Kurtopia

Talk about Comcastic!

Last night, Eric and I ventured to The Water Works Restaurant and Lounge, a place we’ve had our eye on for a while now.  As soon as we entered the restaurant, we both remarked about how cool it looked inside.  We had a reservation, and were seated right away.  Nothing was available outside, but we sat in this breezeway which looked out on the water.

Though a server came right away to take our drink order, the service soon took a nosedive.  About fifteen minutes went by, at which point another server came up and asked us if we were being taken care of.  This new server took our drink order, and then disappeared.  Finally, Eric asked to see the manager, because we still didn’t have drinks, and no one had taken our dinner order.  At that point the service finally picked up, but it still left a bad taste in our mouth for the remainder of the evening.

We both started with kiwi margaritas, which were pretty good, but not stellar.  Eric started with the seared fruit, and I had the lobster bisque, both of which were quite tasty.  For our entrees, Eric had the lobster tail and I had the stuffed chicken, and again, we both enjoyed our plates.  For dessert, Eric had the bread pudding and I had the banana cheesecake, which were excellent.  We rounded out the evening with another round of drinks: Eric had some kind of bourbon concoction, and I had a blueberry cosmo.  As with our earlier drink selection, these were pretty good, but we’ve had much better.

One thing we both remarked about was how it felt like one of our vacation meals.  It must have been a combination of being right on the water, and that we were in a somewhat remote part of town.  It was a neat feeling.

Despite the hybrid trendy and fancy atmosphere and the good food, we left quite underwhelmed.  As I said, the extremely poor service in the beginning left its mark on the rest of the evening.  Putting the service aside for a moment, we still didn’t feel that the restaurant had anything to compel us to come back.  To borrow a line from Mel Brooks, it was nice… not thrilling, but nice.

I’m generally not someone who shies away from the latest and greatest technology — after all, I work in IT! (Though I did just start using Gmail last year.) I use my computer and the Internet for so much: I pay all my bills online, I buy things from Amazon all the time, I’ve got a 3G smart phone running Windows Mobile 6, and I’ve been using Vista since it came out (and I like it!). But one thing I haven’t done is made the leap to digital downloads of music. I still much prefer to own the actual CD than to pay for MP3s of the same thing.

Why?

One reason is fidelity. Any rip of a CD is only an approximation of the original — you’ll never get quite the same sound out of an MP3 as you do out of a CD. Okay, you could use an absurdly high bit rate, but then you end up with an enormous file for each song. But otherwise, an MP3 will never sound as good as the original CD. Now, I don’t claim to be an audiophile. I can’t necessarily hear the difference, but my mind knows it’s there.

Another reason is DRM. Who wants to deal with that garbage? Fortunately, Amazon has started selling DRM-free music downloads. I purchased “Love Shack” by the B-52s!

Then there’s cost. A lot CDs are pretty damn cheap these days… so cheap that buying digital downloads is actually more expensive at times. I buy a lot of my CDs on Amazon — there’s no sales tax, and since I’m a member of Amazon Prime, there’s also no shipping. Cheap, cheap, cheap!

There’s just something comforting to me about owning a master copy of the music. With the CD, I can rip MP3s of any bit rate at any time. If I accidentally blow away my hard drive one day, I don’t have to buy my music all over again — I just have to re-rip it all.

I think the biggest reason is that I don’t have a dedicated MP3 player that I can store a ton of music on and easily hook up to my stereo. (Yes, ladies and gentlemen… Kurt does not own an iPod.) I use my phone as an MP3 player, with a 2GB Micro SD card. Otherwise, in the car and at home, I listen to CDs the old-fashioned way — through the stereo.

I guess the bottom line is that I think owning the CD ultimately gives me more flexibility, and I like that a lot.

On the heels of Pennsylvania’s primary, I thought it was high time I posted about my thoughts on the race for a Democratic nominee for president.  As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I’m an unabashed Hillary supporter.  Clearly, I voted for her in Tuesday’s primary, and I’m thrilled that she won — and by a considerable margin.

So why Hillary?

First of all, Hillary has paid her dues.  Now, I realize this argument may not carry a lot of weight with many people, but it really resonates with me.  Hillary has been working toward this, and quite publicly, for many years now.  Everything she’s done, she’s done to ready herself to win the Democratic nomination and then the presidency itself.  People have been talking about Hillary being president ever since her husband was president.  Then, in comes Barack Obama, practically out of nowhere, and really screws things up for Hillary.  I can relate to this, so this is important to me.

Ok, so you don’t care about her having paid her dues — fine.  How about her sixteen years in the national spotlight, compared to Barack’s four?  What scares me most about Barack Obama is what we don’t know about him.  As Hillary has said herself, he hasn’t been vetted the way she has.  Hillary can’t possibly have any dirty laundry left to air… it’s all been out there for quite some time.  But who knows what dirty laundry Barack has?  We may have only begun to scratch the surface of it.  Hillary’s been under so much scrutiny for so long, yet she’s still here, alive and kicking, and still serving her country.

Look, in terms of their views on issues and their voting records, these two candidates are virtually the same.  I don’t think my life would be any different under a President Obama than a President Clinton.  But where I do think these two candidates differ significantly is in their personalities.  Honestly, I find Barack to be extremely smug and arrogant — an elitist.  He tries to paint himself as being above the usual political tactics, while employing those very tactics in his campaign.  He spends all his time talking about "change" and "hope" in very general terms that just don’t resonate with me.  Most of all, he simply doesn’t seem genuine to me.  Everything he says sounds contrived and insincere — he says things because they are what he should say and not because he wants to say them.  Finally, he just seems like a big pushover — a wet noodle, if you will.

Hillary, on the other hand, is very real, very down-to-earth.  You can see it in her face and you can hear it in her voice.  You know that she’s been through a lot, and she has the scars to show for it (as she likes to say).  She had to stand by her husband as he admitted to having a sexual relationship with another woman, and here she is, a decade later, running for president.  There’s no other way to say it — this woman has balls.  I want a tough president, and honestly I don’t think there’s been a tougher candidate from either party at any point during this primary season than Hillary Clinton.  And she has real answers, too.  She knows the issues, and she knows them well. 

And when it comes to the general election, despite what polls say now, I believe that Hillary has a much better shot at defeating John McCain than Barack does.  I feel as though Obama vs. McCain would be David vs. Goliath.  In terms of experience, McCain is a juggernaut, and he’s going to crush Obama in the general campaign, especially in the debates.  I believe Hillary, however, would be a formidable opponent.  And if, by some chance, Obama did win in the general election, I predict that his presidency will prove to be a huge disappointment — I don’t see how he’s going to be able to live up the hype and the promise of his campaign.

As much as I currently dislike Obama, I do think that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be absolutely unstoppable, however unlikely.  It’s my dream that such a ticket will materialize, though only with Clinton on top.  I don’t think Clinton would ever want to be a running mate, but even if she did, it would create a bottom-heavy ticket that just wouldn’t work.  But a Clinton-Obama ticket would guarantee a Democrat in the White House come next year.

Finally, I’d like to talk about the super delegates.  To the people who say that the super delegates should vote with the will of the people, I say what the hell are you talking about?  If the super delegates did that, then they’d be no different than pledged delegates — they wouldn’t be "super" at all.  Like it or not, super delegates are supposed to make up their own minds.  That’s the way the system works, and if you don’t like it, change the system (just don’t do it mid-stream).  Though Obama has a slight lead in pledged delegates, he and Clinton are virtually tied, and so it’s probably going to become necessary for the super delegates to decide this.  Let the system work the way it’s supposed to, and don’t introduce these arbitrary notions of what super delegates should and should not do.

In the world of musical theater, it’s certainly not uncommon for a song, or an entire show, to have several different recordings.  Between various casts, revivals, and Broadway stars’ albums, popular numbers get re-recorded ad nauseam.  I’m going to pick a couple well-known numbers, and tell you the best and worst recordings of them… in my humble opinion, of course.

• Memory (from Cats)
  Hits: My two favorite recordings of this best-known song from Cats are by Betty Buckley and Barbra Streisand.  Betty Buckley originated the role of Grizabella on Broadway, and won a Tony Award for her performance.  Barbra Streisand was never in Cats – she just recorded the song for her 1981 album Memories.
  Misses: Elaine Paige originated the role of Grizabella in London.  Her recording, which I first heard on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Premiere Collection, is whiney and, well… painful.  Sarah Brightman has recorded it at least twice (once in Italian!), and both make me cringe.
• Don’t Cry For Me Argentina (from Evita)
  Hits: I have yet to hear an Eva Peron better than Patti LuPone.  Patti originated the role of Evita on Broadway, and won a Tony Award for her performance.  Surprisingly, the Carpenters also recorded this song, with Karen giving an outstanding performance.  Madonna’s rendition for the movie gets an honorable mention.
  Misses: Also on the Premiere Collection is Julie Covington’s recording of this song.  All I have to say is ick — it feels completely lifeless and uninspired compared to Patti LuPone’s original recording.  Sarah Brightman also attempted this number.  That’s all I’ll say about that.

Don’t get me wrong, Sarah Brightman isn’t all bad — just more often than not.  I think she does a great job on the Phantom of the Opera recording, and I’ve never heard a better version of "Everything’s Alright" from Jesus Christ Superstar than hers (found on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Premiere Collection Encore).  But most of the time, she’s either far too operatic or simply light, airy, and annoying.  When it comes to Elaine Paige, however, I have yet to hear a recording of hers that I’ve enjoyed.  Patti LuPone is usually fantastic on recordings, but I thought she sounded pretty awful on the Patti LuPone Live! recording of a concert, especially on "I Dreamed A Dream" in which she literally sounds like she’s dying at the end.  Patti, Fantine doesn’t die until later in the show.  C’mon, girl.

There was a time when I considered myself to be a bit of a musical theater buff.  (Shocking, I know.)  It’s been a while since I’ve kept up very closely with Broadway, though.  Sure, I catch the occasional show, but I’m still out of the loop for the most part.  However, from time to time I find myself rediscovering my favorite shows, remembering every word to every song despite how long it’s been since I last heard them.

I’d like to share a few of my favorite shows.  They’re quintessential, at least to me.  They represent some of the greatest and timeless music in musical theater… at least as far as I’m concerned.  Keep in mind that my primary focus when talking about musicals is the music itself.

• The Phantom of the Opera
  Ok, so the movie wasn’t very good, but you don’t become the longest running show on Broadway for nothing.  Yes, the show is a visual spectacle, but it’s got some fantastic music: "Music of the Night", "All I Ask of You", "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again", the list goes on.  I think this show was my first real introduction to musical theater.
• Les Misérables
  Talk about good music — I don’t think there’s a bad song in the entire show… and it’s a really long show!  My favorites include "At the End of the Day", "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", and "The Confrontation".  If you’re interested in picking up a recording of it, you have about a billion to choose from.  While I’m not familiar with all of them, I’m partial to the Complete Symphonic Recording, which at the time of its release was the only complete recording of the show.  After recording the orchestra in London, they went around to different productions across the globe and recorded a few roles from each.  There’s no Patti LuPone (boo!), but there’s also no Colm Wilkinson (yay!). 
• Sunset Boulevard
  As far as I’m concerned, this was the last good show by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and it probably is my absolute favorite show of all.  While a few of the musical numbers are less than stellar, the majority of them are amazing, especially "With One Look", "As If We Never Said Goodbye", and "Let’s Have Lunch".  In terms of recordings, I much prefer the World Premiere Recording with Patti LuPone, even though it’s the pre-reworked version and isn’t totally complete.  Though Glenn Close may have done a fantastic job acting the role, her singing on the American Premiere Recording is a little painful at times… and the guy who plays Joe Gillis sounds like he has a poll shoved up his… well, you know.  There have been rumblings about a movie version, and all sorts of names have been thrown around, like Glenn Close and Barbra Streisand, but so far not much has materialized.
• The Secret Garden
  This is an amazing little show that is extremely underrated.  The music, by Lucy Simon (sister of Carly Simon), is nothing short of beautiful.  And the cast on the original recording is amazing, including a haunting Rebecca Luker.  ("Haunting" is an especially good descriptor for her here, as she plays a ghost.)  Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a professional production of this show.
• Beauty and the Beast
  You may not like its presence on Broadway, but there’s no denying that Disney’s telling of this story is simply magical.  The stage version includes all your favorite songs from the movie, as well as new ones, not to mention one that was cut from the original movie!  I’ve always thought of Beauty and the Beast as a Phantom of the Opera with a much happier ending (not to mention generally cutesier music).  In terms of the new songs, "Home" and "If I Can’t Love Her" are my favorites.  And who doesn’t like "Belle"?