Mark Bittman is one of the greatest cooking writers ever. He's a weekly columnist for the New York Times, but I know him best and originally as the author of the amazing How to Cook Everything. How to Cook Everything basically taught me how to cook. In it, he runs through everything from the very basics of how to stock a kitchen and how to cut vegetables to how to prepare complex roasts, full dinners, and more. Pretty close to anything you'd want a recipe for is in there, except pasta salad which he seems to think is an abomination and forbids you from ever preparing. The writing style is plain and accessible, and its a book I recommend to anyone looking to learn how to cook or who wants a great omnibus of recipes available.
Food Matters, on the other hand, is a bit of a different beast. It has a few recipes, about 75, that focus mostly on very basic cooking--preparing cooked beans, grains, boiled and steamed veggies, simple sauces, and then a few dozen recipes for each meal that tend toward simple combination of the basics that can be rapidly prepared. The focus of the recipes is on things that can be prepared quickly and/or in bulk that are composed primarily of complex carbohydrates, fresh fruits and vegetables, and very small amounts of meat and dairy.
The reason for this strange set of recipes is explained in the first half of the book. Bittman appeared on the Colbert Report a last year to discuss this philosophy. Basically his food consumption ideas aren't new, but focus on the "vegan until 6pm" and "only eat foods with less than four ingredients" ideas. His book focuses on showing you you can eat a diet that is very high in vegetables and complex carbohydrates and very low in animal products and processed food with minimal effort, and still produce satisfying food quickly. His points are that our current diet cuases health problems ranging from heart disease to diabetes to obesity, and that this is due both to high calorie, low nutrition foods (chips and MacDonald's and Twinkies) and to too large a proportion of our diet being high fat animal products. This diet is also awful environmentally in terms of both energy consumption and waste production, pointing out not only the old standard of lb of meat taking a dozen or so pounds of grain to produce, but that all these processed foods and factory farmed meat take a huge amount of petroleum and energy to make. Eating like "food matters" allows you to both improve your health, lower your risk of long term diseases, and lose weight, all while helping the environment.
I do have a few major issues with the philosophy portion of the book. Bittman seems to have a problem with low carb, high protein diets that's based more in his anti-meat environmentalism than in actual fact. I myself gave a low carb diet a try over the last year (specifically the Men's Health TNT Diet) and lost weight, gained muscle, and my cholesterol dropped 15% (and the good went up as the bas went down.) I've since adapted to a more sustainable some-carb diet, and gained back a bit of weight but overall feel pretty good. The advantage to a high protein diet is that protein and fat, while high caloric density, have a high satiety factor, so a couple strips of bacon or a couple eggs in the morning leave me feeling full until early afternoon, while a couple donuts leave me hungry again almost right away.
Epidemiology on diet is very difficult, and lab results don't always translate into real world results. This was the major flaw in low-fat diets--that and that the whoel fat reduction then "bad fat" reduction would reduce cholesterol and thus heart disease was a (reasonable) deduction based on the observation that heart disease is correlated with high cholesterol. Except it turns out that most cholesterol is synthesized by the body, not absorbed from food, that lowering cholesterol intake doesn't tend to have that much of an effect on blood cholesterol, and that cholesterol is correlated with heart disease, but not causative (see Vioxx, which lowered cholesterol but not heart disease and increased stroke risk).
However, recent meta reviews show that, in fact, high protein low carb diets work better than anything else in reducing cholesterol and weight up to one year. Bittman addresses this in his book, but dismisses these results with a well, i'm sure it has long term negative effect stance with no evidence to back it up. Further, he does this immediately after he basically mocks people who dismissed the results of a study that showed low fat diets don't improve health on the evidence-free assumption that everyone on the diet cheated. It is very intellectually disingenuous, and when he dismisses studies that don't support his worldview it heavily undermines his criticism of others.
He also, almost randomly, rails agains the pharmaceutical industry and its "scientist for hire." Which, as one of those people who do science in exchange for a paycheck, I found more than a little insulting. The insinuation was that none of us industry scientists can be trusted cause our sinister bosses pay us and demand we thus falsify results. I at least consider myself a moral and ethical person. Also, there are a lot of good things to come out of the pharmaceutical industry...and also also, I have no idea why he kept ranting about pharmaceutical companies in a book about food, except that he was somehow lumping together government agencies, the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry into one big pile of evil corporatism that is destroying America's health. I found the screed parts of the book to detract greatly from his very good points about the health and environmental impact of the way we currently eat, and could turn a lot of people off to that message.
Overall I wish he had been more neutral, and less dismissive of studies that contradicted his viewpoints. I do like the recipes and the practical tips on cooking and eating right, and have integrated some this into my current diet. Bittman agrees with the low-carb folks that veggies and complex carbohydrates (whole grains) are better than high starch foods are better than high sugar foods are better than processed, sugar added foods. They mostly disagree on the relative proportions of complex carbs vs protein. Bitmman's tips on bulk preparation, what can be frozen and how to eat well while working full time are definitely worth it, and his views are interesting (if occasionally offensive) to read. But I can guarantee I'll be going to How to Cook Everything a lot more often than Food Matters.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
[Review] Middleman, the Complete Series (TV, DVD)
Middleman is a one season long TV series that aired on ABC Family in 2008, based on the comic book series of the same name. The comic, if i understand the story correctly, was created based on a TV pilot a writer on Lost had produced in the mid 00's, which then got turned back into a TV show driected at sassy teenagers for ABC Family. I was originally confused as to the network, because I think i had heard it was on Disney, and expected a kids show, but the show as produced has a surprising amount of (bleeped) profanity and lots of angsty young adult relationship/crush/flirtation stuff. But apparently ABC Family is actually going for sassy-mouthed faux-worldly teen aged girls, so that's why this show stars a sassy-mouthed faux-worldly college aged girl. But I digress.
The show is at its heart, one of those stories about the supernatural and/or superheroes actually being real in the real world. As in many of these, the main hero/investigator role is played by a tall handsome slightly older man (in this case, The Middleman (Matt Keaslar)) who is accompanied by his attractive, younger, sexy but not in a sexual relation ship with the tall handsome investigator guy (here, Wendy Watson, aka "dub-dub" (Natale Morales, who is in fact, ridiculously hot)). There are quite a few pairs like this: Mulder and Scully of course, any number of Doctor-companion pairs, Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter, Angel and Cordelia, Plausibly HRG and the Cheerleader, and so forth. The Middleman is also one of those many modern deconstruction of the superhero type shows that occupy meta space in the same universe as the Tick, Venture Brothers and Dr. Horrible. Though I found it to have met the Dr. Venture metaverse halfway with the Dresden Files, as there is a lot more magic and demons and such than in most meta-superhero shows.
The Middleman is only the most current in a long line of Middlemen, the only apparent superhero in a world where all the most bizarre comic-book style threats to humanity are real. Villains with horribly over-elaborate superscience based plans they like to monologue about ("It's sheer elegance in its simplicity!") alien invasions, ancient resurrected Chinese emperors and thousands of ways for the earth to be destroyed on a daily basis. All that stands between us and all this crazy crap is the Middleman, assisted by his android sidekick IDA and, as of the start of the series, his sassy-mouthed Middleman in training, Wendy. The Middleman is funded and kept in cool gadgets by the OTSTK (Organization too secret to know) and the various fancy computers and shit keep a steady supply of plot solving god boxes on hand.
The series has some good ideas at its core, and can at times be fun. But overall, I found it kind of meh. It's problematic that this show messes around in well explored territory--the above mentioned interpersonal dynamic between the main characters and the meta-superheroes are real setting--but doesn't really add anything new to it. Part of my lack of enthusiasm comes from the overly simple characterizations of all these main characters. The Middleman is an absurdly straight laced Dudley Do-right type who's always a gentleman, watches only westerns, and drinks milk all the time. Wendy is the never phased by anything, too cool for school, always wisecracking nerdy hot girl. Her roommate exists to be a sexpot, her upstairs neighbor's purpose is to be the dick, and her boyfriend is there to be kind of cute and also spout more bantery dialogue. Pretty much all the dialogue on the show is constantly delivered with a grin and a wink, and that kind of ruins a lot of it...there is a great deal of character back and forth witticism reminiscent of old noir banter, but in a modern context, except the constant sarcastic winking at the audience tone makes it not really work for me. Or possibly the actors don't have the chops to make it work, I'm not sure.
The plots themselves are way silly, often too silly for a "Superheroes are real" plot line. Except, I could see the gun toting, mob-movie watching super-intelligent gorilla working on the Tick, or the Mexican-wrestler mask sporting Japanese Sensei Ping working as a character in the Venture Brothers, or the noirish reformed succubus Roxy Wasserman working in a Dresden Files novel. But things don't quite ever click on the Middleman. I'd find my self sort of getting into the show, but easily distracted due to slow pacing, or growing irritation with the overly sassy dialogue, and maybe a bit of eye rolling at the just slightly too absurd for its own universe plots. I feel a lot of the problem comes with combing thinly drawn caricature based characters with a "comic-books are real" vibe--in order to make it work, we have to feel the characters could be real people.
In the end, I think I've just seen this plot too many times before to be excited by it. You can rent the DVD's from netflix, and if you're into comic book plots, its not a bad way to pass the time. But given the choice, I'd rather watch the Venture Bros. again.
The show is at its heart, one of those stories about the supernatural and/or superheroes actually being real in the real world. As in many of these, the main hero/investigator role is played by a tall handsome slightly older man (in this case, The Middleman (Matt Keaslar)) who is accompanied by his attractive, younger, sexy but not in a sexual relation ship with the tall handsome investigator guy (here, Wendy Watson, aka "dub-dub" (Natale Morales, who is in fact, ridiculously hot)). There are quite a few pairs like this: Mulder and Scully of course, any number of Doctor-companion pairs, Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter, Angel and Cordelia, Plausibly HRG and the Cheerleader, and so forth. The Middleman is also one of those many modern deconstruction of the superhero type shows that occupy meta space in the same universe as the Tick, Venture Brothers and Dr. Horrible. Though I found it to have met the Dr. Venture metaverse halfway with the Dresden Files, as there is a lot more magic and demons and such than in most meta-superhero shows.
The Middleman is only the most current in a long line of Middlemen, the only apparent superhero in a world where all the most bizarre comic-book style threats to humanity are real. Villains with horribly over-elaborate superscience based plans they like to monologue about ("It's sheer elegance in its simplicity!") alien invasions, ancient resurrected Chinese emperors and thousands of ways for the earth to be destroyed on a daily basis. All that stands between us and all this crazy crap is the Middleman, assisted by his android sidekick IDA and, as of the start of the series, his sassy-mouthed Middleman in training, Wendy. The Middleman is funded and kept in cool gadgets by the OTSTK (Organization too secret to know) and the various fancy computers and shit keep a steady supply of plot solving god boxes on hand.
The series has some good ideas at its core, and can at times be fun. But overall, I found it kind of meh. It's problematic that this show messes around in well explored territory--the above mentioned interpersonal dynamic between the main characters and the meta-superheroes are real setting--but doesn't really add anything new to it. Part of my lack of enthusiasm comes from the overly simple characterizations of all these main characters. The Middleman is an absurdly straight laced Dudley Do-right type who's always a gentleman, watches only westerns, and drinks milk all the time. Wendy is the never phased by anything, too cool for school, always wisecracking nerdy hot girl. Her roommate exists to be a sexpot, her upstairs neighbor's purpose is to be the dick, and her boyfriend is there to be kind of cute and also spout more bantery dialogue. Pretty much all the dialogue on the show is constantly delivered with a grin and a wink, and that kind of ruins a lot of it...there is a great deal of character back and forth witticism reminiscent of old noir banter, but in a modern context, except the constant sarcastic winking at the audience tone makes it not really work for me. Or possibly the actors don't have the chops to make it work, I'm not sure.
The plots themselves are way silly, often too silly for a "Superheroes are real" plot line. Except, I could see the gun toting, mob-movie watching super-intelligent gorilla working on the Tick, or the Mexican-wrestler mask sporting Japanese Sensei Ping working as a character in the Venture Brothers, or the noirish reformed succubus Roxy Wasserman working in a Dresden Files novel. But things don't quite ever click on the Middleman. I'd find my self sort of getting into the show, but easily distracted due to slow pacing, or growing irritation with the overly sassy dialogue, and maybe a bit of eye rolling at the just slightly too absurd for its own universe plots. I feel a lot of the problem comes with combing thinly drawn caricature based characters with a "comic-books are real" vibe--in order to make it work, we have to feel the characters could be real people.
In the end, I think I've just seen this plot too many times before to be excited by it. You can rent the DVD's from netflix, and if you're into comic book plots, its not a bad way to pass the time. But given the choice, I'd rather watch the Venture Bros. again.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
American Idiot on Broadway [Review]
Last Friday, I went to see the (third) Broadway Preview of American Idiot. The musical is a staged performance of the Green Day album of the same name, padded out with a bunch of songs from 21st Century Breakdown and a couple other sources. The cast was largely the same as the original off-Broadway show, with only one substitution amongst the leads (Tunny was played by Stark Sands, vs Matt Caplan in the original run, which is actually pretty irrelevant because I have no idea who either of them is).
Greenday was, I think, the second band I ever really listened too. The first was R.E.M., because I heard "Stand" when it was the theme song to the short lived and extra terrible Fox comedy Get a Life staring Chris Eliott. I don't really remember how I got introduced to Green Day, but probably it involved me getting friends who were not also huge nerds who introduced me to the "radio." This was right when Dookie came out, and I had just turned 17. Its universal message of impotent-teen-aged-to-early-twenty-something-rage (and frequent masturbation) connected with my high schooler brain, and I listened to that album constantly. I have a vivid memory of listening to the album on headphones while working as an office temp over that summer at my dad's company. At the end of the summer, I was mortified to learn that the secretaries all had heard me singing "When I come around" under my breath for the last three months.
I of course was late to the whole Green Day thing, as they'd been doing the pop-punk/impotent-male-rage thing for years. I never retroactively got into their older albums, but I did once hear the following amazing story about one of their early club shows in the East Bay area. The concert attendee in question, being a dumb 18 year old going to a pop punk show in California, had brought with him a homemade prop. This prop consisted of a huge pile of old bread he had found discarded behind a bakery, which he had pressed into the smallest ball he could manage and placed inside of a fishnet bag. At the concert, he swung said bag in a circle around his head, spraying smooshed bread across the floor and the other Green Day fans. Naturally, he lost his grip on the bag, which sailed across the room and hit Billy Joe in the head. I cannot for the life of me remember who told me that story.
My own Green Day concert memory comes from 1996, during the height of their first round of popularity. I went with my friend Brian to a giant arena show, where I was lamely in the seats, watching the cool people be cool on the floor. But it was still awesome. Green Day's music is often simple--I used to joke that they'd bust out that third cord for the really emotionally intense portions of the song--but I've always found it really powerful and visceral. When amped up to concert levels, the wall of heavy guitar chords completely surrounds you, and the drums pound into your brain in a way that's both punk and primal. I remember turning to my friend and asking him what it is that makes a band fade away or last for decades, and if he thought Green Day would still be around in 20 years. He told me he expected them to break up in a year or two.
After the mid 90's, Green Day first got mediocre (Insomniac) then "experimental," which is to say, super lame. I barely remember Nimrod except that it spawned the lame song that was in every freaking movie in 1997. I don't think I'd ever heard of Warning before writing this review, though upon investigation sorta did like that title song. And I guess my friend was right, cause I'm pretty sure they did break up in there somewhere. Then I graduate and go off the grad school and mostly forget about my impotent early twenty-something male rage.
Jump ahead to 2004 and the release of American Idiot. I had pretty much stopped listening to Green Day by the time "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" became the new radio single. It took me a while to realize I really liked that song, that it had gotten inside of me in the same way the old stuff did when I was in high school. It was a couple years before I bought American Idiot, which has since become one of my most-played albums. It has the same power and sheer volume (in the breadth sense, not the magnitude sense) that I loved from the old Green Day. It also had a maturity to it, and more variety in song construction than Dookie ever did, without the lameness of Nimrod. The concept-album angle was sort of interesting, but the music was what sold me. I mean, the story is basically the same impotent-early-twenty-something-male-rage shtick of the old Green Day, but now being sung by a pack of thirty somethings. I wasn't particularly interested in the story of Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatshername, but I did like their songs.
And so, now here we are in 2010 and Green Day has a rock musical opening on Broadway, twenty years after their first album (suck it, Brian). The plot of American Idiot the Musical is the same as the 2004 album, and everything they wrote in the 90's: impotent male rage. In some sense, it seemed absurd to watch a show written by guys pushing 40 about 20 year olds raging against the world but powerless to change it, or even really do anything interesting. On one level, I feel like they should move on already. On another, they're really good at telling that story.
The show stars John Howard Gallagher, Jr. as Johnny, aka Jesus of Suburbia, in the tale already told by the concept album. Gallagher is best known for originating the role of Moritz Stiefel in Spring Awakening, so he has good young-male-impotent-rage credentials. A lot of the show reminded me of Spring Awakening in fact. Some of the choreography was similar, the set was a mostly bare stage with occasional furniture, and the story, while simpler, is another one of those male coming of age in a world that sucks stories. The music, being Green Day, was a lot more intense, and the pace overall more frenetic.
The show was a lot like a staged Green Day concert, or maybe what a Green Day show would be if it were choreographed by the person who does Lady Gaga's videos. For me, the show evoked a lot of my late high school, early college concert experiences, with that wall of alt rock sound, familiar songs, and dancing that was like a completely cracked up and yet perfectly coordinated version of the kind of flail-dancing I associate with outdoor alternative shows in the mid 90's. The show follows Johnny as he rages against his crappy town, leaves his crappy town, moves to New York, meets a drug dealer named St. Jimmy and the super hot punk girl Whatshername, who doesn't get pants until the last 30 minuted of the production. One of his hometown friends comes with him, hates the city, enlists in the army and gets seriously wounded, while his other best friend never leaves town due to knocking up his high school girlfriend. Then the show ends after everyone has screwed up their lives and crawled back to their crappy hometown. Hooray!
The set was pretty amazing. The show made excellent use of vertical space. Action happened almost to the top of the stage, with the actors running up fire escapes, flipping out of hidden windows, and flying around with some pretty impressive wire work. The set incorporated dozens of flat screen tvs that blast a stream of images during most of the show, holding still only during Johnny's brief moments of dialog when they display a static message that starts as "Please Stand By" and evolves over the show. I remember "Please Come" and "Please Help Me" but am blanking on most of the others. The set is rendered steadily more chaotic as the show goes on, with paper and spray paint and glitter everywhere. I would hate to be on run crew for this show.
The highlights for me include St. Jimmy, who had a ridiculous emo-dbag haircut combined with an old-school punk attitude and singing style, and who stole the show whenever he was on stage. I also loved Whatshername, who was completely intense when dancing and beautiful when singing (and also didn't wear pants, as previously mentioned). overall the music was great, and I thought the numbers where they orchestrated out the songs into multi-part harmony were fantastic, as it led that same wall of sound feeling the guitar has to the vocals, and I wish they had done more of that. The show had an on stage punk band (not Green Day themselves) and i totally fell in love with the riot grrl conductor keyboardist with her thigh high chucks.
The show made me ask a few questions, such as who the hell says "You know what? I think i might like to try heroin tonight." And also, seriously, why still tell the same story over and over, Green Day? On the other hand, the story wasn't really the point and I have to give credit to any rock musical with a plot that's coherent; brilliant and meaningful may be asking a bit much. I also wonder if American Idiot is pitying the millennials, in a way. After all, Green Day got to rage for its own sake in a world that was pretty good. The current kids have to rage against Bush's America, Iraq war and American Idol and all. Is that the timeless message, that 90's rage was for fun and the 00's were really depressing? Well, deep philosophy it was not, but it was still an insanely fun show.
One final story. About ten minutes before the show started, the people in the orchestra seats when completely nuts. I was in the back row of the balcony, and like all the other dopes who stood up like that would make the floor transparent I couldn't see anything. After the show ended, me and my sister got funneled to some sketchy back stairwell, where we were suddenly stopped with like fifty other people because some bodyguard had closed the door at the bottom telling us we couldn't exit yet. So there I was trapped in a back stairwell filled with people of all ages who were completely cranked up from sitting through the craziest staged concert we had ever seen, when my sister quips, "...and, this is where we burn to death." While that would have been a punk rock way to go, we eventually escaped with our lives. Probably this was all the fault of Green Day themselves, who we suspect were at this show, being the first preview on a weekend. But I didn't see them, so for all I know, it was Barak Obama, Jimmy Paige, and the Pope holding up our exit.
Greenday was, I think, the second band I ever really listened too. The first was R.E.M., because I heard "Stand" when it was the theme song to the short lived and extra terrible Fox comedy Get a Life staring Chris Eliott. I don't really remember how I got introduced to Green Day, but probably it involved me getting friends who were not also huge nerds who introduced me to the "radio." This was right when Dookie came out, and I had just turned 17. Its universal message of impotent-teen-aged-to-early-twenty-something-rage (and frequent masturbation) connected with my high schooler brain, and I listened to that album constantly. I have a vivid memory of listening to the album on headphones while working as an office temp over that summer at my dad's company. At the end of the summer, I was mortified to learn that the secretaries all had heard me singing "When I come around" under my breath for the last three months.
I of course was late to the whole Green Day thing, as they'd been doing the pop-punk/impotent-male-rage thing for years. I never retroactively got into their older albums, but I did once hear the following amazing story about one of their early club shows in the East Bay area. The concert attendee in question, being a dumb 18 year old going to a pop punk show in California, had brought with him a homemade prop. This prop consisted of a huge pile of old bread he had found discarded behind a bakery, which he had pressed into the smallest ball he could manage and placed inside of a fishnet bag. At the concert, he swung said bag in a circle around his head, spraying smooshed bread across the floor and the other Green Day fans. Naturally, he lost his grip on the bag, which sailed across the room and hit Billy Joe in the head. I cannot for the life of me remember who told me that story.
My own Green Day concert memory comes from 1996, during the height of their first round of popularity. I went with my friend Brian to a giant arena show, where I was lamely in the seats, watching the cool people be cool on the floor. But it was still awesome. Green Day's music is often simple--I used to joke that they'd bust out that third cord for the really emotionally intense portions of the song--but I've always found it really powerful and visceral. When amped up to concert levels, the wall of heavy guitar chords completely surrounds you, and the drums pound into your brain in a way that's both punk and primal. I remember turning to my friend and asking him what it is that makes a band fade away or last for decades, and if he thought Green Day would still be around in 20 years. He told me he expected them to break up in a year or two.
After the mid 90's, Green Day first got mediocre (Insomniac) then "experimental," which is to say, super lame. I barely remember Nimrod except that it spawned the lame song that was in every freaking movie in 1997. I don't think I'd ever heard of Warning before writing this review, though upon investigation sorta did like that title song. And I guess my friend was right, cause I'm pretty sure they did break up in there somewhere. Then I graduate and go off the grad school and mostly forget about my impotent early twenty-something male rage.
Jump ahead to 2004 and the release of American Idiot. I had pretty much stopped listening to Green Day by the time "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" became the new radio single. It took me a while to realize I really liked that song, that it had gotten inside of me in the same way the old stuff did when I was in high school. It was a couple years before I bought American Idiot, which has since become one of my most-played albums. It has the same power and sheer volume (in the breadth sense, not the magnitude sense) that I loved from the old Green Day. It also had a maturity to it, and more variety in song construction than Dookie ever did, without the lameness of Nimrod. The concept-album angle was sort of interesting, but the music was what sold me. I mean, the story is basically the same impotent-early-twenty-something-male-rage shtick of the old Green Day, but now being sung by a pack of thirty somethings. I wasn't particularly interested in the story of Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy, and Whatshername, but I did like their songs.
And so, now here we are in 2010 and Green Day has a rock musical opening on Broadway, twenty years after their first album (suck it, Brian). The plot of American Idiot the Musical is the same as the 2004 album, and everything they wrote in the 90's: impotent male rage. In some sense, it seemed absurd to watch a show written by guys pushing 40 about 20 year olds raging against the world but powerless to change it, or even really do anything interesting. On one level, I feel like they should move on already. On another, they're really good at telling that story.
The show stars John Howard Gallagher, Jr. as Johnny, aka Jesus of Suburbia, in the tale already told by the concept album. Gallagher is best known for originating the role of Moritz Stiefel in Spring Awakening, so he has good young-male-impotent-rage credentials. A lot of the show reminded me of Spring Awakening in fact. Some of the choreography was similar, the set was a mostly bare stage with occasional furniture, and the story, while simpler, is another one of those male coming of age in a world that sucks stories. The music, being Green Day, was a lot more intense, and the pace overall more frenetic.
The show was a lot like a staged Green Day concert, or maybe what a Green Day show would be if it were choreographed by the person who does Lady Gaga's videos. For me, the show evoked a lot of my late high school, early college concert experiences, with that wall of alt rock sound, familiar songs, and dancing that was like a completely cracked up and yet perfectly coordinated version of the kind of flail-dancing I associate with outdoor alternative shows in the mid 90's. The show follows Johnny as he rages against his crappy town, leaves his crappy town, moves to New York, meets a drug dealer named St. Jimmy and the super hot punk girl Whatshername, who doesn't get pants until the last 30 minuted of the production. One of his hometown friends comes with him, hates the city, enlists in the army and gets seriously wounded, while his other best friend never leaves town due to knocking up his high school girlfriend. Then the show ends after everyone has screwed up their lives and crawled back to their crappy hometown. Hooray!
The set was pretty amazing. The show made excellent use of vertical space. Action happened almost to the top of the stage, with the actors running up fire escapes, flipping out of hidden windows, and flying around with some pretty impressive wire work. The set incorporated dozens of flat screen tvs that blast a stream of images during most of the show, holding still only during Johnny's brief moments of dialog when they display a static message that starts as "Please Stand By" and evolves over the show. I remember "Please Come" and "Please Help Me" but am blanking on most of the others. The set is rendered steadily more chaotic as the show goes on, with paper and spray paint and glitter everywhere. I would hate to be on run crew for this show.
The highlights for me include St. Jimmy, who had a ridiculous emo-dbag haircut combined with an old-school punk attitude and singing style, and who stole the show whenever he was on stage. I also loved Whatshername, who was completely intense when dancing and beautiful when singing (and also didn't wear pants, as previously mentioned). overall the music was great, and I thought the numbers where they orchestrated out the songs into multi-part harmony were fantastic, as it led that same wall of sound feeling the guitar has to the vocals, and I wish they had done more of that. The show had an on stage punk band (not Green Day themselves) and i totally fell in love with the riot grrl conductor keyboardist with her thigh high chucks.
The show made me ask a few questions, such as who the hell says "You know what? I think i might like to try heroin tonight." And also, seriously, why still tell the same story over and over, Green Day? On the other hand, the story wasn't really the point and I have to give credit to any rock musical with a plot that's coherent; brilliant and meaningful may be asking a bit much. I also wonder if American Idiot is pitying the millennials, in a way. After all, Green Day got to rage for its own sake in a world that was pretty good. The current kids have to rage against Bush's America, Iraq war and American Idol and all. Is that the timeless message, that 90's rage was for fun and the 00's were really depressing? Well, deep philosophy it was not, but it was still an insanely fun show.
One final story. About ten minutes before the show started, the people in the orchestra seats when completely nuts. I was in the back row of the balcony, and like all the other dopes who stood up like that would make the floor transparent I couldn't see anything. After the show ended, me and my sister got funneled to some sketchy back stairwell, where we were suddenly stopped with like fifty other people because some bodyguard had closed the door at the bottom telling us we couldn't exit yet. So there I was trapped in a back stairwell filled with people of all ages who were completely cranked up from sitting through the craziest staged concert we had ever seen, when my sister quips, "...and, this is where we burn to death." While that would have been a punk rock way to go, we eventually escaped with our lives. Probably this was all the fault of Green Day themselves, who we suspect were at this show, being the first preview on a weekend. But I didn't see them, so for all I know, it was Barak Obama, Jimmy Paige, and the Pope holding up our exit.
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