Know When to Hold 'em

I had a perfect view of the stage until Napoleon Dynamite sat in front of me.

Perhaps the pop culture highlight of our Chautauqua trip was the concert by Kenny Rogers. First let me be nice and say that he is STILL quite a showman. Great patter between songs and a show that is so perfectly scripted for audience participation and max impact that, we'll I'll bet he does this same show 250 times a year. It was impressive.

Not so impressive was his voice. I am afraid that The Gambler now joins the ranks of Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, and Tony Rice as people who, sadly, are no longer in peak vocal form. I was never much of a Kenny Rogers fan, but the dude sold-out the Chautauqua amphitheater--no small feat.

Final comment on this Mr. Rogers. He should punch his plastic surgeon. The face lift is WAY too tight and makes The Gambler look squintier than he should. It looked like he could barely move his mouth to sing.

We saw Kenny's tour bus pull up on the morning of the show, and there was water dripping from the bottom of the bus (condensation from the air conditioning I would guess). Phoebe, fascinated that a person she'd seen on American Idol was so close, was full of questions.

Phoebe: "Daddy, what's that dripping from the bottom of Kenny Rogers' bus?"
Me: "That's sweat, honey. Kenny is probably working out on the treadmill in there."
Phoebe: "Why does he sweat so much?"
Me: "First of all, he's The Gambler, and that's nervous work. Secondly, he eats lots and lots of fried chicken from his chain of chicken restaurants. Third, well, baby, he's in show biz, and there ain't no business like show business..."
Phoebe: "Is that why he got a face lift?"
Me: "No, that was so he'd have a better "poker" face."

One thing I did learn from the concert: I now know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.