First, from Jackie K:

This little animal really exists! It’s called a Naked Mole-Rat, from Africa. Going through life is hard enough, but to go through life looking like a dick with buck teeth must be horrible!

I can always count on my friends to send me the classiest emails. Though I do have to admit that thing looks disturbingly like a buck-toothed dick.

Anyway, on to the Wicked.

For Christmas I bought Julie a night out to see the musical “Wicked” at the State Theater downtown. We saw the show this past Wednesday and I must say, it was fantastic. I’m not at all a fan of the Wizard of Oz, but then I realized that L. Frank Baum didn’t have anything to do with this musical production.

What it came down to was a good story that presents the back story of Glinda the Good Witch and Elpheba, the Wicked Witch. It was just tongue-in-cheek enough to be funny but not so much so that it insulted the original story. The two leads had amazing voices and played their parts very well, especially Glinda.

It’s here in Cleveland until March 9th; if the show comes to your town, spend the dough and go see it. I believe that there’s an ongoing production in Chicago, LA, and NYC. And it’s coming to Rochester for a couple of weeks in June (Jay, if you’re reading this, take note).

ALSO: A couple of weeks ago, Joe and Diana came to town for a short visit and to see Avenue Q at the Palace Theater. It was pretty damn funny. I think some of it was funnier because it was muppets; it’s just so wrong for muppets who look like they walked right off Sesame Street to be talking and singing about racy subjects. So there you go, another show to see if you ever get the chance.

Tick off another box on Stallone’s bucket list: Rambo is an hour and a half of pure mayhem. I loved it. I just got back from the theater where I saw the flick with my younger brother, Matt. We both turned to look at each other, eyes wide and mouthing silent OMFGs, at least half a dozen times. It’s not for the faint of heart. The violence is over the top like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You’d have to set off a 40 lb. bomb (which he does) to kill as many people in as little time. Someone said they should have a kill counter like in a video game in the corner of the screen. That would be wicked. Lionsgate: take note for the DVD special features..

It was actually a refreshing break from what seems to be a disturbing trend in Hollywood recently: killing off the main character(s). Another disturbing trend is my rampant use of full colons. But seriously, at the very least, the last three movies (not including Rambo) I saw were depression fests where the main characters all die. This is my official review of Rambo: It’s a breath of fresh air.