The Dow Is Up!

Who says you can't have fun in the suburbs? Friday night was arguably one of the best nights I've ever had in my life. And all we did was see Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biography. Turns out that the movie was the least entertaining part of the night.

I should preface this by saying that I'm a huge Johnny Cash fan. I think he's just great. I started listening to him back in 2000. I was moving back to Chicago from Boston and I stopped in Cleveland to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They had a video display of all the inductees and I saw Johnny Cash singing "Folsum Prison Blues." I thought it was a good song, so I impulsively bought a 2-CD set of his greatest hits.

I remember when I got home, I told my parents about my purchase. They were a little shocked. My dad actually said, "Johnny Cash? He's country!" Well, yes. But no. The man knew how to rock too. I firmly believe that Johnny Cash at Folsum Prison is one of the best albums ever. He wrote and played good songs in general, but when he played live, it was 10 times better. It might have something to do with all the speed he took, but that's not the point. The point is that Johnny Cash is cool and I was really looking forward to seeing the movie about his life.

For some reason, The Wife and I never got around to seeing Walk the Line when it was originally in the theaters. Then the Oscars rolled around and Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress for her portrayal of June Carter Cash. And just a week later, Walk the Line was playing at the Buffalo Grove theater right by our house.

The BG Theater is a great local venue. All shows are $2. And the theater is generally filled with (a) old people and (b) teenagers with nothing better to do. This usually makes for an interesting audience. Compounding matters is that the BG Theater hasn't invested much in their sound system. So, it can be difficult to hear any part of the movie unless you're really paying attention.

When we got to the theater, it was kind of crowded even though the movie didn't start for 10 more minutes. So we sat near the front. I don't like sitting that close. I feel like I can't take in the whole movie. But, given the poor sound, I thought it'd be a good trade-off sitting so close. At least I'd be able to hear everything. (By the way, being married to someone with bad hearing ruins movies for me. If I have trouble hearing something, all I can think is, "Wow, she must be pissed because she can't understand a single word." Yes, I'm that caring. And she actually reads this blog, so maybe I'll get a nice birthday present now.)

As the previews are playing, I notice a group of people coming to sit by us. There are about six of them and they're trying to find six seats in a row. I notice that there aren't really six seats in a row in our aisle, but if they go to the other side of the theater, there are plenty of open seats. Then I notice that one of them is wearing a Burger King crown, the kind that they give to 8-year-olds on their birthdays. Uh oh.

After a couple of minutes of wrangling, the six people break up into two groups of three. One group sits right in front of us. As the King (the one with the crown, obviously) sits in front of The Wife, I realize that something ain't right with him. It looks like he's a bit retarded. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I thought it was really nice of his family to take him out to a movie for his birthday.

As the movie got going, though, a realization came to me. It came when the three viewers in front of me kept talking to each other about who was Johnny Cash. And reading outloud "Arkansas 1944" at the beginning of the movie. That's when I realized that these other people weren't the King's family. No, they were his retarded court. And they had a LOT of talking to do. It was really very annoying at first. Then I realized that THEY were the show, not Johnny Cash. They went from being annoying to being supremely funny. I don't know if it was their lack of whispering or the content of their messages ("This movie's long." "Yeah, long." "Real long." "This movie's long." "This movie's real long." "Long."). Either way, I enjoyed it. I actually found myself wishing for more.

Meanwhile, sitting behind me was an old man I'd like to call Coughy McLungenstein. This man apparently had the whooping cough or something equally fun because he coughed violently throughout the entire film. And of course, being the gracious old man that he was, he actually had the nerve to "shhh" the King and his Retarded Court. Though his "shhh" was more like "shh shhhh ." And despite sitting near the front, I still couldn't hear the dialogue in the movie. And that's when the Retarded Court and Coughy McLungenstein were perfectly quiet. I guess $2 just doesn't get you what it used to.

Normally, this would have been the end to a very good night. But there was more. And that's what made this night go from "good" to "GREAT!" Right next to the BG Theater, they opened a new restaurant called Terry's Kitchen and Tap. I've been excited about this ever since I saw the "Coming Soon" signs months ago. This was going to be My Bar. It was only 1.5 miles from my house. And it sounded like a nice little brewpub. I can't explain how excited I was about this. So when The Wife suggested heading over there for an after-movie drink, I of course said yes.

When we walked in, I couldn't believe my eyes. Terry's Kitchen and Tap looked like Terry's Five-Star Restaurant. And the first thing the host asked us? Were we hear to see Frank Sinatra. Huh? We ambled over to the very nice (and isolated) bar. And there he was. Frank Sinatra himself. If Frank were a middle-aged suburban karaoke-singing dork. In a fedora. And "Frank" was belting out hit after hit. Of course, we were right in front of the speaker, which made communication almost impossible. Not that it was going to stop us from communicating. The upside of this was that "Frank" wanted to be friendly with us. He kept stopping by our table (no doubt hoping for tips). But we kept talking, practically right into his microphone. Not wanting to be upstaged, "Frank" moved on to bother other people.

In "Frank's" retinue were his wife, a former East German olympian. Or at least, that's what she looked like. There was also a woman wearing a sequined mini-dress and a sequined fedora with a feather in it. Did I mention that she was a senior citizen? After an hour of hanging out with "Frank," who was getting noticeably drunker by the minute, we decided to go home and relieve the babysitter. And I'd be lying if I said I weren't looking forward to doing this again soon.

# posted by IronDow @ 8:26 AM