‘Turn Me On Dead Man’
Ever hear that phrase?
Back in the day, when the Beatles took a break from experimental drugs, they experimented with backward masking — purportedly playing audio tapes backward and recording the sound effects into their songs. One such hidden treasure was John saying, “Turn me on dead man,” referring to a rumor that “Paul is dead.” Actually the voice on the record repeats “number nine, number nine.” But if you play it backward …
So, I have the phrase “Turn me on dead man” stuck in my head because I enjoyed the opera “Dead Man Walking” last night in Fort Worth’s awesome Bass Hall.
I swear. You can’t take me anywhere. I go to a night at the opera and I come home ranting about The Beatles.
Well … in my defense, this site is about the most interesting read you will ever find on the Internet:
“Turn me on deadman” explained (‘number 9’):
http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/IBP/Revolution9.php
“I buried Paul,” from the beginning:
http://www.turnmeondeadman.net/IBP/Intro.php
I digress … Back to the opera. Where else can you enjoy excellent violence, theology, nudity, killing and heated political discussions without feeling dirty?
Rest assured, DMW has it all. But, since I attended what was actually a dress rehearsal, I will refrain from reviewing the performances. Suffice to say, “it good.”
The best thing I can say? In all honesty, I kept forgetting that it was a dress rehearsal, and not the real deal.
“Dress rehearsal” is an interesting phrase in its own right, since the opening scene has a few minutes of nudity — done tastefully and subdued, I might add.
And this dress rehearsal thing has perks. My seat was three or four rows in front of where one of the billionaire Bass Brothers was seated. (And yes I snapped a photo with my iPhone during intermission … I mean there was a video camera trained on him, so I wasn’t being all invasive …)
Later in the night, I learned another phrase — “opera virgin.” That’s what a cast member called me afterward, because DMW was my first. (I own an excellent “Tosca” recording, and some others opera CDs, but I have never seen/heard them performed on stage.)
The cast member was impressed that I had set the bar pretty high, seeing what many consider a challenging, modern classic — the opera version of the capital punishment story popularized by Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon in film.
I told her that most of my knowledge of opera came from “The Sopranos.” (She had no idea I was talking about Tony, Christopher and Silvio from the HBO Mafia classic.)
The only other thing about my first — there was a funny line in the lyrics and I laughed … pretty much a laughter solo in a quiet hall. Then I looked over at the three college divas (voice students) sitting beside me and they were all still sobbing from the previous solo.
Well … color me “mister insensitive!”
And finally , don’t forget … Wi-Fi is what I do. Does The Bass Hall, with all of its magnificent acoustics, painted skyscape ceilings and 48-foot trumpet-playing angel scultures have Wi-Fi?
Bet your aria, it do!
I jumped on the Bass Hall hotspot — faster than you can say “Adam Sandler is the real ‘Opera Boy'” — prior to the show and during intermission, checked my tweets and e-mailed the photo of a billionaire.
So I guess I would say the Wi-Fi at Bass Hall is “so money” — 6 pings.
Know what I saying?
