Bi-Polarity, Hollywood Bowl Edition

So far, it's been a wildly uneven summer season at the Hollywood Bowl. You will remember reading about my very first disastrous concert there when I saw knock-offs of Abba and Neil Diamond. In my opinion, if those bands were piped in across the universe, this would no longer be a crowded planet. Subsequently, we've seen John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater on the Fourth of July with a first act of patriotic music by the Bowl orchestra. I'd call it the Hawk and Dove evening.

One week later, there was a most enjoyable evening devoted to Henry Mancini music complete with film clips. And then there was Faith Hill who restored a little bit of my country music love after a decade or two of dormancy. Throughout all the weeks, the Hollywood Bowl venue itself was the star of the show. A great night under the stars with wine, food, and friends. So, you can't really go wrong unless, of course, it is Abba:The Music or Super Diamond.

But, last Saturday night, traditional variations were not more definitively split apart as polar opposites than the two acts of the Bowl's "Art of the Song." The most schizophrenic of evenings ever as if it was programmed by Sally Field's Sybil. Wonderfully sweet and horribly sour. The yin-est and the yang-est. Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann. By the end of the concert, we all felt like we had gone off our meds.

It started exquisitely for me. Conductor Thomas Wilkins promised us a journey through the Great American Songbook. As a kid who was forcefed those standards by my parents via a daily IV drip from WNEW-AM, this was going to be a big fat fast ball across the plate for me. Lots of Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, George Gershwin. And then out comes Michael Feinstein, the champion of all things singable. I've long been a Feinstein fan, because he truly cares about this kind of music and makes you want to care as well. I've seen in person before, most recently at his defunct supper club on Hollywood Boulevard. That night, I was sitting so close to the front that I got to watch his socks slowly droop every time he hit a pedal on his Steinway. Suffice it to say, sagging Goldtoes and all, Michael Feinstein never disappoints. And he certainly didn't on Saturday night.

Act break.

We all innocently headed off to bathrooms and dessert. Oblivious to the horrors that would come.

Nestled back into our benches for more lyrical nirvana, it didn't take long before the bombs started to drop around us.

We were all introduced to Jewel.

Now I've heard of her and knew one or two of her songs. And she got off to a healthy start by doing Cole Porter's "Anything Goes." But, then, the screeching derailment began. Amtrak was coming through and the engineer's been drinking.

They brought out her folk guitar. And, since she was already decked out in some sort of wildly patterned evening dress from the Squeeky Fromme collection, I realized that our program was going to undergo a slight format variation. Sort of like transitioning from the snap, crackle, pop of a bowl of Rice Krispies to the 1939 bombing of London.

Jewel was going to sing her own stuff.

We had listened to Michael Feinstein perfectly enunciate every word of the most tuneful of songs essayed by the greatest American tune writers. Now, we were subjected to the marble-mouthed wailing of some dribble written by this hippie while she was trying to figure out how to shoplift carrots from Von's Super Market. Interspersed in this cacophony were tales of her difficult past. Being down on her luck. Living in abject poverty. We had gone from 1940 Manhattan cafe society to an evening with Sylvia Plath. The Bell Jar: The Musical. Some nitwits in the crowd applauded her every move. I sat there like Jackie Kennedy thirty seconds after her limo passed through Dealey Plaza.

I began to wonder how this disjointed evening had ever been concocted in the first place. Was the person who programmed the first half of the show suddenly fired and replaced by somebody who's in charge of the medicine cabinet at the local mental hospital? And whose idea was it to have this ragamuffin sing her own nonsense in the middle of an evening devoted to the likes of Sammy Cahn, Irving Berlin, and even Henry Mancini? Or, perhaps Jewel was egotistical enough to think that her junk could stand alongside the works of others? If that was the case, somebody in charge obviously didn't have the cojones to raise their hand and say, "Er, Jewel, your stuff is nice, but it ain't Moon River, sistah."

On our way staggering out of the Bowl after the closing fireworks and a passable duet between Feinstein and Jewel, my mind raced with the names of all the other female singers I would have suggested for Act Two. Diana Krall. Rebecca Luker. Linda Ronstadt. Hell, there was even a suitable replacement in the audience Saturday night.

As we walked by the stage door, we ran into Michele Lee.

Michele was standing with friends alongside the bandshell and covering her face with a scarf as if she was an Iranian wife trying to hide from her irate husband. But, it was unmistably Michele Lee. And we left her know it.

"Okay, you can't hide from us. We know who you are."

Busted, she dropped the scarf and smiled.

Now, I've had past dealings with her. I actually shared a radio segment with her when she was promoting the final episodes of Knots Landing. And, after that, my writing partner and I had pitched an idea to her. But, that was years back and I'm thinking that botox injections might impact long term memory.

I told Michele that, after watching her for 14 years on Knots Landing, I could always smoke her out in a crowd. She seemed to appreciate the sentiment. The guy she was with opened his wallet to pay me for the plug. I asked how much it would be worth if I mentioned her work in "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." She brightened even more.

The evening had experienced a late inning comeback for me. And then I regretted not asking Michele Lee one more question.

Why the hell wasn't she on stage for the second act instead of that used clothing mannequin Jewel?

Dinner last night: Roast beef and salad with a slice of bacon jalapeno cornbread.