content being presented via livestream. The livestreams include company classes, rehearsal, and other “exclusives.”

This year’s host companies were the Australian Ballet, the Bolshoi, and the Royal Ballet.

The Australian Ballet was established in 1962. Founding Artistic Director woman, Peggy Von Praagh.  She had previously directed Sadler’s Wells Ballet before returning to Australia. I found a fun, short video on their website of one of the ballerina’s prepping her point shoes: https://australianballet.com.au/tv/en-pointe-with-jade-wood.

The Bolshoi Ballet was established in Moscow in 1776. The Bolshoi style is described as “flashy” and “colorful” in contrast to the older ballet company in St. Petersburg (originally the Imperial Ballet, then the Kirov, it is called the Mariinsky Ballet these days) which is known for is pure, classical style.

The UK’s Royal Ballet, originally called Vic-Wells Ballet, was founded by Ninette de Valois in 1931. The company was granted a royal charter and its name changed to the Royal Ballet in the 1950s. Ninette de Valois had performed with the Ballet Ruses in the 1920s and credits Serge Diaghilev with teaching her everything she knew about running a ballet company. Alicia Markova and Margot Fonteyn were some of the notable ballerinas that were a part of this company.

I started watching a video of the Royal Ballet’s company class on their website and couldn’t tear myself away (here is the link to their website: http://www.roh.org.uk/about/the-royal-ballet *scroll down to almost the bottom of the page). I love ballet class. My feet are already mad at me for just watching the tendus.  However, my thighs assure me that I won’t be getting anywhere near a fifth position.

It turns out that World Ballet Day is not just for ballet.  Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was among others participating.  I watched a bit of their rehearsal of Rennie Harris’ Lazarus on Facebook.  My first thought was, “there is a reason that rehearsal is rehearsal.” Then they got to a run-through of the work.  It was sharp! I haven’t seen Ailey perform for a while and the last time I did, I was starting to feel that they had come to rely on trotting out their greatest hits. I don’t know how new this work is, but it feels fresh and I really enjoyed. It had the signature Ailey feel without being derivative.

While I didn’t watch anywhere near 24 hours of ballet, World Ballet Day reminded me that there is a lot of dance out there and it’s not that hard to find interesting dance to watch online.  There are a couple of performances here locally in the next couple of weeks that I might manage to get out for.  If I do, I’ll let you know!

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Belmont Shore Car Show

Earlier this month, Mr. Man and I took a stroll down the street to the Belmont Shore Car Show. This year was the 29th Annual event but the first year that a new organizer took over.  We don’t make it down every year, but it is always a fun time when we do.  I love the beautifully maintained classic cars and there is always a Lamborghini or two for me to covet.  Sometimes the cars have really entertaining set-ups, like the old-timey limousine with a chauffer mannequin behind the driver’s seat.

My favorite car at this year’s car show was Jolly. 

She had wicker seats and her trunk was actually a wicker trunk! 

I think that if you were driving a car like Jolly, you’d have to be in a good mood (unless it was cold or raining or you had to get on the freeway).

There was also this terrific turquoise Volkswagen Karmann Ghia that caught my eye.  This little, sporty car had this teeny trailer and a whole matching travel kit – fire extinguisher, gas can, cooler. I love me some matchy-matchy and this girl was done from top to tail.  What a beauty!

I didn’t take a lot of photos because we sort-of powerwalked the whole show in search of the Beerster.

The what?

The Beerster!  She is a custom, hand-built, open wheel roadster.  Mr. Man’s friend PeeWee built and owns her and PeeWee loves to take her out and show her off.

The Beerster always draws a crowd

A few fun facts about the Beerster:

She has a 1930’s era Buick straight 8 (fireball) engine that was salvaged from a school bus.

The Beerster was designed to resemble a P51 Mustang, the single-seat fighter that was used during WWII.

She got her name from the fact that the guys were drinking beers and designing/building a roadster at the same time.

PeeWee and Mr. Man took her on the Great Race (a timed, rally race) in 2015. Over the course of a week, they rallied from St. Louis, Missouri to the Santa Monica Pier on Route 66.

And NO!  Do NOT wear a scarf when you are driving or riding in the Beerster or any open wheel roadster.  Don’t you know what happened to Isadora Duncan?

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Trying to Culture this thing up!

Fourteen years ago, I went up to the Bay Area to visit my mom.  We shopped and we lunched and one night we went into San Francisco to see the San Francisco Ballet perform Romeo and Juliet. Now, I was sure that I didn’t care for the romantic ballets (the full-length story ballets from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century) but that night changed my mind (it turns out that I really just don’t enjoy The Sleeping Beauty but that is a story for another day).

The production of Romeo and Juliet that we saw was enchanting. The performance was beautiful and moving. The music by Prokofiev is everything, it would have salvaged the evening if the rest of the production had fallen short but the sets and the costumes enhanced the plot and the dancing was very good. In particular, Tina LeBlanc was an exquisite Juliet – technically excellent and emotionally expressive, she was truly a great ballerina. After how many years, I still can feel what that performance did for me.

Now, mom is clever and generous and she came up with a brilliant scheme to get me to visit more regularly – season tickets to the San Francisco ballet! It has become a great tradition for my mom, my sister and me.  While I love dissecting the performances with them on the drive home, this is an area where I really have a lot to say. So Wednesdays will be dedicated to “Arts & Entertainment.”

Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t fancy myself a dance critic. I generally find dance criticism (and most arts criticism) unhelpful to say the least. It makes me crazy to read a review of something by someone who feels entitled to impose their personal biases and expectations on a work rather than at least attempting to intelligently describe a work and evaluate it on its own merit.

I like to be open to different experiences and try appreciate things for what they are. That doesn’t mean that I like it all or always think that a work is well executed. I won’t hold back when I think that elements of a production aren’t up to par but hopefully I will be able to explain my opinion within the context of the form.  I mean, making time to enjoy these things is a luxury, we shouldn’t waste it on something that isn’t the best it can be.

If theatrical dance isn’t your thing, don’t tune out quite yet! Ballet season doesn’t even start until January! I will use Wednesdays to consider all sorts of things – country music, rock concerts, television, books, and probably the occasional motor-sports event. Have you been to Speedway? Don’t make that face, it’s a fun time too!