The Kansas City Batas

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

I got one of the cheap iPhones a couple of days ago. I am enjoying it immensely. I am now able to blog from it.

I also love the Shazam app. It recognizes songs just by listening to them. I have no idea how it works. More az I am sitting around bored. Or not.

I am sitting here in my living room trying to catch up on my DVR that is 94% full.  I am tired and have already blogged the trip for the parents.  I did not include all of the things I did and my personal impressions.  That is for here.  I am not going to do it all in one post.  Too much to read, too much to ride.

Thursday, April 9

The students started arriving to school early.  I think some even took the school bus with their luggage.  We rehearsed for about 1-1/2 hours.  Then the real “fun” began.  The 56-passenger Heartland bus arrived and needed to be loaded.  We were playing pieces that used a lot of percussion, so there was a lot of little stuff to load.  We loaded all of the cymbal & auxillary percussion stands into our quad case for “easy” transport.  Yeah.  It’s real easy to carry a 250-lb case of rattling metal.

1-1/2 hours later…

The bus was loaded with instruments, luggage, and kids.  It was time to go, and go we did.  The only problem on the bus ride was the movie selection.  These kids have really crappy movie taste.  Norbit?  Really?  I had to put a stop to that.

Then there was sleep.

Friday, April 10

We arrived at the hotel at about 11:30 a.m. Eastern.  The kids’ activities that morning were cut short of necessity.  Most just chose to explore Times Square.  I went and had lunch at an Italian restaurant about 3 blocks south of our hotel.  It was excellent.  We then went and viewed the lobby of the Chrysler Building.

The bus met us back at the Grand Hyatt.  I have to say, it is a lot easier to unload a bus than it is to load it.  We got the rooms assigned and everyone was off to their activities.

My activity?  Birdland.  That’s right.  A world famous jazz club watching and hearing guys I grew up listening to:  Joe Lovano, Hank Jones (NEA Jazz Master), George Mraz, & Paul Motian.  After taking care of everyone else’s issues (my job), I arrived there too late to see the Birdland Big Band.  I and my companians got a pop around the corner and then arrived early for the first set.  We had dinner.  A very good dinner, but dessert was the best.  Peach cobbler.  The best I have ever had.

Afterward, I tried taking a large group of kids to the Empire State Building for a midnight viewing of the city, but the top was obscured by clouds.  We had to postpone it to another evening.

Bedtime.

Saturday, April 11

A very full day.

First up was the American Museum of Natural History.  That’s right.  The museum from that Ben Stiller movie.  It was amazing.  We were to also stroll through Central Park, but it was raining heavily.  It gave us more time in the museum, so all was good.I was able to hit the Asian section, the dinosaur bones up on the top floor, and the crustacean exhibit with the the huge whale.

It was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for rehearsal.  That rehearsal started off really bad.  Nearly two days without rehearsal or even for the kids to practice.  By the end of the two hours they started to sound better.  Only started, though.

Once back at the hotel, we got ready for the evening.  For me, it consisted of a prix fixe restaurant and a Broadway show.  I have to show you the appetizer:

That’s right.  A sausage tree.  Then filet mignon and a mediocre dessert.  Avenue Q was the show for the evening  I would describe it as Seseme Street meets South Park meets Rent without all of the AIDs.  It was a laugh riot.

Finally by the second act, the headache I had been fighting all day.  At the beginning of the day, it felt like I had drank a bottle of tequila the night before.  I hadn’t.  That was a fun, but very rough day.

It was then time for bed, as it is now.

More tomorrow depending on Parker’s soccer tournament.

Where is day one?  Gone on another blog.  What I didn’t mention was what I have done today.

I went to a great restaurant where the appetizer was a sausage tree (you heard me correctly).  I had filet mignon for dinner and a creme caramel for dessert.  I then saw Avenue Q on Broadway.  Holy crap it was great!  I got my picture with a cast member, Lucy the Slut and her handler Cary Anderson:

[pics coming soon]

It’s time to sleep now.  Night-night.

This is a great YouTube mashup of other YouTube videos.  I am reposting this from Patchchord.  I don’t know where he got it.

I went and viewed The Watchmen with my wife, her father, and her two brothers today.

Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed it.  I have never read the graphic novel.  I know about most of the main cadre of superheroes that we all know from both Marvel and D.C. comics, but not much about this book.  I had heard of The Watchmen, but have never taken the time to read it.  In other words, I am solely reviewing the movie itself and not its faithfulness to the original source material.

In spite of a suggestion to do otherwise, I did not take my son to see the “comic book” movie.  I had already read enough about it to know it was going to be violently and sexually graphic.  Oh boy, was it. (/gleefulness)  I discuss this first because it is the most obvious part of the movie.  While most of it could be construed as gratuitous, they did add to the story.  There were times that those in my group and theater covered our eyes during certain extremely violent scenes.  I did notice that no one closed their eyes during the graphic sex scenes.

I was glad my son wasn’t there.

As for the movie itself, it was enjoyable.  It was good enough that I refused to get up and pee for the entire duration of the film.  I shouldn’t have had that large Diet Coke.

I know everyone comes up with a different interpretation of films, music, and other types of art.  I could discuss how ignoble or how altruistic and devoted to the truth humanity can be.  Even how both can subsist in the same person or people.  I won’t.  I see too much of it on television in the news.  I go to movies now for pure escapism.  Escape I did.

It was a good story with plenty of action, both violent and otherwise, to hold my attention and leave me sated at the end.  I enjoyed the ending and the seemingly…nevermind.  I better not give that away.

Go and see it if you are not squeamish or easily offended.  Don’t take your kids.

Or mine.