Entries this day: blue_man_group

blue man group

12:52am Friday 26 February 1999

On the way to Jen's mom's house, we stopped by a grocery store to grab a few items and my attention was grabbed by the headline on the SUN: MILLENIUM PREDICTIONS. I scanned the cover of this tabloid and would have ignored it except for "Exact date of Judegement Day -- Are you prepared?"

Hmmm. Jen bought it and it says (among other things)

Christ returns on July 4, 2003 - Judgement Day - ushering in a new Golden Age of peace and prosperity.
March 2, 1999 -- SUN -- page 23

There were a lot of interesting predictions, including exact dates in the beginning of 2000. I'll probably put them in here later.

ANYway, to her mom's house where we got a bigger coat for me which was oh so warm and it was snowing!! A few inches on the ground and flakes gently blowing down. We walked out behind their house and took a few pics including me making a snow angel.

Drove to Boston and it began to snow more. Parked in a garage (pahk the cah in the gahrahge) and walked around a bit - found a restroom in a mall and then ate at Shanghai Cafe and then went to Blue Man Group.

The theater (Charles Playhouse) was small - about 300 seats but Blue Man Group has sold out 7 shows per week for over 6 years now.

As we sat watching people come in (we were the first ones in the theater) they had announcements scrolling across a marquee, something like:

      ALL PAPER PRODUCTS USED IN THIS SHOW ARE 100% RECYCLED.

      REMEMBER THAT FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY IS DISTRACTING SO PLEASE 
      PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ANY PICTURES DURING THE SHOW.

      ALSO REMEMBER THAT VIDEO TAPING IS PROHIBITED, SO DO NOT 
      VIDEO TAPE THE SHOW OR WE WILL HAVE TO USE THE EJECTOR BUTTON 
      THAT IS INSTALLED IN YOUR SEAT.

      LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE.

      PLEASE YELL NOW IF WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION.

      NOW YELL LIKE A COWBOY.

      NOW MAKE THE NOISE LIKE THEY USED TO ON THE ARSENIO HALL SHOW.  
      THAT'S ENOUGH.

      WE HAVE SOME IMPORTANT GUESTS IN THE AUDIENCE.

      WILL CAROL DILLON PLEASE STAND UP SO WE CAN RECOGNIZE YOU.

      CAROL HAS JUST WON THE PULITZER PRIZE.

      LET'S ALL CONGRATULATE CAROL TOGETHER BY READING THE FOLLOWING ALOUD.
      READY GO

      CONGRATULATIONS CAROL ON WINNING THE PULITZER PRIZE.

      WILL AARON STOCKTON PLEASE STAND UP.

      AARON HAS DISCOVERED THE SECRET TO COLD FUSION.

      LET'S ALL THANK HIM FOR DISCOVERING THE SECRET TO COLD FUSION.
      READY GO

      THANK YOU, AARON FOR DISCOVERING THE SECRET TO COLD FUSION.

      WE ALSO HAVE SPECIAL GUEST ROB NUGEN.

      ROB IS NO ONE IN PARTICULAR, WHICH IS ALL THE MORE REASON WE NEED 
      TO SEND HIM OUR LOVE.

      ROB WILL YOU PLEASE STAND UP SO WE KNOW IN WHAT DIRECTION TO DIRECT OUR LOVE?

I stood up even before it asked and in between hugging Jen and basking in the love and limelight I didn't get to read the whole thing exactly, but it was great!!! I felt super-loved for sure! Thank you thank you thank you Jen!!!!!

The next one was funny:

      IT IS ALSO SYLVIA BROOK'S BIRTHDAY.

      LET US ALL SPEAK HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SYLVIA.

      DO NOT SING IT. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOU SING.  READY GO.

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DEAR SYLVIA.

      HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

      AND NOW THE NATIONAL ANTHEM WILL BE SUNG BY OUR AUDIENCE VOLUNTEER 
      IN THE SECOND ROW.

A spotlight shown down upon his seat only.

      JUST KIDDING.

And that was just the marquee announcements.

Blue Man Group starred 3 men with blue latex entirely covering their heads and they did all kinds of beautifully choreographed wacky stuff. As the show started, the men were drumming and we could only see their silouhettes through three different faux windows. A light would shine behind the particular man that was drumming at the moment. After a bit, the third man was drumming and sprouted a third hand so he could drink some water at the same time.

The show had begun.

The place went dark and the windows removed and the lights came on and there were three blue men upstage on a platform (actually their heads and hands were blue and they were wearing black suits) two with arms crossed as the one in the middle drummed.

As the middle man drummed, the man on the left poured red paint onto the drum, which erupted into a spray of glowing red speckles straight up splatteringly through the air. The man on the right poured yellow paint on his drum and it was just beautiful heavy drumming and paint splashing yellow red and purple crazy everywhere.

During this whole time, though the audience was cracking up laughing and cheering, the three blue men never once cracked a smile. In fact they never spoke or made any expressions with their mouths the entire show. They only explored their world with quizzical awareness.

After the splashy drumming, they came to the center of the stage, where there was a big gumball machine thing, and a bag of large marshmallows. With much deliberation and curiosity, the men approached the bag and machine, carefully inspecting them. One man opened the marshmallow bag and ate a marshmallow. His eyes widened with delight, "yummm!" He grabbed another one and threw it out into the audience. Soon all three men were tossing marshmallows essentially randomly into the audience. I did not catch one.

Then one of the blue men went to one end of the stage and had a pink gumball tossed to him. He caught it in his mouth, picked up a canvas, and sprayed pink paint across the canvas!

The other man went to the other side of the stage, and had a marshmallow tossed to him. He caught it in his mouth, picked up the canvas, and nothing. With a quizzical look he turned to the other men, who looked at him expectantly.

They stared.

The first man triumphantly grabbed the marshmallow from his mouth and stuck it firmly to the center of the canvas. "Fair enough" the first men apparently thought. A yellow gumball was tossed, and yellow paint sprayed on the canvas.

A marshmallow was thrown to the other man, who simply caught it in his mouth. Another was thrown. Another. Another. Another. I lost count. Another. Another. Another. At least 10 marshmallows and he caught every one.

Blue paint to the first man who spun the canvas and painted a bright blue spiral on it.

Ten more marshmallows to the first man, who hadn't taken out the first ten. Oh my god I could hardly believe it. He had to use his fingers to cram them in each time and he never dropped one.

He grabbed his canvas, and slowly slowly spewed out a gooey pile of all 20 marshmallows into a tall tower of white blubbery bluh. He whipped out a sign that said "$4000" and hung it in front of his creation, gesturing triumphantly, "you think that painting is something; look what I made!!"

At one point, the men began to creep slowly into the audience, one man stepping literally from the stage onto the backs of chairs, gently placing his hands on the heads of audience members for balance. One man walked right in front of our row, inspecting each memeber. As he was looking straight into my eyes, I licked my lips in a sexually seductive manner. He didn't flinch or blink or smile or nothin'. Wow.

They found a young woman with dark hair, and gently escorted her to the stage, and placed a blue breastplate on her, kinda like a dress, and one man pulled out a small portable stereo from under the table behind which they were all sitting.

He put it on the table and pressed play. They all looked at her expectantly, as if to see how she would react. She was totally like trying to do the right thing but had no idea what exactly the right thing might be. She smiled as "I am the antichrist" played through the stereo. The three men began to bob their heads side to side to the music. The man beside her looked at her like, "why aren't you bobbing your head?" until she did and they stopped immediately and watched her.

She stopped, sheepishly smiled and shrugged. The first man stopped the CD and yanked the stereo back under the table.

The second man got out flowers and placed them carefully in front of the woman to see how she would react. The audience went, "awwwwwwwww" and all three men stared wide eyed into the audience, like, "can't you see we are busy??"

The third man put up the painting of a woman in a field and hung it behind the woman. Bolero began to play on the sound system.

Then the second man pulled out a candle shaped light for her to turn on. They looked at her expectantly until she turned it on. The switch was spring loaded to turn off unless she was holding it on. She shrugged as it went off and the second man pulled the candle off the table.

Then a man pulled out a desk lamp placed right over the flowers, and simply clapped twice to turn it on.

Jen started the audience in a small clapping frenzy, causing the light to blink, so the man yanked it off the table as well.

Then a jello-ish blob was pulled out by the first man, who wiggled it, and they all looked expectantly at the woman to see how she would react. Nothing much was her reaction, so the second guy began to wiggle the flowers at her. Nothing again, so the third man wiggled the painting to see how she would react.

Nothing.

So the first guy wiggled the jello and BANG the table was spring loaded and launched the jello blob fully 40 feet into the audience where an audience member caught it perfectly.

With the jello launched, the third man grabbed the flowers to put them on the launching pad, but the second man immediately grabbed them away. The first man then pulled out a large electric bug zapper, and hung it on a peg near his head.

Then the twinkies.

One man pulled out a box of generic twinkies, and gave one to each person at the table. The three men began to wiggle and twist the plastic, but couldn't get them open. The girl opened hers with no problem. The man sitting beside her looked impressed, and held his twinkie out toward her.

She helped him open it, and he held it up and shook it tauntingly at the other two men.

The second man had her help him as well and then shook his twinkie tauntingly at the last man who hadn't opened his yet.

With a look of "oh yeah?" the last man grabbed an electric jigsaw, cut the twinkie in half, let the halves drop out of the plastic, held them back together, and wiggled the repaired twinkie at all of them.

From behind them, the second man grabbed a large vacuum hose and sucked up all the twinkie plastic, and one half of the last man's twinkie.

That man grabbed the hose and sucked up the second man's entire twinkie, and tried to suck up the girls twinkie, but the man beside her chivalrously protected it from harm.

So the man sucked the girl off the painting. Only the background was left.

The hose was tossed away in disgust; now there were 2.5 twinkies on the table and 3 men and 1 still-not-sure-what-to-do woman.

The man with 1/2 a twinkie cut off a tiny piece and gave it to the twinkie-less man. The girl cut hers in half and gave the same man 1/2 of her twinkie. The first man took his tiny piece back.

The men grabbed knife and fork and began to gingerly cut the twinkies, noticed the woman was not, so stared at her until she did.

Once each had cut a piece of twinkie, with a grand flourish, the men each held their fork with arm outstretched ceremoniously in front of them. They waited for her to catch up, then all three ate the bite at once and she quickly followed.

This was repeated for a couple bites until the man beside her looked longingly at her piece with eyes that said, "feed me. please."

She did, and he fed her, as their arms linked romantically. The other two men did the same. Another arm-linked romantic switch-bite and then suddenly... disaster.

The man beside her held his gut and reeled back, then forward and sppllleeellbblbpbblbbbjblbpbjpbbbbpppptt oooey gooey smashed twinkie looking goo spurt from a nozzle in his chest and spluttered onto the table. Another man immediately stabbed a blob with his fork, studied it briefly (to let the audience wince) then ate it.

"YUM!!" was the expression as he blopped bloppy blub onto his plate and began to devour it. Another man took a bite and was equally delighted and began to splat blops of it onto each of their plates. The three men ate voraciously, but the girl would have nothing to do with it.

Suddenly she did have something to do as her breast plate spewed mushy gushy blubbery brown goo onto the table and a spew fest began with high speed squirty blechy hilarious splattery splats all over the table and stage and everywhere.

As her nozzle spewed, one man took a polaroid pic and another began to load up a typical chinese take-out box with spew. They removed her blue dress plate thing and handed her the pic and doggie box and the audience cheered recklessly.

(I'm not even halfway through the show)

There was oh-so-much more, including hugely stuffing their mouths with Cap'n Crunch and synchronized chewing as the band made huge chewing noises for each man. A virtual drum cadence resulted until one man smeared a huge streak of cereal bits up his face and onto the top of his head.

The other two men stopped their crunching to look at him curiously. For several moments, nothing happened.

Then, one man gestured gently toward his own upper lip like, "you've got some food on your lip; might want to check it."

The cereal-coated man slowly lifted one hand and gently flicked a single piece off his face.

The other man gestured slightly toward his own chin, "there's a bit on your chin, too."

The cereal-coated man carefully flicked a piece off his chin.

The other looked cautiously carefully and the huge sheet of cereal coating the man's face, then held up one hand and nodded like, "perfect; you got it all."

AND THEY NEVER ONCE LAUGHED!!!!!

There was oh so much more; go see the show. It plays in Chicago, New York City, and Boston.

Blue Man Group. It was a great show. permalink