Ben The Snow Eating Dog and The Blue Man Group

It’s snowing this morning. We could get 7-10 inches before it stops. Looks like summer will be held from 2:00-4:00PM on July 9th this year! We’re both tired or cold and shoveling. I came into the kitchen this morning and saw Mr. Bee standing by the sliding glass door watching Big Doggie out on the deck. He stood there for quite and I started to get concerned:

ME: Whatcha doin’?
MR. BEE (dispassionately): Watching Bentley eat snow.
ME: You know it’s probably not that great for him to eat a lot of snow.
MR. BEE: I know… but he’s almost finished with the deck.

I fully expect Mr. Bee to let him have a go the driveway after work!

We went with friends to see the Blue Man Group at The Kohl Center last night. I didn’t like the opening act at all. He was one of those young-whipper-snapper-record-scratching guys. Those of us that grew up counting on vinyl for our tunes were highly agitated. You remember the days….sitting around with friends, listening to the latest Arrowsmith LP….someone bumps the hi-fi (yes, I said hi-fi, I’m that old) and the phonograph needle skitters across the record. Remember the sound? Remember how everyone in the room cringed like Freddy Krueger had just run his nails down a blackboard. Yeah…well, I maintained that face for over 25 minutes as song after song was scratched and mutilated. And it was so LOUD!!!!!! I found it hard to complain incessantly to my friends about it over the thundering cacophony. But the younger folks all seemed to be grooving so I guess he was good at it. I just wish he had invested as much time and money in music lessons as he did in all of his electronic gadgetry. Then we could have all been treated to a nice, sedate violin or piano solo instead. God. I’m. Old.

But the Blue Man Group was really good. They made it look like so much fun and I was so enthused that I came in the morning and told my boss that I was giving two weeks notice so I could shave my head, paint it blue and beat on PVC piping for a living. I didn’t know you could get such great sounds out of plastic pipes and hoses. There was a lot of visual stuff too: lasers and video as well as sight gags. It was very smart and very current for a band that’s over 20 years old.

The next to the last song was a slower piece that was a tribute to 9/11. They gathered a bunch of charred papers that fell from the sky near their New York studio and made them into a video. You’d see paper falling on the screen and then a close up of one of the actual documents; sales receipts, calendar pages, memos-all burned and torn. It was very moving. But aside from that it was fast, loud, rock music; heavy on the percussion and I loved every minute of it. Maybe I’m not so old after all!