- Just learned “Holding Out for a Hero” is cowritten by Jim Steinman. Explains why it keeps turning into “Good Girls Go to Heaven” in my head
- Writing for Twitter
- Spam vs SPAM. I suspect it’s way too late to close the barn door on this one. Kinda like “hacker.”
Category: Music
Deep Fried WHAT???? A Night at the Fair with Al’s Brain, Melissa Etheridge and a Ferris Wheel
We went to the Orange County Fair on Saturday afternoon. Most years we end up going to at least one of the Pacific Amphitheater’s summer concert series, which includes fair admission, so we just combine it into one trip. This year it was Melissa Etheridge, and we also had another goal: Al’s Brain.
We started by grabbing some water and (in my case) a chocolate milkshake (because I wanted some ice cream, dangit! and drinkable made it easier), then wandered through the arts and crafts displays, where they showed prize-winning jewelry, crochet, display models, dresses, origami, etc.
Al’s Brain
Then we made our way to the back of the fair, where they had set up a portable theater for Al’s Brain (in 3-D!). There was a huge sand sculpture out front of “Weird Al” Yankovic holding out a brain in his hand. An animated question mark and exclamation point would occasionally pop out the top of his head, and smoke would pour from his ears.
“Weird Al” has actually had a long association with the Orange County Fair, often doing free concerts on multiple nights during the run. We’ve seen him there at least twice, possibly three times. One year there was a “Weird Al” museum of sorts. This year, he got involved in a short 3-D educational film (comedic, of course) about the brain.
New Five for Fighting
Hmm, new Five for Fighting. After being burned on the last glurgeriffic album, though, do I care?
Tori at the Greek
Missed the opening act, but here in plenty of time for Tori Amos.
Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, turned out to be a great concert!
Planning for 90s Nostalgia
One day, someone will take a collection of popular songs from the 1990s and turn it into a nostalgia musical.
Update July 2016: I was wondering if this had happened yet. I suppose you could count “American Idiot,” but apparently the album was intended to tell a story, so it’s not quite the same as someone stringing together the hits of ABBA or whoever.
It turns out someone put together a Spice Girls–inspired musical in 2012. It was not well-reviewed and didn’t last very long.