Hello, JERR-E

To say we rarely go to the movies is to not give enough credit to the word “rarely.” Earlier this spring, I took my mom to see Leatherheads; a few months prior to that I went to see Sweeney Todd; before that, I think the last movie I saw in a theater was The Devil Wears Prada.

But when I read the reviews of WALL-E in the paper and online on Saturday morning, I knew we had to go. Not just because it’s one of those E.T.-like movies, and I am a total goner for E.T.—but because I read its story was enhanced throughout by the use of two songs by Jerry Herman, the composer-lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles.

Of all the great Broadway songwriters and songwriting teams, Jerry Herman is perhaps my favorite. Stephen Sondheim I worship for his breathtaking lyrics, but my favorite melodies of his are those he’s written in homage to other composers. Kander and Ebb I adore for their big production numbers and comic material, but their ballads tend to lack depth and invention. Rodgers and Hammerstein? Too corny. Rodgers and Hart? Sophisticated but brittle. Cole Porter? Brilliant but too many songs in a minor key for my optimistic tastes. Irving Berlin? A genius and a national treasure—and the man who, in the early 1960s, said “the future of American musical theater” was, indeed, Jerry Herman.

Because he produced his greatest theatrical successes just about the time that the home of America’s popular music moved from Tin Pan Alley to Abbey Road, Herman has not contributed as much to America’s soundscape as Berlin. But the title songs of Hello, Dolly! and Mame are still well known, along with the Christmas perennial “We Need a Little Christmas.” Among his lesser known gems are the powerful torch songs “If He Walked into My Life” and “Time Heals Everything,” the empowerment anthems “Before the Parade Passes By” and “I Am What I Am,” and the lilting waltz “Shalom.”

With only a couple of exceptions that I can think of (“Time Heals Everything” from Mack & Mabel and “The Best in the World” from A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine), Jerry Herman’s lyrics are hopeful and uplifting. Even his loneliest characters believe tomorrow will be a better day. When he writes satire, he writes facetiously, with a skewer and a wink—not cynically, with a poison pen and a grimace.

Herman’s melodies are beautiful—memorable not, as critics say, because his shows employ so many reprises that they’re drummed into your head, but because they are simple and hummable, new without being predictable. Clive Barnes once wrote that he has “the common touch”—the ability to write a tune that is once fresh and familiar.

Herman was the first composer-lyricist to have three shows play 1,500 or more consecutive performances on Broadway. (In 2006, Stephen Schwartz became the second. Let’s all sing a chorus of “Defying Gravity” or something from The Magic Show in honor of Mr. Schwartz, shall we? Anyone?) But he considers his greatest achievement the ability to write songs that are perfect for the characters in the shows that are singing them, and yet which can be removed from their context and make perfect sense. The eleven o’clock number from Mame, “If He Walked into My Life,” illustrates the point. To anyone hearing Eydie Gormé’s Grammy-winning version, it’s about a woman who blames herself for the breakup of her romance. But in the context of the show, it’s about a woman who doubts the choices she made while raising her nephew. Either interpretation works equally well.

I believe that it’s all of these qualities—the optimism of his lyrics, the simplicity of his melodies, and the overall timelessness of his songs—that led the creators of WALL-E to include two particular Jerry Herman songs in their movie.

You can read plenty of reviews and synopses of WALL-E elsewhere, so I’ll just quickly explain that the robotic trash compactor who gives the film its title has in his possession a 900-year-old VHS tape of the movie version of Hello, Dolly! Perhaps because it is 900 years old, the mangled tape only has two scenes left on it—portions of the Act One production number “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” and the final moments of the Act Two ballad “It Only Takes a Moment.” Nevertheless, our hero watches those scenes whenever he retreats to his self-repair shop after a hard day of compacting trash. “Sunday Clothes” makes him happy and has taught him to dance, while “Moment” has taught him how to hold hands and therefore makes him long for contact with—well, I guess another industrial appliance. There aren’t any left on Earth. There aren’t any humans, either—they were forced onto a giant space station because there was no room left for them, thanks to all the garbage. The songs and scenes represent the world as WALL-E remembers it, filled with joy, dancing, connectedness, romance and eternal love.

I recognize that Jerry Herman is considered hackneyed and trite by some, his sentiment mistaken for sentimentality, his optimism considered unrealistic, his melodies old fashioned even when they were brand new. And, going into the film, I was concerned that his songs and the scenes from Hello, Dolly! would be played for laughs, at the expense of the songwriter and his movie.

But blessedly they are played for charm. The first time WALL-E pops in his treasured videotape, and we see Michael Crawford and Tommy Tune leading groups of high-stepping dancers in their “Sunday Clothes,” the audience chuckles. But it’s not because WALL-E has questionable taste; it’s because he’s cute. And the lyrics reinforce WALL-E’s desire to break free of the boredom of 800 years of squishing garbage:

Out there, there’s a world outside of Yonkers.
Way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby,
There’s a slick town, Barnaby!

(Those are the first words in WALL-E, and for the first 30 minutes or so they are among the only words in the film.)

Then the tape blips and suddenly we’re in Central Park as Crawford’s Cornelius Hackl confesses his love to Mrs. Irene Molloy, played by Marianne McAndrew:

It only takes a moment
For your eyes to meet, and then
Your heart knows in a moment
You will never be alone again.

When we see the scene of Cornelius and Mrs. Molloy holding hands reflected in the binoculars that serve as WALL-E’s eyes, we don’t roll our own eyes; we sigh.

In true Herman fashion, his songs here develop character and advance the plot. It just happens not to be the characters and plot they were originally written for—which speaks again to the universality of his music. When WALL-E meets EVE, the modern robot sent from the space station to try to determine if there is sustainable life left on Earth, he tries to charm her with his dancing, a garbage can subbing for Tommy Tune’s top hat in “Put On Your Sunday Clothes.” And as he becomes smitten with her, he tries to teach her how to hold hands to the strains of “It Only Takes a Moment” (with little success).

For me, the most thrilling use of Herman’s music in the film occurs the instant that the captain of the space station hears a snippet of “Sunday Clothes” and exclaims, “I know that song!” It propels the captain to action while it simultaneously sends the message that, 800 years from now, people will still be singing Jerry Herman showtunes.

I believe that.

Nearly 14 years ago, in an editorial I wrote for what was then Isuzu’s salesperson magazine, InRoads, I wrote about how then-current automotive commercials on television were using classic showtunes to appeal to potential customers. (At the time, Geo—remember Geo?—was using “Getting to Know You” from The King and I, and Mitsubishi adopted “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music to introduce its new Galant).

Both of these songs—recent enough to be memorable, and expressing an innocence
we’ve only recently lost—appeal to a better us, an us we know we once were and
an us we long to be again.

Eleven years later, in one of my infamous “American Idol” reviews, I reflected on the prominence of standards in a new generation of TV spots:

> We've got the rapper Dizzee Rascal doing "Happy Talk" from South Pacific on a music video (Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1949).
> Hampton Inns is using "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" from My Fair Lady in its commercials (Lerner and Loewe, 1956).
> Michael Bublé is pushing Starbucks coffee with "Come Fly With Me" (Cahn and Van Heusen, 1957).
> Paris Hilton is steaming up the airwaves with her Carl's Jr./Hardee's commercial set to "I Love Paris" from Can-Can (Cole Porter,
1953).
> Gwen Stefani's big hit right now is a riff on "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof (Bock and Harnick, 1964).

Rock and rap and hip-hop and alt-grunge-emo-techno-house may sell downloads by the millions these days, but the songs all of us relate to on the most elemental level are the songs written by the Jerry Hermans, the Frank Loessers, the Johnny Mercers, Harold Arlens, Yip Harburgs and George and Ira Gershwins of the world.

Near the end of WALL-E, when the beautiful robot named EVE has inadvertently replaced her beloved and battered WALL-E’s memory board in an attempt to revive him, we don’t want to hear “My Humps” or “My Milkshake” or “Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me.” We want exactly what the creators of WALL-E have given us, in a cinematic moment every bit as wrenching as E.T.’s promise to Eliot that “I’ll be right here” or Dorothy’s confession to the Scarecrow that “I think I’ll miss you most of all”:

And that is all that love’s about.
And we’ll recall, when time runs out,
That it only took a moment
To be loved a whole life long.

Okay, I’m crying again, like I did at the theater on Saturday night, but before I step away to get another Kleenex, I have two questions:

> Since it’s songs like these that America holds so closely to its collective heart, year after year—why isn’t anyone writing them anymore?
> And why has Jerry Herman not been awarded a Kennedy Center Honor?

Well?

Extreme Couponing 101

Years ago, I worked with a young man named Kirk who, on Monday mornings, would regale the office with stories of how much he had saved on groceries the previous day. He would bring in his receipts showing his 40, 50, even 60 percent savings versus the regular retail price of the items he’d bought.

I was skeptical. It seemed to me that in order to get those impressive totals, he had to buy a lot of frozen dinners, soy milk, and dog food, and I wasn’t so sure he really had a dog.

But I was also intrigued. I had clipped coupons from the Sunday newspaper for years, kept them organized, used them when they were about to expire, and faithfully used my Ralphs Club or Vons Club card once those two chains came out with their loyalty programs. But my receipts rarely reflected a savings of more than 20 percent.

I studied Kirk’s techniques. He collected coupons from multiple sources—he asked everyone he knew to bring him extras. At the time, Ralphs and Vons would double the value of three of the same coupon. (In other words, if you bought three widgets and you had three $1.00-off coupons for those widgets, you’d get $2.00 off each of the widgets.) If Kirk had more than three coupons for something, he’d divide his order in half and get more than three coupons doubled. He bought items he had coupons for when those items were on sale.

Under Kirk’s tutelage (he used to call me “Grasshopper”), I started saving 30 percent or better at the supermarket on a regular basis. I have an e-mail I sent him from September 2004 in which I bragged about saving 47.4% at Ralphs:

From $80.20 all the way down to $42.16, which got me two cans of almonds, six frozen dinners, two loaves of Sara Lee low-carb bread, twelve bars of Dove soap, and eight packages of Dentyne!

But that was still the exception, not the rule. Worse than that, who can possibly live on a diet of almonds, frozen dinners, low-carb bread and chewing gum? I was saving money but I wasn’t improving the quality of my life.

And I still wasn’t saving that much money. I look at that list of items I bought in September 2004 and realize that, today, I wouldn’t pay more than $20.00 for the lot of it.

My epiphany occurred on Sunday, January 29, 2006, when I read an article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise about an online service called The Grocery Game. Founded by a lady named Teri Gault, The Grocery Game promised to tell its subscribers when to use coupons to maximize savings—and when it was the optimum time to buy other groceries, even those for which there are no coupons, based on the service’s enormous database of historical pricing information.

Within a day I had signed up, and began my journey from Haphazard Coupon Clipper to Saving Maniac. In the last 29 months, I estimate that I have saved about $9,000.00 off the shelf price of the groceries, health and beauty aids and cleaning supplies I’ve bought at the supermarket. That’s at least $5,600.00 more than I would have saved using my old shopping strategies—and that includes the minimal amount I pay to subscribe to The Grocery Game and a couple of other resources. So far this year, I am averaging a 57.2% savings off the retail price of the groceries I buy. And:

§ I never shop at Wal-Mart, Costco or Sam’s Club.

§ I almost never buy generic or store-brand items.

§ We don’t eat a diet of hot dogs and ramen noodles—we eat ribeye steaks, boneless skinless chicken breasts, pork chops, fresh produce, quality vegetables and more.

§ We have enough brand-name shaving cream, razor blades, antiperspirant, shampoo, conditioner, dishwashing detergent, window cleaner, facial tissue, air freshener and more to last well into 2009. All of it was free or close to it.

Anyone can achieve the same kind of savings. Some people can save more—there are killer deals to be had on things we don’t use, like baby products, feminine-care items and pet supplies.

The soaring cost of diesel fuel has pushed up the price of groceries. The increasing cost of gasoline has made going to the supermarket a more expensive proposition in itself. If there ever was a time to reduce expenses, this is it.

Is it easy? Oh, heck, no. But it’s not hard. It requires:

§ An attitude adjustment.

§ Behavioral modification.

§ The right supplies and resources.

Fortunately for you, I am here—Grasshopper no longer but indeed, the Master. Welcome to Extreme Couponing.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

There are a lot of misconceptions about how to save money on groceries. You must purge yourself of the following unclean thoughts:

I hate to clip coupons. No, you don’t. You love it. You know you do. It’s physical therapy. It’s a craft project. It will keep you from smoking or biting your nails. Busy hands are happy hands.

There are never any coupons for the things I buy. Yes, there are. You have to know where to look. There are coupons out there for everything from organic produce to meat to booze. Believe me, I would know. And everyone uses toilet paper, Kleenex, shampoo, bar soap and deodorant. If you don’t, you really have more things to worry about than saving money at the grocery store.

And, actually, couponing is only part of the secret to saving significant money on your grocery bill. Knowing when to buy the groceries you want—whether you have a coupon for them or not—is equally important.

All of the coupons say I have to buy two items, and I only need one. Not all coupons require the purchase of multiple items, but some do, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Another key to shaving dollars from your receipt is to purchase multiple items that you can either freeze or store when they are on sale. Later on, when those items aren’t on sale, you won’t have to pay full price—you can just dip into your larder.

I’ll end up buying something I don’t want and don’t need, just because I have a coupon for it. If that’s the case, then, as H.B. Lewis once said to Reva Shayne on “The Guiding Light,” “You and temptation were made for each other.” You may end up trying something new, but that’s strictly up to you. Nobody is going to hold a gun to your head and make you buy something because there happens to be a coupon for it. Even me.

I don’t have the room to stockpile merchandise. Unless you’re living in a yurt, you do too have the room, or you can make the room.

I can save more money at Wal-Mart (or Costco, or Sam’s Club). Wal-Mart’s prices on groceries aren’t that good—especially on staples like canned goods. We’ve just been conditioned to believe they are through Wal-Mart’s advertising.

And the warehouse stores? Please. Unless you have a family the size of the Von Trapps and a freezer the size of Fort Knox, the bulk sizes they purvey will just result in a monotonous diet and monstrous waste—for which you have the privilege of paying $45.00 a year. Which would you rather have in your cupboard? A #10 can of Van Kamp’s Pork and Beans that you got for $3.99, or a regular-sized can of Bush’s Baked Beans that was free?

I only shop at Trader Joe’s (or Bristol Farms, or Whole Foods). Those stores are terrific for high-end gourmet meats and cheeses. Their prices on (and selection of) things like detergent, shampoo, and other cleaning and personal-care items are outrageous. Even if you just start buying those things at a regular supermarket or chain drug store, you’ll have more money to spend at T.J.’s for soybean-fed veal liver and Swiss cheese that’s so authentic it’s 90% holes.

Now, repeat after me:

I love to clip coupons.

I’m willing to work to find coupons for the things I buy, and use them when those things are on sale.

I won’t buy things I won’t use just because I have coupons for them.

I’ll stockpile freezables and non-perishables by buying them with coupons when they are on sale.

I shop at Wal-Mart, Costco or Sam’s not for groceries but for clothing, electronics and those occasions when I need 800 pounds of frozen shrimp.

I only shop at Trader Joe’s for the gourmet items I can’t buy anywhere else.

Very good. Let’s move on.

BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION

My parents always did their grocery shopping on Thursday nights. To this day, my sister does her primary shopping for her family of four on Thursday nights. There is no stopping her from this schedule.

It’s nice to have a routine, and it’s nice to do things at your convenience. But if you want to save big bucks at the supermarket, you may have to change your routine, and perhaps even shop at a less than ideal time. If your time is worth money, though, it may be worth the inconvenience.

Rule #1: Shop when the sales are. In Southern California, it pays to do your grocery shopping on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday each week.

The major chain supermarkets here (Ralphs, Vons and its upscale sibling Pavilions, Albertsons and Stater Bros.) begin a new sale week every Wednesday. They announce their sales in circulars that arrive in the Tuesday morning newspaper, or in some areas by mail, or that can be obtained in the stores themselves on Wednesday mornings. But while it may be tempting to go on a spending spree every Wednesday when the new sales begin, you must resist the urge to do so, for some very important reasons.

On Saturday afternoons, the Sunday newspapers come out on the newsstand, and they usually (but not always) include coupon inserts. Most coupons have expiration dates that are weeks or months away, and don’t need to be redeemed immediately. In fact, often it’s a good idea to wait, because there is no special sale price the day a given coupon arrives in the newspaper. However, just as often there is a sale on an item the day a coupon is issued. If you’ve already shopped sometime between Wednesday and Saturday, you may have missed an incredible bargain—forcing you either to make a special trip back to the store (not advisable with today’s gasoline prices) or to forgo the bargain altogether.

Occasionally, the Sunday papers also include advertisements from the supermarkets themselves, with special offers that are only good that Sunday morning until Tuesday night, before the new Wednesday sales begin.

Today’s Los Angeles Times, for example, included a special Vons insert with a number of three-day-only sale prices. One of them was for the 36-ounce bottle of Heinz ketchup—99 cents, limit one. I happened to have a coupon for 50 cents off any bottle of Heinz ketchup. Vons doubles coupons up to $1.00 in face value, not to exceed the sale price of the item, making my 50-cents-off coupon worth 99 cents, and making a big bottle of ketchup (not generic, not store-brand, not even Hunt’s, but Heinz—the real deal, baby) completely free. All I had to do was buy it on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday of this week. I managed to find the time.

The weekly supermarket ads tout the prices of only a few of the tens of thousands of items that a typical grocery store carries. There are also unadvertised sales that are going on inside the store. There are several Internet resources—The Grocery Game, Coupon Mom and Hot Coupon World among them—that employ armies of professional shoppers and volunteers to scour the markets every week for unadvertised sales. Naturally, it takes a while to compile that information, and the results of these surveys are usually not available (for Southern California stores) until Saturday afternoons. This is yet another reason that, in Southern California, it pays to shop on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, after you can find out about the unadvertised deals.

Rule #2: Develop a weekly budget and stick to it. Being childless males whose pets have all died, our budget is less than that of a household filled with infants, dogs, cats and menstruating females. So I can’t give you any guidelines on what your budget should be. But in developing it, you should include anything you’d normally purchase in a supermarket or drug store (excluding prescription drugs).

Rule #3: Plan your meals around what’s on sale this week. This is the most difficult change in behavior some people are likely to have to make. But it’s an absolute necessity, at least when you’re first trying to slash your grocery expenditures. Love fresh asparagus? So do I, but it’s $3.99 a pound this week, three bucks a pound more than it was a couple of weeks ago. This week, fresh green beans are on sale for 99 cents a pound, so they’ll be on our plates more often this week.

But this compromise gets better over time. It’s almost the Fourth of July, so naturally I have a hankering for spare ribs. Unfortunately, they were $2.49 a pound at Vons today. I could wait and buy them when they’re back down to $1.00 a pound, like they were a few weeks ago. But in fact, I don’t need to wait, because I have ten pounds of spare ribs left in the freezer from that sale.

Rule #4: After you’ve bought what you need for the week, use the rest of your weekly budget to stockpile sale items. Just as supermarkets run their weekly sales from Wednesday to Tuesday each week, they run seasonal sales as well. For instance, flour, sugar and other baking needs are cheapest in the fall, when folks start doing their holiday baking. Similarly, the time to get the best deals on hot dogs, mustard, barbecue sauce and the like is right now—the beginning of summer. Other products—paper goods, cleaning supplies, personal-care products—go through cycles of being on sale for a while, then going back to their regular prices.

So let’s say your budget is $100.00 a week, and you purchase $80.00 worth of food and things you’re out of. What to do with that remaining $20.00? Well, perhaps this week Dove shampoo and conditioner are on sale for a buck a bottle after coupons; Crest or Colgate toothpaste is on sale for 50 cents a tube after coupons; and Oral-B toothbrushes are free after coupon.

If you’ve collected enough coupons from enough sources, you can buy enough five bottles each of shampoo and conditioner, 16 or 17 tubes of toothpaste and as many toothbrushes as you’ve got coupons for. The remainder of your $20.00 will go to pay the tax on those items.

You may be thinking, Why would I need that much of that stuff? Well, you don’t need it now—but you will eventually. And isn’t it better to be able to reach into your cabinet and take out a tube of Crest you paid 50 cents for than to have to go to the store and buy it for $3.49?

Next week, the smoking hot deals may be on toilet paper and hamburger buns. So the remainder of your budget then will go toward those items. And so on and so forth, until you have approximately a three-month supply of all of your pantry, laundry room and bathroom staples.

The question becomes, Where do I get enough coupons to buy 50 bottles of Tabasco sauce for 17 cents each? And that will be next week’s lesson. Stay tuned!

Poll #2 Results

Don't worry, you morbid people who want to know the factors that led to the death of Oldsmobile and the impending death of the soap opera. All that material will be posted here eventually.

But, given the economy, it is perhaps no surprise that what more people want to read is how to save money on groceries through Extreme Couponing. Yesterday, Ralphs' new and more restrictive coupon policy was reported on the second page of the Los Angeles Times business section and the KTTV Ten O'Clock News (and probably elsewhere). And today, the L.A. Times business section reported the higher-than-expected earnings posted by the Kroger Compnay, Ralphs' corporate parent. The story attributed part of the company's strong performance to its new "lower prices" strategy, already implemented elsewhere around the country.

Hmmm. Lower prices, higher profits? What, they make it up in volume? I've done my own informal survey of the new "lower" prices at Ralphs, and from what I can tell so far, lower is the new higher. Saving money is going to be tougher than ever -- but it can be done. Expect the first installment later this week.

New poll will be posted as soon as its subject comes to me through hallucination, divine osmosis or random inspiration.

Restaurant Review: Cafe Sevilla

Four of us went to Café Sevilla on Saturday night and it was the best experience I've ever had at this downtown Riverside hot spot.

In the past, I've been to the dinner show, where the menu is limited and your meal is accompanied by (depending on the night of the week) tango, salsa or flamenco dancing.

If you're particularly sensitive to the sound of pounding feet, you might want to steer clear of flamenco night.

Because of the limited menu, the strict seating times, the cost (you're paying for dinner and a show) and the fact that they want you out the door as soon as the show is over (because the dinner show venue becomes the disco later at night), I've always tended to think of Café Sevilla as overrated -- a tourist spot, Medieval Times with more sophisticated entertainment.

And while we'd had drinks in the upstairs bar on a couple of occasions, I'd never eaten off the regular menu there until Saturday night. I now have a much greater appreciation for Café Sevilla and its charms.

I still can't say I've had dinner there, because the four of us decided to order a bunch of tapas instead of individual appetizers and entrees. That strategy proved to be successful, for a number of reasons.

First, the menu itself. It is almost overwhelming in the choices it offers. We could barely get through reading all of the tapas and tapitas items before our server was there, letting us know the evening's specials. It was ever so much easier for us each to name a couple of appetizers for us to share than to try to navigate through all of the entree and paella selections.

Second, the tapas choices covered virtually every taste imaginable. We had everything from filet mignon to a seafood empanada, along with octopus, meatballs (two orders), lambchops (two orders), a potato tart and two kinds of bread (each with two kinds of dipping sauce). Why settle on a total of four dishes when we could sample eight?

Service was friendly and fairly prompt -- and for the most part accurate. One member of our party had considered ordering the olive tray appetizer, and was disappointed to learn that she had to choose one type of olive; she was hoping more for a sampler tray. Our waiter told her, sotto voce, "Don't worry, I'll get you some olives." He never did.

While we didn't get one dish we'd expected, we did get another dish we hadn't. One young server brought us a plate of crab cakes that we didn't think we'd ordered. But many of the menu items are listed with their unusual Spanish names, so maybe we had ordered them. I asked, "What are they called on the menu?" He said, "Um . . . I think they're called crab cakes." Off he went to find their proper owners.

I have to admit I didn't try the octopus or the seafood empanada, but everything else was terrific -- and filling. I had expected to need to order copious amounts of hors d'oeuvres to feel like I'd had dinner, but that was not the case. Rule of thumb: two-and-a-half tapas per person will fill you up at Sevilla.

Best of all: We each had one cocktail, and the total bill came to just over $100. Not bad for all of that food, especially in an upscale, convivial atmosphere.

Now I can see why Café Sevilla -- despite the meltdown of the economy -- remains a busy dining destination in Riverside.

Ambience: 4 (out of 5). Spacious, open loft-like feel; dark enough that each table feels intimate; plenty of Spanish artifacts for atmosphere.

Service: 4 (out of 5). We did not have reservations on a busy Saturday night at 8:00, but we were still seated promptly. Service was friendly, courteous, fairly prompt and almost completely accurate.

Food: 8 (out of 10). Very fresh and tasty. Huge selection. Good portion sizes. I am not all that familiar with Spanish food, so I can't tell you how authentic it is. But it tasted bueno to me.

Value: 4 (out of 5). Four cocktails, ten appetizers, and the tally was about $107 plus tip. For good food in an upscale atmostphere, I think that's a terrific value.

Total: 20 (out of 25)--that's about a B+.

Café Sevilla, 3252 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA 92507. (951) 778-0611.

When Worlds Collide -- The Sequel

The Curtain Call Performing Arts Academy—or, as I think of it, Noah Darling’s Stairway to Stardom—is located in Corona, California, about 50 minutes from the office and about 25 minutes from home. This is Southern California, after all, where everything is an hour’s drive from everything else, and where no one you work with lives anywhere near you, and where no one you live by works anywhere near you either.

So I left work a little early on Monday in order to be at this Juilliard of the West in plenty of time for my first class, “Introduction to Singing, Ages 18 and Up.”

The teacher, “Miss Jessica,” was still finishing up her previous class (“Pop Idols, Ages Six to Nine,” I think) when I arrived, so I cooled my heels in the lobby and picked up a copy of Reader’s Digest.

I was a little nervous. No, not about Reader’s Digest—although honestly, when does anyone ever read that magazine except while waiting to have something poked, probed, examined or extracted? I was nervous about taking this class. But, I reasoned, how many people could I really be about to embarrass myself in front of? This was the academy’s first day in business! Yes, it appeared that all of the faculty seemed already to have students, perhaps from their prior careers as private teachers, but still—how big a class could this possibly be?

The Reader’s Digest no longer has its index on the back cover, and I was deep in contemplation of that when I heard a female voice aimed squarely in my direction, saying, “Hi, neighbor!”

I looked up, and who should be standing there but Donna E.—the vice president of our homeowners’ association. Yes, our homeowners’ association, for our housing development, which is not there in Corona but is 25 minutes away, in the Greater Unincorporated Riverside/Rubidoux/Pedley/Glen Avon Metroplex.

Our first duet was a chorus of “What Are You Doing Here?” It goes like this:

What are you doing here?
I’m taking a class.
Which old class?
The singing class.

How do you know Noah?
My daughter’s been his student for years.
How do you know Noah?
He sings karaoke at the bar for queers.

So, Donna was not just there to pick her daughter up from “Tapping for Toddlers, Ages Three to Five”—she was there to take the exact same class I had signed up for.

By this time, the other students had begun to assemble in the lobby. It was evident that they all knew one another, and we all knew Donna. It turns out that she is not only the vice president on the board of the Sunset Ridge Homeowners’ Association—she’s also the treasurer on the board of Noah Darling’s Stairway to Stardom. When it comes to winning elective office, Hillary Clinton could learn a thing or two from this woman.

Despite my tenuous connections to both Noah and Donna—I’ve met both of them maybe half a dozen times—I was starting to feel distinctly out of place. The whole place had a whiff of “Desperate Housewives” about it. And to think, now it could become a topic of casual conversation at the next homeowners’ association meeting.

Well, we all—six of us, three men, three women—shuffled into Miss Jessica’s classroom at that point, there to begin our first lesson. Miss Jessica had written a workbook for us, which she distributed, and then she sat at her Casio keyboard and read it aloud to us.

We started with breathing techniques. It turns out that when you breathe for singing, your ribcage is supposed to expand. You mean, you want me to look even fatter?

Soon, though, she had us on our feet to do bending and stretching exercises, which might burn some calories and compensate for the wider waistband, and not long after we were doing vocalises up and down the scale:

Ng-ahh, ng-ahh, ng-ahh, ng-ahh
Loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrb!

“Desperate Housewives,” hell. This was more like “The Ding-Dong School.”

Actually, the hour flew by, and although I don’t think I really learned anything, I think I will, in coming weeks.

Back in the lobby, there was Donna’s husband, Angel, who was as surprised to see me as I had been to see his wife an hour earlier. He was there to pick up Madison, their daughter, who’d been in the monitored playroom while her mother was bending over going “Ng-ahh, ng-ahh, ng-ahh!”

And why wouldn’t Donna be taking Madison home herself? That became clear from the conversation going on behind me—the other students talking with Noah. It seems that Donna would be joining everyone for Karaoke Night

“Chip, are you going?” asked someone—Donna or Noah, who knows.

“Where?”

“To karaoke at the Menagerie? We’re all going!”

No, no, no, no, no!

I’ve always tried to lead a nice, compartmentalized life. I’ve got my work life, I’ve got my karaoke life, I’ve got my family life, all in neat and discrete little boxes. The first time this happened—when Jaime, the karaoke host at the time, introduced me to his new girlfriend, whom I knew from the human resources department at work—I thought my head would explode. How does this person I know from one context suddenly know all of my friends in this completely different context?

Now I won’t be able to go to a homeowners’ association meeting without the feeling that the neighbors now know how badly I sing. Now I won’t be able to go to karaoke without worrying that I’m going to be told to be sure to get my trash cans out by 6:00 on Tuesday morning.

When worlds collide—the sequel!

The gang from Noah Darling’s Stairway to Stardom didn’t show up for karaoke until about 9:30 that night. By that time I had been doing some vocalises that Miss Jessica hadn’t covered in class, mostly involving Michelob Ultra and shots of Jack Daniel’s.

When it was my turn to sing again, I thought, Why play coy? This is my bar, dammit; I’ve been singing in here on Monday nights for 15 years and I’m not about to start singing crap like “Desperado” and “Tequila” because I think it will increase my cool quotient. You’re on my turf, now, bitch! I’m the vice-president, treasurer and chairman of the board of this association!

So in honor of Monday being the first day of (at least temporarily) legal gay marriage in California, I belted out “I Am What I Am,” and I couldn’t tell you if my ribcage expanded or not and I don’t care! Take that!

And then I left.

Singing class is exhausting.

"Mamma Mia!" Sneak Preview -- The Conclusion

My friend "John M." (not his real name) has completed his review of Mamma Mia! Despite a gestation period longer than the title character endured with her daughter, here is the conclusion -- and it's still a month in advance of the opening of the movie. You read it here first, people!

- Colin Firth (Harry): While Ms. Baranski channeled her high-class, boozing floozy to the small island with grace, Mr. Firth was able to do likewise with his quiet, likeable, lovelorn, slightly-off-center everydayman. Harry is the kind of character that brings to mind Harvey Fierstein: I just want to be loved, is that so wrong?

As with most of the leads in the film, Firth does a good job in the singing department. But it's his nonabrasive, man-child-like demeanor that makes Harry enjoyable to watch. I found myself rooting for the man when, at the end of the film, he finds his true love, and what a hunk of love he is.

The film did leave me wanting: Wanting more shots of the young men dancing with scuba diving flippers. Wanting more panoramic scenes of the cast. Wanting less of that "oogy" feeling whenever Brosnan started singing.

While this review may seem a bit harsh, Mamma Mia! is nevertheless a film to experience. Despite all the niggling negatives about it, you can't leave the theatre without a smile on your face.

Thoughts on the 2008 Tony Awards

What? You mean there was a basketball game on TV last night?

I mean, I knew I was going to miss “The Next Food Network Star” and “HGTV Design Star” because of the Tony Awards broadcast, but the NBA Finals? I had no idea. They sure didn’t promote that very much, did they?

Despite the hype, the Tonys only managed to average a 4.3 rating and an 8 share in the Nielsen overnights. I guess those cable reality shows really pulled in the viewers. So if you were among those who were watching Bobby Flay and Clive Pearse (or, incredibly, Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson), here are some highlights from the American Theatre Wing’s 62nd Annual Antoinette Perry Awards:

The opening: The show started with the famous “Circle of Life” number from The Lion King. Now, if that doesn’t tell you something about the state of new Broadway musicals, I don’t know what does. The Lion King opened in 1997. What? The producers didn’t think there was anything from this season—hell, anything from this century—that could lure viewers in? Sad.

Whoopi Goldberg as host: Her theatrical cred is a little lacking (she did replace Nathan Lane in the Broadway revival of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but the Tony she “won” was as one of the 632 producers of 2002’s Best Musical winner, Thoroughly Modern Millie), but not everyone is Hugh Jackman or Angela Lansbury.

Whoopi’s entrance was intended to mimic her best-known turn as host of the Oscars, in 1999, when she came on stage in full Queen Elizabeth I/Shakespeare in Love regalia. This time, at the end of the Lion King number, she entered clad as Sebastian the Crab from Disney’s stage production of The Little Mermaid. The gag was that she had dressed for the wrong Disney show. Funny, but the shtick didn’t lead into a Billy Crystal-like monologue; it was rushed and pointless.

Another Whoopi moment was equally uncomfortable (when she brought a presenter onstage and then excused herself because she “had to pee”—kind of tacky for the Tonys). But most of her other bits—in which she was shown as part of the cast of current Broadway shows—were inspired. I especially enjoyed her being flown on as Mary Poppins and trying to sing the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera.

Whoopi was at her best when she introduced the four snippets of scenes from the shows nominated for Best Play. She displayed infectious enthusiasm for the shows and real love for the theater.

The Tonys, which have not had a regular host since 2005, could do a lot worse than to invite Whoopi Goldberg back again next year.

Scenes from the Nominated Musicals: A mixed bag. I loved the number from Cry-Baby, with the inmates dancing with license plates instead of tap shoes on their feet. Passing Strange, a rock concert with a minimal autobiographical plot written in part by its self-indulgent star, the mono-named “Stew,” came off as loud and repetitive. In the Heights offered up its title song, an ingratiating production number that requires you to believe that New York Latinos speak in African-American urban hip-hop dialect. The stage version of the flop-turned-camp-classic Xanadu is not a faithful re-creation of the movie, but a parody of it. You’d never know from the dead-serious approach the cast took to the title song. It looked less like a loving send-up of camp than it did just a truly bad musical.

Scenes from the Non-Nominated Musicals: Several newly mounted or revived shows this season were well received either by critics or by audiences, but not by both, and thus found themselves passed over by the Tony nominating committee. These shows were given the opportunity to strut their stuff last night, again with mixed results. The normally reliable Faith Prince was off-key in the extreme with a ballad from A Catered Affair that one might call “subtle and understated.” Or one might call “boring.” There was nothing boring about Sierra Boggess singing “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. She floated around the stage on her wheelies, with a tail on her that bobbed and weaved so much I got seasick. It was an unintentional hoot. On the other hand, Megan Mulally was a completely intentional hoot singing “Deep Love” from Young Frankenstein. She made me want to see the show.

Scenes from the Nominated Revivals: Other than Grease (whose title song was sung amateurishly and staged unimaginatively), the nominated revivals came across better than anything else on the Great White Way last night. The medley of three songs from South Pacific (“There is Nothing like a Dame,” “Some Enchanted Evening” and “A Wonderful Guy”) proved why Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein will be cultural giants long after “Stew” has boiled over. I was shocked to see Act Two George portrayed as gay in the revival of Sunday in the Park with George, but this legitimate choice gave Daniel Evans a chance to amp up his emotions in his too-brief duet of “Move On” with Jenna Russell. (I hope Evans is butching it up in Act One, though.)

Finally, of course, there was Patti LuPone in “the role she was born to play,” Mama Rose in Gypsy. Belting out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” La LuPone was every bit the force of nature she’s been reported to be—and that the role of Rose demands. Thrilling. It was the highlight of the show for me. (As opposed to her acceptance speech later on, when she appeared to carp at the Tony voters for not having won since 1980.)

Speaking of Acceptance Speeches: I have to say I have a problem with non-African-Americans rapping and employing the sounds and gestures of urban hip-hop youth. It was embarrassing when Vanilla Ice did it, and it’s no more authentic sounding when it comes from the mouth of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote and stars in In the Heights. Looking all shocked that he won for Best Score, he launched into a rap about the show that belied his surprised expression. Even his shout-out to Stephen Sondheim (“Look, Mr. Sondheim, I made a hat / Where there never was a hat / A Latin hat at that”) seemed, like his reference to “my man Cole Porter” in the show’s title song, a mere contrivance intended to convince the Broadway establishment of his respect for the great songwriters of the past.

Sondheim himself had an acceptance speech to give, for a Lifetime Achievement Tony, but he wasn’t in attendance, so he had the ever-strange Mandy Patinkin (sporting the beard of a Hasidic Jew) read it for him. It was humble, gracious and forthright: He acknowledged that, as he ages, he is terribly afraid of not living up to the expectations such an award bestows. But he promised achievements yet to come. I believe he’ll deliver.

The award for Strangest Acceptance Speech of the Last, oh, Millennium or So went to Mark Rylance, who won Best Actor in a Play for his role in Boeing-Boeing. His apparent ramblings about appropriate attire in various circumstances were actually a recitation of a “prose poem,” though he didn’t identify it by title or author. It’s “Back Country,” by the obscure Midwestern poet Louis Jenkins, though for millions it will always just be the weird actor’s weird acceptance speech:

“When you are in town, wearing some kind of uniform is helpful, policeman, priest, etc. Driving a tank is very impressive, or a car with official lettering on the side. If that isn't to your taste you could join the revolution, wear an armband, carry a homemade flag tied to a broom handle, or a placard bearing an incendiary slogan.

"At the very least you should wear a suit and carry a briefcase and a cell phone, or wear a team jacket and a baseball cap and carry a cell phone. If you go into the woods, the back country, someplace past all human habitation, it is a good idea to wear orange and carry a gun, or, depending on the season, carry a fishing pole, or a camera with a big lens. Otherwise it might appear that you have no idea what you are doing, that you are merely wandering the Earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go”

It might have worked, because the eventual implication was that Rylance had achieved success as an actor in part by disguising his fear of inadequacy. But by the time Rylance reached the last lines, the orchestra was playing the walk-off music and the audience was left dumbstruck.

Presenters: Only two worthy of note. Gabriel Byrne began by saying, “I’m pleased to announce the nominees for . . .,” but throughout the minute or so he was on stage he looked anything but pleased. Medicated, maybe. Pleased? I’d hate to see him when he’s pissed off.

Liza Minnelli looked trim and terrific. I wish they’d let her perform, instead of just presenting an award.

Overall: The show was a fast-paced three hours filled with the kind of energy, silliness, talent, frustration, spectacle and power that make Broadway theater much more exciting to me than any basketball game -- or even any cable reality show -- ever.

Poll #1 Results

As Bud Collyer used to say, "The votes are all in; the minds are made up." And it was a landslide. Watch for "Project Runway" reviews here once the new season starts next month. They'll be fierce.

New poll at right . . .

Game Show Redemption

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a review of the new "Million Dollar Password" (click on the title of this entry to read), which has proven to be a pretty substantial hit for CBS this summer (placing third and sixth in the prime-time Nielsens in its first two broadcasts). My two main criticisms were:

> No Betty White. This woman is the only star who has appeared on every version of the show since it first premiered in 1961. Give her her due, and put her on there first. In her place we got Rachael Ray, who given 30 seconds can whip up dinner but not a synonym for it.

> The absence of the original elimination-round format, in which one word is "passed" from team to team until it is guessed. (As my friend Philip pointed out, without that feature, it's not really "Password"; they might as well call it "Guessword.")

The Tony Awards broadcast will pre-empt "Million Dollar Password" next Sunday. So to keep the show's momentum going, CBS scheduled an airing last night, in the plum Thursday timeslot reserved during the regular season for "Survivor."

Having watched the special showing last night, now I understand. And to CBS, Fremantle Media, and the spirits of Goodson and Todman, I say this: I not only forgive you, I salute you.

The celebrity guests were an actress from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" named Susie Essman, and the aforementioned Ms. White. Ahhh -- so CBS saved the Betty White episode for a timeslot that the network has dominated for the last seven years.

At the top of the show, Regis Philbin pointed out that Betty had been a guest on the original "Password" and then proceeded to fall in love with and marry its emcee, Allen Ludden. And Betty White explained: "I slept with the host of this show for a long time. Reege . . . what are you doing?"

Her comic timing, perfected on the Mary Tyler Moore show and "The Golden Girls," is still razor sharp. And she came up with plenty of laughs throughout the hour, as the game's tension mounted: "I'll have a vodka and soda, please." "Regis, I'm too old for this!" And to Regis's comment that she wasn't bad for an old broad: "Well, you're half right."

Better yet, Betty White's legendary gameplaying abilities have only marginally diminished with time. As a receiver of clues, she appears to have a slight hearing problem that slowed her down in a couple of rounds. But as a giver? She's brilliant. Over the two rounds of the show, which required each celebrity to give clues four times, I believe she and her teammate scored the maximum five out of five every time.

In the first half of the show, Susie Essman reached the Million Dollar Round only because she was the last celebrity to have played with the winning contestant; Susie and Betty had both scored an equal number of points for him. Susie proved to be a better player than I expected; she and her teammate reached the $100,000 level, and the contestant decided to go home with that amount rather than risking it for a quarter of a million dollars.

The second Elimination Round ended with a 17-17 tie, and that's where "Million Dollar Password" completed its rehabilitation. Regis said, "As you know, when there's a tie, we play Classic Password as a tiebreaker. Each team will have the same password, and if the first team doesn't guess it on one clue, it will pass to the second team, and so on and so forth until a team guesses the word. That team will go on to play the Million Dollar Round."

Yes! The challenge, the consternation, the comedy that the original game offered are still there! They've been relegated to the tiebreaker, but so what? That almost elevates the importance of the original format, without compromising the fast pace of the modern edition.

If you didn't see the show, I'll let you play along. Susie Essman's team went first. The contestants were giving the clues.

S.E.'s partner: "Container."

S.E.: "Tupperware."

"Tupperware" was not the correct answer, so the action shifted to Betty White's team.

B.W.'s partner: "Hot."

Betty White, somehow, guessed the password. The answer's at the end of this post.

And so Betty found herself in the Million Dollar Round, where her teammate, an "interfaith minister," elected to give the clues. This is not the decision I would have made, given Betty's success at giving and her reduced ability to hear every clue. Nonetheless, they reached the $100,000 level, and where the contestant gave this brilliant succession of clues on the last of the five words:

Contestant: "Butterfly."

B.W.: "Uh, uh . . . bird."

Contestant: "Chrysalis."

B.W.: "Cocoon!"

And with that, the interfaith minister had $100,000 in her collection plate, and Regis asked Betty if she thought she should risk it for the chance to win $250,000. Betty said, "I think she should take the money and run like a thief." Which is exactly what the contestant did. The studio audience cheered, and in at least one house in Riverside, California, so did the home audience.

Yes, it's only a game show, but last night's episode of "Million Dollar Password" was also nostalgic and respectful (at one point, the studio audience was chanting, "Bet-ty! Bet-ty!") and encouraging and uplifting: The old broad's still got it. I hope when I'm her age I do too.

By the way, the password was . . .

Thermos.

(Did you guess it? I wouldn't have gotten it until someone said "insulated." Here's to you, Betty White.)

Sing Out, Louise

After years of assaulting the eardrums of my friends, fellow patrons and assorted drunks on Karaoke Night at my local watering hole -- and after realizing how important it is to try to make the world a better place -- I have decided to take singing classes.

I'd thought about this for years. When I retire, I should . . . Sometimes that sentence might end learn Spanish, sometimes go on a trip around the world, sometimes take up origami, but more often than not it was take singing classes.

What prompted me to make the move now, dozens and dozens of years before I'm even eligible to retire, was the encouragement of one of my fellow singers on Karaoke Night at that local watering hole. I'll call him "Noah," because that's his name. Noah is a teacher at a newly opened non-profit performing arts academy in that well known birthplace of the stars, Corona, California.

Now, I realize that when Noah is encouraging me (or anybody else) to sign up for Introduction to Singing, Adult Jazz Dance, or any of the other courses this place offers, he's actually just drumming up business. I am not foolish or vain enough to believe that this will bring me the adoration of millions by the end of the summer. Surely that will take at least six months.

But I do understand that, even though I have been lifting my voice in the brotherhood of song for nearly 20 years now, I have absolutely no training whatsoever. I don't know how to breathe diaphragmatically. I don't know how to sing in my "head voice." I can't harmonize. I am incapable of singing softly; I can only belt. So even if (and this is a big "if") taking a singing class doesn't lead to crooner superstardom, what can it hurt? I might enjoy Karaoke Night at my local watering hole even more. Better yet, the audiences there might enjoy it more, too.

So off I went late yesterday afternoon to Curtain Call Performing Arts Academy to sign up. Noah graciously gave me a tour of the place, which is still under a fair amount of construction but which will, upon completion, incorporate a dance studio, a costume shop, a piano recital room, a children's play area, and a 99-seat theater. I already think of it as the Chip Bowl.

Then he had me fill out the application, which called for me to state my age and put down the month, day and year of my birth. Well, I put down the actual month, day and year of my birth, but as for age, I wrote in "39." If they want to know how old I really am, goddammit, they can do the subtraction themselves.

Shockingly, my application was accepted immediately! And so Noah turned me over to the staff singing instructor, Jessica, to "scale" me or something like that. No, scaling is what you do to fish, isn't it? Maybe it was "do a range" on me. What she wanted to find out was how high I could get (check me out on a Friday night) and how low I could go (I'm blogging about my singing lessons, how much lower could anyone go?).

Like everyone named Jessica since the death of Miss Tandy, this Jessica is young and beautiful, and also six months pregnant. Jessica handed me a piece of sheet music and asked me if I knew what one particular little black hamburger printed on it represented.

"Um, that would be an 'A.'"

"And do you know what kind of a note that is?"

"Um, that's an eighth note."

"Good. You can read music."

Oh, yes, in exactly the same way a functional illiterate can read a stop sign. Just enough to get past the driving test. But it was sufficient to satisfy Jessica.

Then she moved to her Casio keyboard and played a note. She asked me to sing it back to her.

Well, that's not as easy to do as it sounds. When it comes to shopping, I'm a gatherer. When it comes to singing, I'm a hunter. But I tracked down the note she was playing eventually, and then we went up the scale, tone by tone. And none too far, either, let me tell you.

Then we went back to that first note and went down the scale. You won't be surprised to learn that, these days, it's easier for me to go down than it is for me to get up.

Then she played three or four random notes at a time and asked me to sing them back to her. I'd circle around those notes, zero in on them, and then flatten them good. Either it's a short test or she just gave up, because suddenly, boom -- I was done.

She felt the need to discuss me with Noah. This couldn't be good.

"Well, he's a bass-baritone," she started.

A bass and a baritone? You mean, I'm twice as bad as I thought?

"He goes from C to the F above middle C."

Is that my range, or my high school phys-ed grades?

"At first, I was thinking he should take the Introduction to Singing class, but now I'm inclined to believe . . ."

Noah finished Jessica's sentence. "Private lessons?"

Jessica: "Yes."

Noah: "Mmhmm."

It was like standing in the doctors' consultation room as the specialist told my G.P. that, sure enough, my condition was both acute and chronic, and amputation couldn't be avoided.

Private lessons? How will we tell the children?

After a little more discussion, though, along with an accounting of the pricing (lessons just happen to cost more than the class) and a review of the syllabus (and my humble protestations that I really don't know anything about anything), the prescribed course of treatment went back to: "You should take the class."

As an added bonus, by paying for the class in advance, I am also entitled to one free month of tap-dancing lessons! Please, hold your applause.

Needless to say, I not only signed on the dotted line and paid in advance, I immediately went home and cleared a place on the mantle for my Tony Award.

The first class is Monday afternoon at 5:30. The semester ends with a recital (of songs from the 1930s and '40s! right up my antique alley!) on Friday, August 22. Realistically, I should have an agent by Labor Day and be able to start my national tour before Christmas.

And to think I was going to wait until I retired . . .

More "Mamma Mia!"

My friend "John M." (not his real name) evidently writes his movie reviews the way Charles Dickens used to publish his novels -- in serial format. Here's Part Two of his preview of Mamma Mia!

Now that we've covered the female leads, let's take a look and see how the males:

- Stellan Skarsgård (Bill): I don't know a lot about Mr. Skarsgård's past work. IMDB lists the multitude of films the actor has been in. Who knows, he may also have a Saab commercial under his belt. As the adventurous world traveler Bill, Stellan gives a middle-of-the-road performance as one of the possible fathers to Donna's illegitimate daughter. He cruises through the movie, acting and singing, without really leaving an impact on the viewer, other than the comedic performance during "Take a Chance on Me."

You know what it is? The viewer never gets to really know Bill. Actually, I, as the viewer, never felt a connection to most of the main characters. There was never a time I felt compelled to root for any of them. In the film's defense, it is hard to feel for a eight characters in a 120-minute movie that depicts the goings-on of a 36-hour period. I felt the part of Bill seemed smaller in the film than in the stage musical.

- Pierce Brosnan (Sam): Let's say you're an ABBA addict, or a Mamma Mia! maven, or maybe a film aficionado. You see that British actor Pierce Brosnan is going to be in the film adaptation of Mamma Mia. Your first thought may be: "PIERCE BROSNAN IS IN MAMMA MIA!!!" Or it may be: "That Bond guy who was in Mrs. Doubtfire is doing Mamma Mia!???" My thought before seeing the film was the former. After seeing the film, it is the latter.

All the ingredients were there: debonair man, distinctive voice, worldly charm. But as I have learned from watching "Top Chef," all the ingredients can be there, and Tom Colicchio will still call the end result bland and unsatisfying. While Mr. Brosnan is a good actor, and easy on the eyes, it was his performance in the musical portions that made me a bit uneasy. It wasn't that the man is a bad singer, it's that there was a lack of connection with the audience. Yes, I know it's a movie. Nevertheless, a celluloid actor has the ability to connect with the audience. When I saw the film adaptation of Chicago, I felt for Roxie and each musical performance intensified it.

Here. . . not so much. The best example was when he and Ms. Streep sang "S.O.S." During that number, I felt as uncomfortable watching it as I do during various scenes of "The Office." Unfortunately, a total and unequivocal miscast.

Coming up next: "John M."'s assessment of Colin Firth's performance and his overall summary of the film. Hopefully we'll get this before the film actually opens, but you know how these multi-part epics can drag out . . .

"Mamma Mia!" Sneak Preview

My friend "John M." (not his real name), a multi-talented guy who counts freelance writing among his many skills, had the opportunity to attend a sneak preview of the Mamma Mia! movie at the Arclight in Hollywood last night.

ABBA fans, it looks like you're in for a treat. Here's what "John" has to say:

The movie stays true to the stage musical, except they didn't have the "dream sequence" that bridges Acts I and II. I was disappointed because that's my favorite song of the whole show. The location shots were amazing.

- Meryl Streep (Donna): What a treat! The girl can sing! Of course, La Streep's acting performance is spot on as the neurotic mother. She definitely doesn't look glamorous in this role, wearing denim overalls that seemed to have been fitted for a human-sized pear throughout most of the film. Her dancing leaves a bit to be desired. On the subject of dancing, the overall choreography was good, but there were times [during the production numbers] that the dancers looked more like first-graders at recess.

- Christine Baranski (Tanya): The most enjoyable female character to watch. Any middle-aged actress would give up her collaged-infused lips for this part. Ms. Baranski uses her oft-used high-society, boozing floozy character to play what? A high-society, boozing floozy. She sings, she dances, she lights up the screen whenever she's on. She commands the screen during "Does Your Mother Know?" without looking pompous. Every time the three ladies would perform, my eyes were on Ms. Baranski.

- Julie Walters (Rosie): The lady who played Rosie in the stage musical was brilliant, absolutely stealing the show whenever she was on. While Ms. Walters' rendition of Rosie was not as compelling, she was nevertheless enjoyable to watch. Her British accent threw me every time she opened her mouth. While the six-continent casting of the film is marketing brilliance, I found the idea of one of Donna's old-time best friends to be a Brit a bit confusing. Just must be my small-town thinking.

New Ralphs Coupon Policy Effective Next Week?

There's an unsubstantiated rumor floating around the blogosphere that Ralphs, the Southern California grocery chain, will be changing its coupon redemption policy next week (presumably on Wednesday, June 18).

Currently, Ralphs doubles coupons with a face value of up to $1.00, and "doubles" the first dollar on coupons with values over that. So a 50-cent coupon is worth $1.00; a 75-cent coupon is worth $1.50; a $1.00 coupon is worth $2.00; a $1.50 coupon is worth $2.50.

Not for long.

If the rumor is true, starting next week, Ralphs will double coupons with a face value up to 50 cents, will "double" the value of coupons worth from 51 to 99 cents up to an even $1.00, and will redeem coupons with values of $1.00 or more at their face values. So a 50-cent coupon will still be worth $1.00, but a 75-cent coupon will be worth $1.00; a $1.00 coupon will be worth $1.00; and a $1.50 coupon will be worth $1.50.

This is a smart marketing move on the part of Ralphs, because it allows the company to recoup some of its lost revenue without increasing shelf prices. The cost of diesel fuel, and the upcoming worldwide shortage of wheat, corn, soybean and rice crops, will continue to force price increases and erode profits in the supermarket industry (which operates on notoriously small margins to begin with).

Unfortunately, this new policy -- which will no doubt be copied by Vons, as the two companies tend to mirror one another's coupon policies in Southern California -- is going to make it even tougher than it already is to afford groceries during this recession.

I believe it can still be done. I believe savvy consumers will still be able to identify pricing trends and buy groceries when they are at low, low prices. It's just going to take more work. More than work, actually. It's going to take advanced, aggressive, extreme couponing.

As someone who regularly saves 55% off the regular retail price of everything in the grocery store, I have some tips to share. And I will share them all here in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, Coupon Clippers of Southern California, to you I say this: Go through your files! Identify those 55-cent- to $1.00-and-more coupons you've got stashed away. It looks like you've got until next Tuesday night to get true "double coupon" value for them.

Shop, my people!

"A Chorus Line" at the Ahmanson: For Dance: Ten, For Acting: Three

The first time I ever cried while watching a theatrical production was in 1979, at a performance of A Chorus Line on Broadway. After spending two hours hearing the heart-wrenching stories of 17 dancers vying for eight spots in the ensemble of a new musical, and having felt kicked in the gut when I saw which ones had been selected (and which ones hadn't), when the finale began -- presumably showing us the eight successful auditioners in costume in the big number they'd been rehearsing all night -- and all of 17 of them were in the chorus after all -- oh, children, I was a goner.

It hit me like the moment in E.T. when Eliot mourns his friend's death and then the little alien's stomach glows red. He's not dead after all! Gets me every time.

I saw the original Broadway production of Chorus Line one more time in the early 1980s and, other than occasionally playing the cast album, that's been the extent of my exposure to the show over the last 25 years. (After reading the ghastly reviews, I steered clear of the movie version.) So when Mike -- who's never seen the show or the movie -- and I went to see the touring company of the current Broadway revival last night at the Ahmanson, I was ready for us both to shed a few tears.

I got a little choked up at the end, but Mike remained dry-eyed.

Why? How could a show that I thought was a guaranteed two-hankie affair for even the most callous theatergoer leave neither one of us searching for a Kleenex?

The current Broadway production, on which this tour is based, is not so much a revival as it is a faithful re-creation of the original. The book, music and lyrics; the lighting, the sets, the orchestrations; even the costumes are identical. The show remains firmly set in 1975, and for a dramatically legitimate reason. To update the show eight years, to 1983, would have resulted in no updating at all. But to update it to 1984 or any year thereafter would have required confronting the issue of AIDS, which devastated the community of Broadway dancers and which didn't even exist 33 years ago. Sadly, four of the show's creators (Michael Bennett, who conceived, directed and choreographed the show; book writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante; and lyricist Edward Kleban) have all died, two of them (Bennett and Dante) from AIDS themselves.

Viewed as a period piece, though, surprisingly little in A Chorus Line seems dated. Sure, there are references to 42nd Street as a seedy neighborhood that probably make little sense to younger audience members who know it only as a family-friendly Disney wonderland. And the presence of only one African-American in such a group of hopefuls would be mighty unlikely in today's post-Gregory-Hines-Savion-Gl0ver-and-hip-hop world.

But the individual stories of the dancers -- their frequently unhappy childhoods, their invariably confusing adolescences, their adult fears and joys -- touch universal and timeless themes. The book and score still develop characters as endearing, entertaining and sometimes heartbreaking in 2008 as they were in 1975.

Marvin Hamlisch's music and Kleban's lyrics still impress. The score may include a ballad that was obviously written to be a hit outside the show ("What I Did for Love") and a production number that's not nearly as melodic as the Jerry Herman showstoppers it's intended to evoke ("One"), but it remains beautifully integrated with the book and counts among its gems two perfectly crafted character songs, "At the Ballet" and "Nothing." Jonathan Tunick's orchestrations are completely fresh, but then, after all, they're Jonathan Tunick orchestrations.

Fortunately, the problem isn't the singing and dancing. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? These people are auditioning for a Broadway musical and they have can't sing and dance! The voices are uniformly strong and Michael Bennett's choreography, re-created by Baayork Lee, is simultaneously contemporary and classic-Broadway.

Ultimately, where this production fails to deliver is in the acting. There's a lot of it in this show, and almost all of it is of the overwrought, handwringing variety. These 17 dancers have been put on the spot; they've been asked by a wacked-out, EST-era director to share their internal lives with him and their competitors for a shot at a job. This is not something that happens to these people every day; their responses should be spontaneous. (Zach, the director, even criticizes a couple of dancers whose answers he deems pre-programmed or false.)

But there's hardly a spontaneous, genuine moment in this Chorus Line. Every monologue is milked for the maximum laughs or the deepest sympathy. The confessions of Paul, the sexually abused Puerto Rican boy who became a performer in drag shows at the age of 16, elicited this response from my partner: "Well, that was over the top. They could have cut a good three minutes out of that."

He was half right. In the hands of the right actor, telling the story for the first time, one would not want one word to be cut. But Kevin Santos's portrayal is over the top.

But that's nothing compared to the final confrontation between director Zach (Michael Gruber) and his ex-paramour Cassie (Nikki Snelson), the former chorus girl who didn't make it as a star and has come back to perform "on the line" again. To call the acting soap-operaish is an insult to soap operas.

Only Emily Fletcher, as the aging and sardonic Sheila, comes across as believable -- which makes sense, considering that her character's persona is a mask that cracks wise but never cracks.

Director Bob Avian can be blamed for all the onstage histrionics. Perhaps in his desire to re-create the original Chorus Line verbatim, he has tried to get his actors to duplicate the exact performances of the first cast. But remember, all of the characters in A Chorus Line are based on real people, and the original cast included eight of them. Their reliving of their lives onstage, however melodramatic, had to ring more truthfully than the imitations I saw onstage last night.

That said, when the vamp to "One" began after Zach announced the names of the eight chosen dancers, and when all 17 of them promenaded onstage in those glittering gold tuxedoes, I have to confess, I misted up. They're all in the chorus line after all!

Gets me every time.