The Madness of March Continues

Arrived at Bobby's: Sat, Mar 25, 2017, @ 7:30 AM.

#SecuredThePorch: Accomplished
BK Guests: None

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Beautiful - A trip back in time.
(Submitted by Jim Widdoss)

Do you want to spend an evening humming hit songs from the 60s and 70s to yourself? If so, then drop by the Stephen Sondheim Theatre on 43 Street in NYC and catch the matinee performance of “Beautiful”. For those of you who have been locked away for the last 4 years, Beautiful is the story of Carol King’s musical life. The play takes you from her beginning as a wannabe be song writer as a teenager in Brooklyn to her successful partnership with lyricist and later husband Gerry Goffin , through the tough years of family struggles ending with the creation of her master work “Tapestry”.

Several weeks ago I had the chance to see and more importantly listen to Beautiful with my lovely wife Pat, my good friend Mike Ballanco and the women now affectionately known as “Colin’s Grandmother”. If you go to this play, you won’t be able to get the music out of your head. Not just for the rest of the day but for days, perhaps weeks to come. If you are over 50 like me this play brings you back to the music of your youth. Several times during the performance I found myself closing my eyes and drifting off to the times when I first heard songs like “Up on the roof” or “You have a friend”. You know the words to every song in Beautiful. You are a kid again. What boy has not tried to sing along with the Righteous Brothers performing “Unchained Melody”, what girl hasn’t cried to “You lost that Loving Feeling . A good friend of mine, Allyboy DelPizzo put it perfectly. “For us Beautiful is the story of our lives.”

In conclusion, for me, Carol King’s story was interesting and something I hadn’t known before. Like everyone else I had listened to Tapestry, but never really connected the dots that the songs were about her life experiences. The actors and actresses do a great job of sharing Carol’s story and they all have wonder voices, the dialogue full of witty lines, the scenery is carefully done with action and great dancing on multiple levels of the stage at the same time but you don’t come to Beautiful for any of that. The clear star of the show is the music itself. To me it’s like going to a great steak house enjoying creamy mash potatoes and buttery vegetables to go along with a perfectly cooked juicy streak. There is no question, in Beautiful, the music is the steak. In this case the steak does not disappoint. Go see this play and you will find yourself doing “The Locomotion” out the door with a smile on your face.

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The Final Four has arrived and March Madness continues to be one of the most exciting athletic events in sports. The semis will have South Carolina vs Gonzaga and Oregon vs North Carolina. Three teams from the SEC made it to the Elite Eight: South Carolina, Florida, and Kentucky...Huh?  Villanova has returned to its usual pattern of exiting the tournament prematurely. Kittens and puppies have cooled off as have Bkwife and Colin's Grandma. Whew! The winner of the BK March Madness pool may actually do so without picking the tournament champion. Go figure! Is the BK Club losing their touch? Go Carolina Blue!

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Did anyone in the Breakfast Club have any money on the 2017 Women's World Curling Championship held in Beijing? The excitement in these curling contests rivaled what took place in the North Carolina vs Kentucky basketball game. Rachel Homan of Canada took home the gold by beating Russia's Anna Sidorova giving Canada its first world championship in nine years. Scotland's Eve Muirhead defeated Sweden 6-4 for the bronze in a tightly contested match. Muirhead is also an accomplished bagpiper, piping in four world championships. This is a sport that warrants more attention from the BK club.

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A big heartfelt thanks to Beverly Del Pizzo. While cleaning out her house, Beverly stumbled on a book that belonged to her dad Clarence "Skipe" Johnson. The book titled "The Art of Freshwater Fishing" has been passed on to me and I assure you I will put it to good use.  The author writes, in great detail, how and why fish behave the way they do while taking into account various environmental and atmospheric conditions. As your Dad and I know, fishing is a lot more than a bucket of worms and a six pack of beer. The more understanding one has about the environment above and below the water as well as the biology of fish, the better the fishing experience. I am honored to say your Dad and I shared the same passion for fishing and I will treat this book with the respect it deserves. My first fishing trip of the year is planned for mid-May at Black Lake in upper New York state and I will be employing many of the things I am learning from Skipe's book to land some Bass and Northern Pike. As I like to say, "Let's Kick Some Bass." 

Nancy B. - Happy Birthday this week!