On Saturday night I took my friend Richard to see The Monkees (what’s left of them) at the Greek Amphitheatre.

Part of my interest was in seeing Mike Nesmith. I like his voice and I like his songs. I’d seen him once before, with the other Monkees, about 20 years ago when they played Universal Amphitheatre (no idea what that’s called now — and now it’s been covered, so it’s probably not called “Amphitheatre”) and Nesmith ran on to do two songs, to thunderous applause, before going back to everything else he’d rather be doing than playing with his former bandmates.

Part of my interest was ghoulish:  seeing what they’re like without Davy Jones. (So shoot me. But hey — the Beach Boys in May were fantastic, minus two dead Wilson brothers. So I figured: who knows?)

So here’s how it was:  Odd. Have you ever been to a funeral where the family didn’t seem to miss the deceased? This was like that. Advance publicity had it that there would be a “tribute” to Davy Jones. If by “tribute,” his surviving bandmates meant that occasionally a song of his would come on and they’d leave the stage while the band played along to the video, and that they’d draft a completely tone-deaf woman from the audience to sing his biggest hit (“Daydream Believer”)  and that never once would they acknowledge his death or that they missed him, well, yeah, then there was a tribute. One could be excused for thinking that rather than being absent due to death, Davy had just failed to catch a cab in time.

There were oddities in the audience, too. Richard and I had the smack-dab last seats in the audience, Row D on the benches, way in the back, just slightly north of Mexico. We had these because if I was going purely for reasons of morbid curiosity, then I wasn’t paying more than 10 bucks a ticket. This low-low ticket price (less than the cost of some six packs) meant, though, that some people felt they could show up, drink heavily and behave themselves like they were at a drive-in movie in the 1970s. In front of us were two families — two sets of middle-aged parents, one with one girl of about 10 and the other with a girl of about 14 and another of about 10. Both sets of parents were drunk. I mean, smashed.  Obliterated. Like I haven’t been since I was… 24 at the most. Like you don’t get if you’re past 24, unless you’re Mickey Rourke. The guy in front of me, an English guy looking like an older, poorer, stubbled Phil Collins with a goatee and cheap eyewear, stumbled his way up to his seat, then later tottered way way way down the steps to get more of whatever they were drinking (something clear in a clear glass bottle — like moonshine), falling down on his way down, then repeated the effect later, then of course fell whammo into a whole section of the audience both those times and when he was trying to leave. The mother was in a similar state and kept trying to engage me in conversation until my frozen stare got her to direct her attentions to my friend instead. But the most appalling thing was the spectacle of how they treated their daughters. The guy sat to the right of her and throughout much of the show leaned in on her, caressing her long golden hair,  whispering in her ear, hugging her close to him, and bestowing all sorts of attention and favor; the mother did the same, from behind. The daughter basked in all this attention and played it for all it was worth. The other daughter, younger, brunette, to the left of the chosen one, got nothing. She sat there abjectly ignored. It’s nice that Mom and Dad got smashing drunk and showed everyone how they really feel about each of their  kids.

All of that was far more camaraderie than there was on stage. The song list was carefully parsed out:  First a Mike song, then a Mickey song, then a Peter song. (At least, before they ran out of Peter songs.) The first Peter song was truly wack-a-doodle, “Your Auntie Grizelda,” which was embarrassing in 1967 and has become even moreso as the millennium turned. The kindest thing one can say about it is that Peter Tork’s singing isn’t as bad as his dancing — and, yes, he did an odd skipping shuffle during the song. If I could somehow wipe this memory from my brain I would, except I like to think there are things to be learned from the embarrassing public displays of others. Here are two:

1. when it’s 45 years later, realize that 45 years have passed and that what was cute when you were 24 now looks like an Alzheimer’s episode; and
2. if you’re going to bring the kids out for your big public drunk, at least buy enough for the rest of the audience, because otherwise we’re not enjoying a bit of it and you’re just a boor.

I enjoyed many of the songs, and indeed, the concert overall. It was great to hear the Mike Nesmith songs played live this once; I doubt there’ll be another opportunity, and even if there is, it isn’t one I’ll be taking. Mike shone when singing and playing his songs; Micky is in good vocal form and really delivered his; and Peter Tork was there. But the band never played like a band — which is fitting, because in some ways, put together by chance as they were, they never really were one.

Two weeks ago, I had a terrific time at the Pasadena Pops show in the Los Angeles County Arboretum, featuring the pop opera group Poperazzi. The duo in this video covers one of the songs performed at the Pops show, but in its own unique way.

According to these kids, making sales is easy. (If surreal.)

I read yesterday’s LA Times summer movie sneaks section — but saw nothing about this.

In which Philip Glass writes music for… “Sesame Street.”

For years, I’ve said that “Sesame Street” teaches kids one thing — to watch TV. So while I’m not sure it’s filling an educational need, I am sure that it has a 43-year history of getting very cool creative people involved, from Jim Henson to Bill Irwin to Eric Idle to Cab Calloway to Jughead Jones (?). Maybe it’s not an educational program that we’re all funding. Maybe it’s an arts program.

In this video, you can watch the daughter of a Dutch filmmaker age 12 years in 3 minutes. It’s fascinating to watch because it shows just how quickly our lives pass. Just yesterday, I emailed a photo of my wife and me with our first-born when he wasn’t yet one year old. My caption: “Look how young we were before these rotten kids aged us 20 years.”

This video also holds relevance for me because I have a daughter who is now 13 (and will soon be 14). Note in the video how, from age 10 on, the girl is gabbing incessantly in every frame. We’ve had a similar experience at our house. As for the aging aspect, I aged 12 years in 3 minutes just last night when she recounted something she’d watched on Netflix streaming with her friend. For just a moment, I considered blocking the service — then remembered watching secretly “Satyricon” late at night on an early pay service at my brother’s apartment at age 11. At least she told me. I told no one — until now.

I was sad to see that Jonathan Frid, the actor who cast a large shadow on my childhood by playing Barnabas Collins on “Dark Shadows,” died the other day. (And here’s the joke: Seeing the trailer for the campy new Tim Burton version killed him.) Like many other kids in the mid-to-late 1960s, I raced home from school to watch it; that’s what one had to do in those pre-VCR, pre-DVD, pre-DVR days: catch it in real time or miss it. My daily viewing was further complicated by the Glen Jupin factor. Glen Jupin was a classmate that my grandmother watched along with me in the afternoon for a little spare cash. He was also a fraidy cat, unable to handle the gothic horror of “Dark Shadows,” or its implications that various family members could be ghosts or secret monsters. Every day it was a battle with my grandmother over Glen Jupin, who wailed that the show was too scary. My retort was the obvious one: If he didn’t like it, couldn’t he go do something else? Why did I have to suffer because he couldn’t handle it? Some days I’d win, some days Glen Jupin in his pathetic striped lime-green shirt would win, and now as an adult I understand my grandmother’s decision-making process. I’m sure it seemed fair to take turns letting one of us win. To me, it just seemed arbitrary, and made me argue all the more.

In my playwriting workshop on Saturday, as we were discussing “Dark Shadows” and the late Mr. Frid, my friend and fellow playwright Tira volunteered that one could watch all the “Dark Shadows” one could ever want online via Netflix streaming. She said that she and a friend got roaring drunk and watched a bunch of them. So that night I fired up the xBox, logged onto Netflix, and started with the first episode featuring Barnabas (almost a year after the show’s debut). I watched three 22-minute episodes (22 minutes because of the lack of commercials), committing the terrible error of not having a friend over and getting roaring drunk first. At some point, I’ll watch some more, because my thinking is this: maybe they get better. In fact, I’m sure they get better; they would have to, because there is nothing conceptually possible below the nadir.

The first episode with Barnabas was episode 210, and the only part of Barnabas that was in that episode was his hand, at the very end. What precedes that is the most plodding of soap operas anyone has ever witnessed. Almost every bit of the preceding 22 minutes is a roundelay of inquiries about the whereabouts of a young ne’er-do-well named Willie Loomis whom everyone wishes gone. Here’s somewhat how the dialogue sounds:

Elizabeth Collins (to Jason McGuire, who is blackmailing her): You said that Willie Loomis would be gone!
Jason McGuire: Did I? Well, perhaps he is.
E: Well? Is he?
J: He may be. Have you seen him?
E: I haven’t. But Victoria may have. Vicki, have you seen Willie Loomis?
V: Willie Loomis! That awful man. Why, have you seen him?
E: I haven’t. Have you?
V: No, I haven’t. I thought he had gone.
E: Did he?
V: I don’t know. I didn’t see him.
E: So you don’t know if he’s gone.
J: See? He may well have done.
E: But we don’t know. (To the maid:) Have you seen Mr. Loomis?
Maid: Willie Loomis? I thought he’d gone.
E: Has he?
M: I don’t know. Should I make up his room?
E: Has he gone?
M: Not that I know of. I could make up his room.
E: Not until we’re sure he’s gone.
V: But we can’t be sure he’s gone.
J: He may well have done.

The last time I heard dialogue like this was in a production of “Waiting for Godot,” but that was purposely comic. Had Beckett and Ionesco not predated “Dark Shadows,” I’d think they owe a royalty. I can’t help thinking that Tim Burton got roaring drunk watching this and finding nothing but humor in it. Me: I fast-forwarded. A lot. In watching three 22-minute episodes, I’m estimating that I watched about nine minutes, because that seemed like the amount of actual content. Everything else was stuffing.

The pace is glacial and the staging awkward. (In the first few minutes, I watched a camera pull in for a closeup — and cast a huge shadow across an actor’s chest. Nice.) But one thing was palpable: Why Barnabas Collins, and the show featuring him, became, for a short time, such a sensation. Right at the outset, Jonathan Frid and the writers establish the anguish, the loneliness, and the inner torment of someone cast out of his own time and condemned to play a role he doesn’t want: that of someone who feasts on others. It’s a nice performance of a conflicted character, someone struggling to be evil, which would be easier, while trying to hold onto his goodness, which is harder. That made an impression in 1966, and it still does today.

This perfectly illustrates why Europeans think what they think of Americans. Exciting, no?

Thanks to Mark Chaet for letting me know about this.

I’ve met Mel Brooks three times, and he’s been kind, warm-hearted, and funny all three times. Almost 20 years ago, I attended Buster Keaton’s 100th birthday party at Silent Movie. (Buster, being dead, wasn’t there.) Before the screening, I got into a nice conversation with my seat mate — Eleanor Keaton — and then afterward did the same with three other fans who turned out: Mel Brooks, Ann Bancroft, and Dom DeLuise. Mel was especially effusive about Buster, and I had the advantage of having seen not only all of Buster’s silents, but also “Silent Movie,” so I had a lot to contribute to the conversation.

This terrific interview with Mel Brooks, which I just found online today, shows just how great an influence Keaton was on him. I think Mel is absolutely right about Keaton:  that he was an astonishing performer, and that even if he were starting out today, he’d be a sensation.