The Best Two Bucks I Ever Spent

Nick and Jose embarked on an epic trip to the cineplex for a six-movies-in-one-day marathon Saturday. While I admire their proctal fortitude that enambles them to sit for intervals that mere mortals can only begin to contemplate, I had to forgo the cinematic extraviganza to take care of some tedious but probably significant things at home.

Namely, getting the house ready for a party next Sunday. Michele and I will be away this weekend to check out NYPinTA's Serenity showing and spend hours in the line ride at Six Flags, so we tried to get as much done around the house before we left as possible. I've still got a lot of my stuff up in the living room that my mom wants in the basement.

The good news is, we should be out of the basement by August 12 and into a three bedroom townhouse just a few minutes away. The bad news is, it just started getting hot enough to turn the central air conditioning on, which is making all the exposed pipes in the basement sweat, which in turn is dripping water on us in our sleep. So we have that to look forward to for the next couple of months. Yay.

Anyway, the party is sort of a dual party. It's for Ryan, who's leaving for China for two weeks at the end of the month, but it's also for Glenn's birthday, which is on the 26th.

Also, I somehow just found out that at the end of July, my parents and brothers are going on a cruise to the Bahamas. Without loveable old me! The injustice of it all.

So we had some chores to do. But Saturday night, I had tickets to the PINK FLOYD LASER SPECTACULAR at the Bank of America Pavilion. The face value is $20 apiece, but Michele got them free from work. She was able to get the last three in her office. The third ticket went to Glenn, because he'd probably like it more anyway and Ryan's already going to China and the Bahamas, so nuts to him.

I'd never been to the Pavilion before. It's right on the harbor, and used to have the easy to remember name Harborlights, before every single venue had a ridiculous corporate sponsor's name tacked onto it. The Pavilion is bigger than the South Shore Music Circus, which is a tiny round stage with a few hundred lawn chairs around it, but not as big as the Tweeter Center.

The show was pretty cool. They broke it up into two parts; the first part is the entire album Dark Side of the Moon, which was for the most part accompanied by scenes from The Wizard of Oz in addition to the lasers. It did eerilly link up, especially how the Great Gig in the Sky lasts for entire scene of the house caught in the tornado, then the film changes to color just as Money starts. And when the song changes tempo, the Lollipop Guild shows up. Interesting stuff.

Ironically, this is the first concert I've been to that didn't have the distinct smell of certain illeagal substances floating around. Actually, make that the second. I'm pretty sure the air was clear at the Weird Al show a couple of years back. However, to enhance the veiwing experience, they were selling cheap paper glasses for two bucks that give everything a kaleidoscope effect.

With the glasses on, the lasers had red and green counterparts in all directions, whereas without them, all you see is the primary white or bright yellow laser. The downside to the glasses is that when someone stands in front of you, nine people stand in front of you. But they were still cool. And I'm actually wearing them right now. I love these things.

There was an overly enthusiastic little kid sitting next to us who screamed in approval of everything that appeared on stage. He just kept saying "Yeeaah!" like the kid riding the giant pekingese at the end of The Never-Ending Story. I thought it was kind of funny, but Michele kept squeezing my arm and said with her teeth clenched, "Somebody get that kid to shut the hell up!"

There was a short intermission after Dark Side of the Moon was over, and Michele made Glenn part with his precious two dollars to get some glasses. He really fought it, but eventually gave in and watched the second half in Chong-o-vision. The second part was made up of several songs from The Wall, as well as a couple each from Wish You Were Here and A Momentary Lapse of Reason. I guess a lot of "fans" don't really like AMLOR (Christ, did I just use shorthand? The world as we know it is coming to an end) because Roger Waters isn't on it, but screw them, I think that's my favorite Pink Floyd album.

Anyway, it was a cool show. They ended with Run Like Hell and featured the ever-popular Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man. The laser-themed highlights included an inexplicable cameo by Bevis and Butthead, a coffin when the words "One day closer to death" were sung, and a creepy naked asexual Mac Tonight. Also, no one else in the entire world will find this funny, but at one point as The Wall portion of the show was starting, the words "Sound Effects!" were flashed in laser on the screen. It flashed between "Lights" and "Action," but seeing "Sound Effects!" written out in lasers just cracks me up. I can't really explain it.