Last night, I went to see Alton Brown's latest live show, which is called Eat Your Science. Mr. Brown is, as you probably know, a superstar of the Food Network and its sister station, the Cooking Channel. I enjoy watching reruns of his long-running series, Good Eats, although about all I really learn from them is that I am way too uneducated about food preparation to do it properly, nor is my kitchen up to the challenge. I watch him for the same reason some people watch sporting events or porn: It's fun to see others do things you will never do, especially if they do them well.
The guy is smart and he's really good at doing television…so when I had a chance to get tix to see him on stage, I thought it would be interesting to see just what it is he does there. It turns out that he puts on a darn fine show.
It was up at the massive (too big) Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Tonight's the second performance and then it's on to Fresno, Modesto, Davis, San Francisco and other parts to the north of us for one night apiece with the occasional day off along the way. Here's the schedule. Someone seems to have calculated the number of rabid Alton Brown fans in each city and figured they could fill a building for one night, except that in Los Angeles, they could fill it twice. Most of those present seemed to have every episode of Good Eats on DVD and love them so much, they'd rush to see him every time he comes around.
They loved every single thing he said or did, including his musical numbers, which I'll just say ever-so-politely aren't as skillful as his other skills. What he is really good at is just talking and interacting with the audience. I don't know why no one has ever given this guy a talk show because he's funny, he's smart and he's way better at ad-lib conversation than about about 90% of those who've ever had talk shows.
On stage, he discourses about food and cooking and related topics and he brings people up out of the audience to participate in demonstrations. The main one in the first act was about the drinking of alcohol — another thing I'll never do. A lady had to spin three wheels to select three liquids which his on-stage bartender would mix into a cocktail she had to drink. I think most in the house would have drank what Socrates drank if Alton Brown told them to do it. As I recall, she got stuck with bourbon, Jägermeister and bitters.
To give you some idea of my drinking experience, I've never tasted any of those and had never even heard of Jägermeister, whatever that is…but that's apparently a pretty ghastly combination, which is I'm sure what Brown was hoping for. To minimize the agony of swallowing this concoction, they brought out Liquid Nitrogen and went through the elaborate process of freezing her beverage into a Sno-Cone. This made it more palatable.
The second act was mostly about making popcorn which, since this is Alton Brown, had to be done by the most elaborate, expensive method the human mind could conceive. It involved what they said was the largest corn popper in the world…because no one but Alton Brown would build one that big. Here's a 30-second preview of the festivities…
I was impressed with how well Alton Brown pleased Alton Brown fans — that is meant with no sarcasm — and by the energy and industry in this tour. He must have a helluva crew to be able to tear all that equipment down and then get it and him to another city in time to set everything up there and do another show the next night. Just as an example, I note that he's in Spokane on March 29, Boise on March 30, Salt Lake City on March 31 and Denver on April 1. From Spokane to Boise is 367 miles. From Boise to Salt Lake City is 340 miles. And from Salt Lake City to Denver is 522 miles. That's not humanly possible but I'm sure they'll do it anyway.
Closing ovation aside, Brown got his biggest audience response of the night when he announced he's bringing Good Eats back soon. He got his second-biggest response (I think) when in discoursing about bacon, he found there was one woman in the audience who didn't like bacon and he ran out, hugged her and did some impromptu grief counseling about whatever traumatic event in her past life had taken her to such a cold, inhuman place in her soul. Third-biggest was probably when he answered questions from the audience near the end. You had to post them and a "selfie" on Twitter during intermission and I didn't. If I had, I would have asked him why the government bans food items containing Listeria but does nothing about the serving of cole slaw.
Oh — and at the top of the show, Brown took a photo of the audience from the stage and posted it directly to Twitter. Here it is and on the larger version, I've marked myself. The person next to me in the dark blue cap is my friend Amber…
Somewhere in there, perhaps seated next to Waldo, you might also be able to spot Chris Valada, the wonderful wife of Len Wein. Len had surgery recently and a day or two later, I went to see my friend of 47 years in the hospital. Chris told me he's been moved out of the hospital and to a rehab center where he's getting better and better. No offense to Mr. Brown but that was the best part of the evening for me, hearing that.