Fanilow Anonymous

It's Friday and we're on a first full day of my 40th birthday weekend extravaganza spectacular!   Hopefully, we made it to Vegas and to the Mirage to see Cirque du Soleil's Love last night.

I'm guessing the title of this post pretty much gives away where we are headed tonight...

No, not the Copa... but the next best thing...

Manilow: Music and Passion at the Las Vegas Hilton!

I don't know what reaction this is going to get.  I expect it's 1 part "cool," 2 parts groans and eye rolls.

Whatever your thoughts, I am genuinely looking forward to it.  Given my advanced age, I pretty much grew up on Barry... in my youth, he sang American Bandstand theme song... I remember hearing "Ready To Take A Chance Again" as it opened the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn movie Foul Play... and much more recently when we got a new female cat with those long "showgirl" legs what other name could she have then Lola (from "Copacabana").

On the other hand, I hope Todd doesn't get sick.  His "Barry story" involves being deathly ill as a child and the only tape he had for his new  8-track player (yes, I said 8-track player... you young folk might need to check out its Wikipedia entry)... was, you guessed it... Barry Manilow.  So he doesn't have quite the fond memories...

Personally, I think Barry has become pretty cool again.  I think it all started thanks to that Will & Grace episode that brought the term "Fanilow" into the mainstream.   More recently, Barry has been a pretty impressive guest mentor on American Idol... and he even tried his best to help out Nemesis Rising, the LOGO reality series ex-Jehovah Witness gay twins musical duo... he (in)famously beat out Stephen Colbert for an Emmy in 2006... and already two years into a multi-year, sold-out headlining gig at a Vegas hotel ain't too bad either!