Iowa Girl on the Go

The Central Iowa Blues Society 2012 Winter Blues Fest was held last night in the downtown Des Moines Marriott with 10 bands and individuals performing on six stages.

It was quite the deal — very different from other blues festivals I’ve attended in Des Moines. Those were held in the Court Avenue district, with bands performing either in an outdoor venue (the summer version) or in various bars throughout the area (winter version).

For a winter venue, the Marriott worked great. You can park your car anywhere downtown and access the hotel through the skywalk system, thus staying warm the entire way. The CIBS did a good job of scheduling the acts so you would watch one set, then when the band took a break you could go to another room and another group would be in full swing. Of the four bands I watched, each was unique in its blues style and performance, from soulful to hard rocking to sleek and stylized to full-on boogie.

We started with the Lil’ Slim Blues Band, the 2011 Blues Society of Omaha blues challenge winner. The lead singer had a great voice and was an amazing lead guitarist. Of the four, this band was probably the truest “blues” band and definitely my favorite.

Moving on, we went to the Dubuque Room to see Eddie Turner and the Trouble Twins, an unlikely name for a band made up of three of the most different-looking guys you could imagine. Perhaps the name was supposed to be ironic. The lead singer, Eddie Turner, had the most unusual hair style I believe I’ve ever seen. It reminded me of one of those dogs at the American Kennel Club dog show that looks more like a sheep than a dog. He was sporting lots of bling-y jewelry and a deep voice. When he was on lead vocals, the band was more rock than blues. But switch over to the drummer on lead and you got a completely different, much more bluesy sound. The drummer, wearing vintage sunglasses and a beret, looked more like a poet or an English prof but, man, he could wail on the harmonica (while still banging on the drums).

The third band, Connie Hawkins and the BluesWreckers, was a finalist in the 2011 Kansas City Blues Society Challenge.  A six-piece band, Connie shared lead vocals with her husband. My favorite performer in this upbeat group was probably the keyboardist, an older guy with a hat and a very happy attitude.

The blues played late into the night, but I only managed to see one more band before allowing the ringing in my ears to send me home at 10:15. The last band, The Candymakers, was made up of considerably younger musicians and provided the slickest-looking (i.e., black suits, red shirts, and black ties) performance of the evening. More jazzy than bluesy at times, the Candymakers (winners of the 2011 Iowa Blues Societies Blues Challenge) featured a saxophone player and a mean lead guitarist.

The Candymakers gave me a little hope that this musical style might live to see the next generation. All other indicators pointed to the opposite, however. Most of the other musicians I saw were middle-aged or older (some much older), and the majority of the audience was 40 and over. I’d like to think that blues transcends all age groups.

I should mention the other six bands that performed last night (and probably into this morning while I was soundly sleeping): Rob Lumbard, Bryce Janey, Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials, Bob Dorr and the Blue Band, Javier and the Innocent Sons, and the Bob Pace Band.

Winter is a perfect time to go to the movies. It’s a warm, indoor activity available pretty much anywhere you live. And many of the Oscar-worthy films are released late in the year, often on the coasts, and meander their way to the Midwest and other small markets as January progresses.

I’ve been on a real movie jag the past few weeks. I had in mind a few weeks ago to try to see three movies in one day at the Fleur in Des Moines. I had all the times planned out, and it would have worked, too. But instead we got a late start and went to just two films — which turned out to be plenty. They were “Young Adult” starring Charlize Theron and “The Descendants” starring George Clooney. Both films were really well done but both depressing in a lot of ways. I was sort of glad we didn’t see my third choice — “Melancholia” — which is about the end of the world. Talk about depressing!

I liked Young Adult very much, mainly for the performances of Theron as Mavis Gary, an author of young adult fiction who lives in the Twin Cities, and Patton Oswalt, her former high school classmate who still lives in her hometown. Mavis is a high school “mean girl” who has never really grown up. She returns to her hometown to go after an old boyfriend because she’s learned he and his wife have just had a baby. Mavis’s delusions make her only somewhat sympathetic — mostly you can’t believe what a horrible person she is. Oswalt’s character provides a balance of humanity. The screenplay is by Juno’s Diablo Cody.

The Descendants is set in Hawaii and features fine acting and a script with just the right amount of twists and turns to keep you interested but never jettisons off into a land of unbelievability. It’s simultaneously sad and funny, depressing and uplifting. The Hawaiian setting makes an interesting backdrop and plays an important role in the film’s storyline.

Melancholia stars Kirsten Dunst as a beautiful young woman suffering from depression. While others are in a panic at the impending collision of the earth by another planet, she embraces the fact. The movie is beautifully filmed, with a stunning score featuring music by Richard Wagner. Images of the film stay with you for a long time, and it’s difficult to look up at the sky in the same way again.

The next film I really wanted to see was “My Week with Marilyn” starring Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe. The film is based on the tense interaction between Sir Laurence Olivier and Monroe on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl. Monroe’s vulnerability and the disparity between her true self and her Marilyn Monroe persona is fascinating to watch. A young “third assistant director,” Colin Clark, befriends Miss Monroe and helps her through the difficult film. Of course, he falls in love with her. She’s Marilyn Monroe — how could you not fall in love with her? I loved Michelle Williams as Marilyn and Eddie Redmayne as Colin and really just loved the movie from beginning to end.

I missed “Moneyball” when it was a first-run film but caught it at the dollar show last week. I am not a sports fan but this is not, strictly speaking, a baseball movie. There’s plenty of baseball in it, but it’s much more similar to “The Social Network,” say, than it is to “Bull Durham” or “The Natural.” That should come as no surprise since Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for both Moneyball and The Social Network. The excellent cast is anchored by Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball franchise, and Jonah Hill as a geeky economics graduate who turns the game upside down. I didn’t expect to like this film as much as I did. It’s intelligent and thought-provoking, and — I’ll be honest — Brad Pitt is really nice to watch.

That brings us to the last film: “The Artist.” This film was not on my radar screen until last weekend when I watched the Golden Globe awards on television. It was raking in the nominations and seemed to have a very positive buzz in the audience. It opened in Des Moines on Friday, so we went to see it last night. It’s really an amazing film, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I have to wonder how it ever got made — a black and white silent film in 2011? I would have loved to have been in the meeting where the film’s creator pitched that idea to the producers. But I’m so glad it worked out, because the story of silent movie star George Valentin and his long, slow descent into despair after the advent of talking pictures is an absolute joy to behold. It’s sweet and sad and funny and totally lovely from beginning to end. Don’t wait for this one to come out on DVD — it won’t be the same.

If you’re a Monty Python fan, you already know that you enjoy a bit of silliness. Monty Python’s Spamalot – basically the classic 1974 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail set to music – has counted on this to fill theaters since it opened on Broadway. The show, created by Python great Eric Idle, won the best musical Tony in 2005 and is now enjoying a successful national tour. I saw it last night at Stephens Auditorium in Ames, and the theater was packed all the way up to the third balcony.

The musical story of King Arthur and his hodge-podge Knights of the Round Table is at its best when it sticks to the original film plot. Fans of the Holy Grail will love the “bring out your dead” scene and its accompanying “I’m Not Dead Yet” number, the clickety-clacking of coconut hoofbeats, the Knights who Say “Ni,” the Black Night, the taunting Frenchman, the killer rabbit, and all the rest.

Not as successful are all the new characters, especially the Lady of the Lake, a diva who shows up way too much and pretty much drags down the plot whenever she’s on stage. There are lots of dancing girls and colorful numbers that don’t seem to belong in this show, and it makes me wonder if Spamalot wouldn’t have been a lot better if it had been staged as a male-only cast like its founding group of Pythons. In fact, one of the funniest scenes takes place as Arthur is starting to gather his Knights and he meets Dennis (Sir Galahad) and his mother, hilariously played by Thomas DeMarcus. Nobody does female impersonation like the Monty Python troupe.

I did enjoy a couple of “extraneous” numbers, most especially “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” but also the hilarious “You Won’t Succeed On Broadway,” both in the second act.

The current national touring company is excellent. I saw this show a few years ago in Chicago, and I think the production in Ames was actually better. The cast seems to be having a great time, and the audience loved them.

Now I want to sit back and watch the movie.

Spending the holidays in New York City is a little bit like spending the holidays at Disney World. If you can stand the crowds, it’s a great time to be there.

Me, I don’t like crowds. So I would have never chosen to go to New York between Christmas and New Year’s – the busiest tourist week of the year in the Big Apple. But I was assigned to cover Iowa State’s participation in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl (played Dec. 30 at Yankee Stadium) – so I embraced the adventure.

Much of my time was spent with football team and alumni events – and, of course, the game itself – but I managed to squeeze in a few other activities.

We arrived in New York on Dec. 28, and I was shocked. I’ve been to New York many times and I’ve been there right before Christmas, but I was not prepared for the crush of people in Midtown Manhattan. Traffic and pedestrians were totally gridlocked around Rockefeller Center, Times Square, and other popular tourist areas. I mean, gridlocked to the point that at one intersection (I think it was 6th Ave. and 50th St.) a traffic cop was stationed at each corner and it took us THREE LIGHTS to cross on foot.

Our hotel was located on 44th St. between 6th and 7th. If you walked out the door and headed to 7th, you landed right in the middle of the Times Square craziness. Trying to turn (I’m still on foot here) onto 7th was like walking into a wall.

Rockefeller Center was the worst. And the best, in a way. It was incredibly crowded but very festive. People were taking polite turns at all the best photography overlooks, taking pictures of strangers with their cameras, and enjoying watching the people who stood in the blocks-long line to ice skate.

We went with the football team to the newly opened 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site on Wednesday night. It was very sobering. The National September 11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in the North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. The names of every person who died in the attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the memorial pools.

Be aware if you go that although the memorial is free to visit, you must reserve a visitor pass in advance.

As many times as I’ve been to New York, I had never been inside the huge main building of the New York Public Library, an architectural masterpiece on 5th Ave. The Beaux-Arts building took 16 years to design and construct, and it’s a wonderful place to wander, far from the madding crowd.

Nearby at 42nd St. and Park Ave. is Grand Central Station (technically called Grand Central Terminal). It’s the largest train station in the world if you’re counting the number of platforms, and the terminal covers an area of 48 acres. The main concourse is cavernous, ornate, beautiful, and very busy.

Bryant Park, located at 42nd and 6th Ave., is a small city park if you compare it to Central Park, but it’s a great little tree-lined park to visit in any season. From Oct. 27 through Jan. 8 the park is turned into a holiday shop filled with small kiosks. And throughout the winter season the park features “Citi Pond,” a wonderful outdoor ice skating rink. The park also features a variety of dining options.

I took the subway to Yankee Stadium (161st and River in the Bronx) twice on this trip – once to do a story on an Iowa State alum and once to attend the football game. I had never seen the old Yankee Stadium (built in 1923), and this was my first visit to the new one, which opened in 2009. I’m not much of a sports fan, but for some reason I’ve always liked the Yankees. Being in the stadium, especially when it was essentially empty, was a thrill. Someday I’d like to go back to watch a baseball game.

One thing I always like to do in New York is go to Zabar’s – a one-of-a-kind grocery/deli/coffee shop at 80th and Broadway on the Upper West Side. It’s a great place to grab food (they have the best cheese counter and bakery I’ve ever seen) for a picnic in nearby Central Park. Of course, December isn’t the best time for a picnic, despite the fact that the highs this week were in the 50s, so I had to settle for coffee and a (best in the world) sesame bagel in the crowded coffee shop, and a loaf of Jewish rye for later.

When I was there Friday morning I sat at the counter next to a nice woman from the West Village who came to Zabar’s to buy cheese for her New Year’s Eve party (she was tasting it before committing to a full-fledged purchase). We bonded because we overheard a pretentious diner saying to his companion, “Nobody needs to go into therapy if they just have common sense…unless they have a psychological problem.” We snorted in unison, then laughed out loud and decided this guy was master of the obvious.

One I didn’t get to do that I ALWAYS do in New York is go to a Broadway show. I normally buy tickets in advance, but I didn’t know what my work schedule would be so I thought I’d just stand in the TKTS line for half-price day-of-show tickets. Well, I thought wrong. The aforementioned crowds had mostly obliterated all the theatre seats this week. What few shows were left were certainly scooped up by the people who got in the TKTS line hours before it opened. I stood in the line on Thursday for about 45 minutes before reality set in and I abandoned the line. I then had a moment of temporary insanity and walked to the Stephen Sondheim Theater on 43rd St. to see what full-price tickets to “Anything Goes” would cost. ($142 for upper balcony.) After that I stood around making a sad face. This billboard is the closest I got to Sutton Foster.

After three days of enormous, impossible crowds, I figured New Year’s Eve day would be the worst yet. We headed to Times Square early in the morning just to satisfy our curiosity and were completely surprised to find that the crowd was smallish and well-behaved.

There were nearly as many (young, good-looking) cops on the street as early party-goers – and most of the revelers-to-be were chilling out and drinking coffee or else screaming at the big screen that was showing some kind of Korean music festival performance. Vendors were out en masse, selling party hats, horns, and 2012 glasses. It was a blast taking pictures and talking to people. Everyone was friendly and in a good mood (including the police). In a few hours, all the streets would be closed off, more than a million people would be in Times Square, Lady Gaga would be performing, and the crowd would ring in the new year.

We flew out of Laguardia to Minneapolis at 2 p.m., took a connecting flight to Omaha, and drove home in a blinding snowstorm.

I walked into my house right at 11 p.m., just in time to see the ball drop. Happy New Year.