"Good Times Never Seemed So Good"

OK, my readers, I have returned for a second post today. Call me butter because I'm on a roll.

You may recall, or you may not recall, a recent posting about a wee lass we like to call Tiny Tina. Tina is a midget. Tina is a stripper. I saw Tina strip....for entertainment and blog purposes only.

You might recall my finding the idea of midget strippers one of those things that makes America great. That might be over-shooting things a tad. I mean first comes the debate as to America's actual greatness. Incidentally, I believe America to have the capacity for greatness but the tendency of small-mindedness.

Once that debate is settled, assuming America has been declared as truly great, then one must decide how perfect America is. At this point Robin Williams would instruct us to tear pages from our textbook and Ethan Hawke would stand on his desk.

So, my constant caring friends, the question becomes....you know I forgot where I was going with this.

The point is, while Tiny Tina may not have be the Gettysburg Address or Neil Armstrong in terms of global importance, I do feel having seen a midget stripper that I have completed some sort of task on the "obscure things to do before death" checklist. Well folks, add another checkmark to the tally.

Last week at The Blue Note (By the by, if you don't know what the Blue Note is, it is quite likely you and I have never met, so Hello My Friend Hello.) I was give opportunity to see the Black Neil Diamond.

That name means what the act is. It's a black man who sings Neil Diamond songs. Yes, seems after the 200th caucasian lady told this man he sounded just like Neil Diamond, the cash register sounds finally went off in his head. He began touring the nation's VFW halls performing Neil's greatest hits.

This show was fuckin' great! The guy sounded like Diamond. He wore the shiny shirts just like Neil Diamond!

It makes me sad that only a couple of hundred people showed up for the performance, because it truly was a blast. The guy really does sound like a young Neil Diamond, so the music was fun, but the most fun came from how the guy treated the whole experience.

You see, I went and I would imagine most of the others in the audience did as well, expecting to totally goof on the whole thing. Well, Black Diamond turned it back around on the whole audience by letting himself in on the joke. He laughed. We laughed. He sang well. We sang poorly. He danced like Neil. Who can't?

The guy didn't bring a band, so the whole thing played off like karaoke, but you could tell it was all him. Any level of doubt was eliminated with a couple of numbers sans music, or a cappella for the Eminem fans out there. Incidentally, one of the a cappella songs was Soolaimon and it sounded f-ing great.

Name a Neil hit and he played it. Cherry, Cherry? Played it. Song Sung Blue? Played it. Kentucky Woman? Played it. He played the quite amazing Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon. He spoke of being on the Ellen DeGeneres show and that her favorite song was I Am...I Said. What a coincidence Ellen...that is my favorite Neil song also, and not just for the ellipse.

But did he play Forever in Blue Jeans you ask. Uh...only twice sports fans, including as his sendoff which I will get to in a moment.

If you ever get a chance to see the Black Diamond, I cannot recommend it enough. First off, you'll pay roughly one eighth the cost of a real Neil show. Secondly, the guy is good and he makes it fun. (Which might should have been thirdly, but who's counting?)

The best part of the show other than Black Diamond himself was the way the crowd reacted. Apparently there is some guy in St. Louis who wants to tour as a Neil Diamond tribute act as well. He made contact with the Black Diamond and was accorded permission to perform one song during the show. He was okay, but the best part was he brought a following. There was a dozen guys from St. Louis that went ape-y over this show. They were with drunk as rats or really big fans of Neil. These guys were dancing like wild men, playing the air guitar, screaming out requests...and all of that is just what happened during the show.

In between sets the Black Diamond worked the crowd, taking pictures and shaking hands and the like. These guys had rolls of film with them and used every frame. It was fine and dandy until they each wanted a picture of Black Diamond sitting in their laps. I am not kidding you my pretties. Now, Black Diamond laughed it off and accommodated everyone but I think his jokes of calling security had an under-lying level of seriousness to them.

Finally, during the second playing of Blue Jeans, Neil basically invited anyone who wanted to join him on stage to do so. By the end of the song there were more people on the stage than in the crowd, but the stars were these Neil-Heads. One group was doing that thing you'll see couples do at the beach. No, not that thing. I mean the thing where the guys will be in the water and their ladies will be sitting on their shoulders and the ladies try to knock one another off their perch. The only differences here were no water, and uh...no ladies.

The other group of guys had a choreographed dance routing for the song. Now, I love Forever in Blue Jeans as much as the next guy not part of this group, but I never invented a line dance for it. So I'm clearly either less of a fan, or just a little less weird.

Oh and yes he played Sweet Caroline...four times.

Anyway, that was the Black Diamond experience. I bought myself a t-shirt to commemorate by time as part of the Unreal Neil Tour. I swear to God and I do mean Allah that is the name of his tour, which I believe upgrades to rural casinos next spring.

Until next time friends....we huddle close and hang on to that dream.