Last night at the HardRock Paradise Live, Karen and I saw BeatleMania Now — formerly of Broadway fame. Anything Beatles has got to be good, right? RIGHT?
We (Karen and I) showed up, and ate at Renegade after trying to decide if we wanted Tatu or not. The waitress saw us and booted our waiter so she could take care of us. I like her. She’s a sassy gal and fun. We each got something different: she the prime-rib sandwich special of the day and me the native plate. Tasty as always though mine was a bit greasy on the rib part. Still, it was fun and we shared the sides. I didn’t overeat for a change.
We then went to the Casino in which I lost $80 in short order instead of quitting whilst I was ahead $40. But that’s not the end of the world. I had to play about a little and at least I got the ‘good’ machine. I refuse to play their blackjack which has the nefarious “dealer must hit on all 17s” rule — the bane of any legitimate player. That and the auto-reshufflers at all the low-limit tables.
We got to the show, and it was suspiciously deserted. Turns out they told us only 41 tickets were sold. Ended up being about 50, I’d say. Four cocktail-waitresses, three security guards, three ushers, two bartenders, and two ticket sellers. Plus, three stagehands (board, lighting, and someone to stand and look useless), plus the four actors, plus whomever was behind the stage. That isn’t a money-making show. At least not on a Thursday night.
But what’s not to love about a Beatles show, right? RIGHT?
So, when we walked in, I saw the set list. That was very promising. We had two out of four actors replaced by alternates. Not so promising. But hey, it’s the Beatles, how bad can it be, right? RIGHT? We sat down, ordered a bottle of water.
They started with a little film, and it came on and off in the background behind the stage. It was a little fuzzy and worn but it might have been the venue. And it had a great backing track, so we were cool with that. Then they played the legendary Ed Sullivan clip. And then the Fab Four came out and began to sing. I looked up sing in the dictionary, and it’s still the right word. Technically.
- Paul was okay on everything except Yesterday. To blow the most recorded song in the history of the planet, is a major failing. He couldn’t hit the notes. On the rockers he was really good though. He was too old but faked the look okay. And he had the facial expressions down great.
- Ringo was a very good singer. And a good drummer. He had the music down. But he’s Ringo so he doesn’t get much time. It was a little irritating having to look at his grimace. We think he had one hell of a hemorrhoid to cause such a grimace. Or maybe it was a smirk?
- John was a little short and little overweight but as he ‘aged’ through the show he looked more and more like John. He also sang the only solo Beatle song Imagine and did a serviceable job. It’s my favourite song, period so that’s a compliment for me. He had a great voice it just wasn’t suited for the songs he had to sing.
- George was a dead ringer. For Keith Richards. George looked younger than this when he died. The guy could play okay, he could song okay. But he was just really average. Sorry, dude, if you read this.
Karen and I were quietly mocking the show to each other and had more fun with that than the actual play. A few of the songs were edited for brevity. They do let you sing along, which I did as did most of the people. Some of the ladies got up and danced. Afterwards, the cast all go outside and meet you and autograph anything you care to buy. We passed and went to Ben and Jerry’s instead.
I am 0 for 2 at HRC so far. Damn. Bob Seger had a great show there, but the large venue was a true bust (see previous post).
Tonight is bowling with my Panthers rep and I’m taking JohnnyB. He’s cool. I’m glad I met him. Most of my friends are cooler than I am, and he’s no exception. I definitely lack cool.
DreamHost ate all three of my sites yesterday: www.darsys.net, www.darsys.com. and www.panthershockey.net because, quite frankly, they’ve been screwing up a lot lately.
My site uses the HTACCESS file to force all HTML pages to parse as PHP because I use PHP includes to build the sidebars, headers, and footers on all pages as well as provide date and time services. It makes the actual page itself much shorter because all that repeated code is stored externally. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I knew this part of the problem because the error message generated said it was trying to download the file as streaming PHP instead of parsing it as it should.
I wrote DreamHost, and explained this in my first ticket. They replied that it was indeed my HTACCESS file, and they went and changed my live site. Really. Just changed it. Made it even more broken that it was. That is an inexcusable thing to do since the change was made because the person on the case didn’t understand the real cause of problem. I wrote back again and then he understood the problem and gave me an answer I totally didn’t understand — I won’t blame his wording but that was part of it. (In the meantime, the SQL server running my message board broke and I had to create a ticket for that as well. This after they moved me to a new server after I complained that the last one never worked right — indeed they agreed and did so at no charge.)
I wrote a very, very unhappy letter to DreamHost and sent in a second complaint to them. Someone wrote back and they DID fix it. The bottom line was they changed php4 to php5 and only needed to change a tiny sentence in my sites HTACCESS to be compliant. But it took four support tickets and seven emails to fix this, and my site’s been down for two days. On the plus side, the guy who fixed it “Craig” was very apologetic. Not that it makes me feel better.
I’ve written my friend Randy who’s the CEO at Photon.net and as soon as I can figure out how to migrate my phpBB message board over, I’m going to leave DreamHost after 6+ years. I highly recommend photon.net and they are Interstate’s hosting company and we’re thrilled. I never moved my personal sites over because it was too aggravating, but this event proves I need to be aggravated now instead of later.
Shout out to JohnnyB for coming to the bowling event even though he didn’t seem to have so much fun 🙁