Rock Is Dead, They Say

I suppose it's fitting that I'm currently re-reading The Time Traveler's Wife. Last night at the Verizon Center, I performed a spontaneous time stunt of my own, in which I traveled back at least 20 years and stood with my teenage daughter of today, bobbing up and down to the furiously accelerated beat of a nuevo-punk band.

Translation? I took my 14-year-old daughter and her craziest, liveliest friend to see Green Day. I expected to be the oldest person there. To ward off evil spirits, I made sure I was wearing a t-shirt (Piggly Wiggly), jeans (not capris), and John Lennon signature Chuck Taylor hightops. A neutral ensemble that would help me to blend in but not necessarily mark me as a downtown office rat who just got off work (which I was).

I was swept up in the atmosphere as soon as I got there, although arena rock had never been my thing. In my day, if a band got too big for the Fox Theatre in Atlanta or the 9:30 in DC, I had no use for them. But I stood in line patiently with the girls to buy my daughter a Green Day t-shirt, then was so impressed by the styles that I bought my own, which bore a cartoon of a cheerleader with a banadana tied around her face, cheerfully setting fire to her school with a molotov cocktail. Awesome.

The opening act for Green Day, the Kaiser Chiefs, were a lovely surprise. They were a little punkier than Green Day, with a driving drumline that's absolutely essential to me, but they were no strangers to a guitar tuner or to spot-on harmonies. They gave me a little hope that perhaps punk is still alive somewhere, although by definition it can't be found at the Verizon Center.

As for the headliners, I find Green Day unwilling to be pigeonholed. They're socially conscious, they're metallic and powerful, yet they're capable of pulling off acoustic ballads without sounding like an 80s hair band trying to appear sensitive. They feel genuine, and if you want to question their punk street cred, that seems to be okay with them. They're questioning your punk listening cred. For example, I wonder if the irony of Billy Joe Armstrong singing to his devotees that they are controlled by the media, and their gleeful acceptance of that fact, is lost on his fans. The band offered pyrotechnics, arty-farty but very high-tech video images behind them, and sports arena cliches such as super-soakers and t-shirt guns. Hard to do that with a straight face, unless what you're really saying is "Is this what you want? Here it is. That'll be $75, thank you." That's the true spirit of punk itself.

Don't get me wrong. I would have preferred the stripped-down, raw punk of my earlier days, with no glitzy spectacle and even limited lighting tricks. But Green Day are fabulous showmen, and there's a place for that in nuevo punk. Billy Joe certainly knows how to please a crowd, and while he doesn't come out and mock them in so many words, the message is implicit. He stands on his monitor, and like a tiny punk puppetmaster raises his arms above his head, knowing that his audience will ape him exactly. Last night he even brought up fans from the floor to show them how to do it. And in another stroke of proletariat marketing genius, he repeatedly allowed fans to join him onstage to sing for him. In the case of one lucky, extremely dorky guy, he let him play his guitar onstage for quite some time. This was a dedicated fan who knew the songs and could definitely keep up, and Billy Joe gave him the gift of a lifetime: the certainty of finally getting laid. On behalf of my young daughter, who will soon be the target of oversexed but sexually inexperienced guitar-playing boys, I crow triumphantly, "One less!" Thank you, Billy Joe.

World's Worst Mom Sees 'Bruno,' Takes Teens

She'd already seen "Borat" and not been unduly traumatized, so I merely groaned when my daughter (not quite 14 years old) asked me to take her and two of her friends to see Sacha Baron Cohen's latest, "Bruno." The two other teens shrugged when I asked if it was okay with their parents that they see this film, saying, "Yeah, they know I'm going. Whatever." So off we went to Rio, where I sat several rows ahead of them so no one would know we were together and I wouldn't have to feel as embarrassed as I might were my daughter to be sitting next to me during what were sure to be scenes she's not really old enough to see.

She might be, but I don't think I am. While the controversial gay sex scenes and full frontal male nudity were so over-the-top comical and idiotic they seemed almost cartoon-like, there were scenes of heterosexual encounters that, while they bore black boxes over the naughty bits, left nothing to the imagination whatsoever. They were crude and more than a little scary, and certainly not what I'd want my teen to see. Serves me right.

Overall though, "Bruno" is just another tour-de-force for Cohen, who's becoming so recognizable that a third movie where he dupes people is surely out of the question. As it is, much of "Bruno" feels staged, with willing and knowing participants. Were all of them in on the joke? Hard to say. Once again, Cohen likes to have a bash at the far right-wing and the Southern religious--who doesn't? But he's left me wishing he'd attack the blind bigotry of some of his countrymen. Southern Baptists have nothing on certain groups of British football hooligans, so perhaps it's time Cohen have some fun with that crowd instead. Less market appeal, I imagine.

Nevertheless, "Bruno" has little of its predecessor's freshness, and its protagonist none of the innocence of Borat. Instead, the soulless Austrian fashionista Bruno keeps accosting people who are trying their very best to be polite and accept him at least on a superficial basis. That they're ultimately unable to do so, after much prodding from Bruno, seems less a sign of their hatred for what he represents as their very human inability to remain calm in the face of a nagging, petulant child.

In one of the final scenes of the film, however, and one that I fear is real and not at all staged, old-fashioned Southern homophobia reveals itself in all its dentally challenged ugliness. It's very disturbing to watch an Arkansas crowd's reaction to what it believes is a straight icon turning gay before their very eyes--their hatred and disbelief seem too powerful to be real, and yet I fear they were. This was the scene the 14-year-olds said disturbed them the most, and that was because of the raw homophobia that seemed to have no source, no logic behind it, just naked fear. Ding, ding, ding!

Is "Bruno" a slap in the face to the homosexual community? It's hard to say. I'm straight but like to think that I'm sensitive to those issues. I think the whole point was to bring out latent homophobia in people who were otherwise trying very hard to hide something they knew to be illogical and socially unacceptable, but the Bruno character had create a caricature to get there, and I could see how that might offend some. Yet I can't get away from the fact that the 14-year-olds were never appalled by the homosexual behaviors, never fearful of anything displayed in cartoon proportions, but were horrified by the hatred others showed toward it. Perhaps GLAAD and other groups who oppose the film have nothing to worry about on that score. As for perpetuating stereotypes, how could anyone as over-the-top silly as Bruno ever seem real to anyone? Someone who makes Ru Paul look sedate, almost matronly?

Apart from all these issues, what remains is that "Bruno," while it has its moments, isn't terribly funny. The first half of the film offered few, if any, genuine laughs, only picking up at the point where Bruno adopts a baby from Africa because "it's worked for Madonna and Brangelina." Seeing what lengths some people will go to achieve fame for their kids--I'm thinking, with horror, that some of these scenes of stage parents might be real rather than scripted--induced some good, guilty belly laughs and reminded me that Prince Michael and Paris Jackson are in serious trouble. Let's forget all about the perceived sins of homosexuality and just lock up all parents who would put their kids in show business, shall we?

I'm foregoing the usual comments about photography, direction, performances, etc. They simply aren't relevant. Cohen is who is he is, and who he is has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with shocking people just for the sake of shocking them. To me, that just induces an enormous yawn. I can't believe I've seen everything, but I've yet to be shocked by anything Cohen has done. Just a little bored.

A Weekend in Staunton

Once a year J and I head out to the Blue Ridge Mountains for a weekend B&B retreat sans child. This getaway generally involves history and wineries, and it's my chance to unwind a bit from the stresses of the school year and the June mayhem at work.

This year we didn't book soon enough to get a B&B close to Charlottesville that will take our dogs--geriatric and subdued though they be--so we wound up staying a little farther out in Staunton, VA. I'd read a bit about the town and was willing to give it a shot but a little disappointed that I wouldn't be haunting the town of TJ and Edgar Allen Poe.

Honestly, TJ can wait. Staunton was a gorgeous surprise. We stayed at a typically adorable and peaceful bed and breakfast, this time the Inn at Old Virginia just across the train tracks outside town. While the breakfast didn't knock us over, it was at least served in reasonable portions so we didn't have to go back to the room and lie down for an hour before having the energy to go out sightseeing. The inn was hosting a wedding that weekend, so it was gussied up in its wedding finery, and we even had a great view from our room of the wedding on the lawn.

One of the great things about Staunton was the cheap eats. The first night we ate at a Mexican restaurant called Baja Bean, located downtown, where the heavy Victorian architecture belies the atmosphere of the hip and artsy galleries, shops, and bookstores that reside there. The Bean was refreshingly inexpensive ($36 for two, with appetizer, two main courses, and two margaritas, generous tip extra). The ingredients were fresh and the menu original. What really stood out were the margaritas, which were made with fresh fruit juice and lime and leave me still craving margaritas two weeks later.

I wouldn't recommend going directly to The Split Banana next door. You have to give yourself time to recover from the fajitas and margaritas before you ask your body to take on the gelato, made fresh on the spot, right in front of your eyes. Once you're hungry again, try a couple of scoops of the Banana's fresh ice cream, gelato, or sorbet. Me, I'm a gelato fan, and theirs was heavenly. And if you're feeling bad about calories, a white board prominently displays calories, fat, and sugar content of all their products. (I need constant reminders that gelato is actually less fattening than ice cream. How could a scoop of this stuff be no worse for you than a Weight Watchers brownie sundae?)

But one of the best surprises in Staunton was, for me, the Blackfriars Playhouse. This small wooden O is a replica of Shakespeare's one-time theatrical home in London, complete with butt-torturing wooden benches and a musician's gallery. Here, as in Shakespeare's day, actors in the repertory company play popular music before the show and during intermission--but it's our poplular music, not Shakespeare's. There's something eminently hilarious about actors in Elizabethan garb playing Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" or the Gin Blossoms' "Hey, Jealousy" on acoustic instruments. It makes me long for an entertainment venue that features electrified bands playing between the acts of a modern play, bringing theatre back to the masses, where it once belonged.

Nevertheless, the show at the Blackfriars had plenty to offer to the families on their summer vacation. On tap the night we went was a silly but entertaining production of Measure for Measure (as though that play could be anything but silly) that played to the groundlings and reminded me that Shakespeare really shouldn't have written his own plots. Nothing wrong with that--it was a great night, the cast was fresh and lively, and there was even a bar set up on the stage itself before the play and during intermission.

Later this summer, they're putting on Titus Andronicus. It's worth the expense of a trip back to see how they tackle Shakespeare's most sensationalist play of all. Blood! Incest! Cannibalism! Gelato! Margaritas! I have to go.