When it comes to tastes, we all have our peculiarities. If you ignore the one leisure suit which I
owned in the disco era, my taste in clothing hasn’t changed much in 50
years. I like starched cotton, and I
prefer loafers to lace-ups. Fashions
come and go, but I will stick with what I like.
For years, Alan and Eric
have failed in their rare-steaks-taste-better sales efforts. Despite the you-are-ruining-a-good-piece-of-meat
warnings, I still leave my ribeye on the grill.
However, I remember when I wouldn’t touch squash. But don’t waste your time telling me about
liver—ugh.
Maybe it’s a good thing
Alan and Eric’s sister, Emily, doesn’t cook for me. With a husband and four sons, she doesn’t
have time for picky eaters. Emily won’t
allow her boys to say, “Yuck, I don’t like that!” Instead, Wyatt, Hayes, Henry and Smith must
say, “Mom, this isn’t my favorite.” And
then she advises, “OK, but you need to try two bites.”
I’m a little peculiar
about music, too. I prefer country music
from the 1980s and 1990s over today’s style.
Most of the time, I’m happy to listen to the Temptations, Etta James, the
Four Tops, Sam Cooke, the Drifters, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, the Tams and
the Supremes. The preset buttons on my truck’s radio don’t include perhaps the
hottest-going genre of music: hip-hop.
That’s why a friend arched his eyebrows when he heard I was going to see
Hamilton. “Really,” he asked, “you are
going to a rap concert?”
Yes, I was willing to
“take two bites.”
Actually, it was a more like a three-hour feast.
So, why did I go?
There were several reasons. I
might be a stick-in-the-mud sometimes, but I am not a complete cultural dolt.
I’ve been to Broadway many times, and this much-ballyhooed performance was
closer than New York. Besides, going to
Atlanta’s Fox Theatre is an adventure in itself.
But most of all, history was the hook. I’d read Ron Chernow’s 2004
biography, Alexander Hamilton, and I was eager to see Lin-Manuel Miranda’s novel
approach to telling the story of this Founding Father of America. Genius doesn’t come close to describing
Miranda’s production. Accolades of tsunami
proportions are still washing over his creativity.
I, too, exclaim, “Bravo!”
Miranda gets a string of A-pluses for making history come alive through
modern music, blending hip-hop, pop music, rhythm and blues, and soul music
into a show-tunes mixture of the kind you’d expect on the stage. The actors
were flawless, rattling off rapid-fire lines in the midst of brilliant choreography.
The action was packed with countless “wow moments.”
It was also packed with too many “was-that-really-necessary moments.”
It was also packed with too many “was-that-really-necessary moments.”
As a grandfather of eight, I flinched when M-F bombs were dropped.
Yeah, I know.
This is a part of
hip-hop’s raunchy reputation. Still, I
was sensitive to the number of young schoolchildren in the audience. And I kept asking myself, “Does that vulgar
language add anything to an otherwise spectacular show?” Stick-in-the-mud or not, I think not.
Please listen to what
you like, but you won’t hear hip-hop blaring on my radio.
Through Hamilton,
however, I did take a taste.
But along with bloody steaks and liver, hip-hop—laced with profanity—isn’t
among my favorites.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
