There’s $121 we’ll never seen again

Last Saturday night we had tickets to see Mike Weiss, one of the producers and writers of the Simpsons. When the ad was run in the local newspaper, here is how it was described:

 

“Join us for An Evening with Mike Reiss, four time Emmy Award winning Producer of "The Simpsons."  Go behind the scenes of America’s longest running sitcom, including rarely seen clips from the show, celebrity guest star gossip, advice on how to get into the industry, Q&A with the audience and much, much more!”

 

I noticed the ad first and thought that this was something my wonderful hubby was sure to enjoy. So we briefly discussed the $55/per ticket price and decided that:
1 – who knows when we will get a chance to see something like this again 

2-  Entertainment options are limited, there are no major sporting events, concerts, nothing is open past 5 so most things are at least $50

3- so lets do it.

 

When I purchased the tickets on-line I discovered the 10% booking fee. This I love – a charge for selling me the tickets. But fine, we’ll pay it, but this Mike guy better be good.

 

Little did we know at the time of booking that the date of the event was also the date of one of the biggest events of the year in Bermuda. “Fight Night” is a big deal. There are amateur boxing matches that take place and parties all over town. Apparently Fight Night started back in the 90s when a couple of opposing rugby players couldn’t settle their differences on the field and decided to put the gloves on. Since then it has become a major event. Its sort of like caveman arbitration (I’ll have the roast duck with the mango salsa…).  I wonder if more contests should be settled like this, especially in office environments.  The boxing wouldn’t be as exciting I suppose (a couple of accountants duking it out not likely to draw as good of a crowd…)…But since we had paid $55 each (plus 10% booking fee, don’t forget – its like paying to be robbed….) we couldn’t very well just throw the tickets aside.

 

So as we are sitting in the theatre at about 7:50 (the show was due to start at 8:00) with only about 50 people around us, we really started to wonder who the genius was that picked this date. 50 people at $55 a pop wouldn’t even cover the guy’s expenses. The number eventually grew to something more like 100 (the theatre holds over 500) and the show began.

 

Mike was pretty funny. We laughed more than a few times and Shawn even did his really loud high-pitched “laugh” more than once (there have got to be a few out there that know what I’m talking about) that only comes out when something is really funny. The bad part was that at about 8:45 he started talking about wrapping it up and thanking us for coming. It was time for question period already.

 

There was one guy who kept asking questions so Mike couldn’t help but pick on him. The guy was what I would call extremely obese as well which kinda makes him stick out like a sore thumb. Mike also started commenting on the guy’s wife (lets just say the couple were a good match) and was making fun of the fact that she was wearing this huge puffy coat in Bermuda. Now what Mike didn’t know was that this woman was not wearing a coat at all. It just looked that way from his view on stage. The huge, puffiness was the woman herself. While one couldn’t help but snicker, we had to feel bad for the girl. 

 

Mike went on to further stick his foot in his mouth with the next question. A young boy (or girl, I can’t honestly say I know for sure) asked a question and he/she was wearing something on his (or her) head that I have never seen before (it wasn’t at turban or anything). Apparently Mike had never seen one either b/c he said “What exactly is that you are wearing on your head? You look like a tooth (it was white) I’ve been wondering that all night.” The kid was like “Uh, its kind of a religious thing”. Mike – “Oh Jesus Christ. I’ve done it again”.

 

So overall the night was pretty funny but over by 9:15 which was a real letdown. Refer back to the ad I included above. First of all, one hour and 15 minutes is not “an evening”. Second, there were only 2 or 3 clips and we recognized them all (rarely seen was not an accurate description). The clips were also never correctly cued up and at one point Seinfeld actually started playing (maybe this guy was the one who picked the date). We think the clips might have been taped off tv with a VCR or something. And there was no “much, much more”. There was actually “much, much less” than we expected. So we felt a bit ripped off but at least we can’t regret not going.

 

Here is one of his more memorable jokes of the night:

 

“Are there any Jewish people in the audience?”

Crickets and eyeballs.

“Of course not, at $55 a ticket, what was I thinking, there might be a few at the door trying to listen in, saying to each other, “it doesn’t sound like its going well” but that’s about it.”

 

By the way, we have come up with the name for our apartment – “WoodHaven” is the winner. So we are now taking bookings at WoodHaven and expect to see you all there.