Song and dance

There's a joke I like to use whenever someone mentions they've injured their ankle, knee, foot or that they've had a hip replacement. My usual reply is, "So I guess the Riverdance audition is off." In case you're not familiar with Riverdance, here's why it's funny:

In reality—a place I rarely visit—these dancers are highly skilled, precision artists and athletes who have devoted the necessary time and practice into perfecting their joyous art.

This is not something we have in common.

I bring this up because my beautiful daughter is getting married in exactly a month. And while that means a festive celebration, a new family, a great son-in-law, a lifetime of happiness for my baby girl, and a canyon-like dip in my retirement savings, it also means something a bit more frightening to me: the father-daughter dance.

If you've ever been to a wedding, you're famiiar with the tradition. Either after the newlywed couple's first dance, or when I'm done delivering my brilliant, quotable, side-splittingly hilarious yet tearfully poignant toast (post to follow), there will be the father-daughter dance.

The first step (see what I did there?) was to choose the song. This is one of the few choices I actually get to make. I spent several nights watching and listening to father-daughter wedding dance songs on YouTube, crying my eyes out. Seriously, I was a mess. I know what you're thinking, but let's see you listen to this, or this, or this and this and see how you do tough guy.

After being overruled on Highway To Hell (you know the joke: The fact there’s a Stairway To Heaven and a Highway To Hell should tell you who’s expecting more traffic), I finally landed on a song with some history and meaning to me and my girly. I know you want to know what it is, but I'm not going to reveal it here. Like my hilarious toast to the couple—have I mentioned that before?—some things need to remain a surprise.

The actual dance is the really scary part. To make sure we're properly prepared, my daughter and I have decided to take some dance lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Ironically, there's one within walking distance from the house.

Walking I know how to do.

We had our first lesson yesterday, and it went quite well. Back step, side step, rock back, spin - yeah, I know the lingo. The instructors and personnel are lovely, supportive and encouraging. Obviously they're well aware of how nervous their students are. Especially the first time ones.

What I found to be the worst part of the experience was being surrounded by mirrors. Not the small, narrow full-length dressing mirrors you'd have in the corner of your bedroom.

Or the funhouse kind I like that make me look tall, thin and lanky (which coincidentally are the ones I have in my bedroom).

No, these dance studio mirrors were other ones. The ones that make me feel like reference material for Brendan Fraser.

I suppose the right way to think of the mirrors is as additional inspiration to get closer to dancing shape as the date sneaks up on me.

And although we've already got the song and the basic steps to the dance we're going to do, there are always additional little flairs and moves I'm thinking about adding at the last minute to spice it up a bit. You know, make it more memorable.

Not to tip my hand, or tap my toe, too much, but I'm thinking a little something like this:

How low can you go

In the limbo dance (I'll pause while you all hear "Leembo Leembo Leembo" in your head), the goal is to see how low you can set the bar before you decide you can't go any lower.

Sound familiar?

In advertising unfortunately this is a dance you get invited to on a daily basis. It comes at you from all directions: Client. Budget. Holding companies. People on your own team. And if you say no to the invite, then suddenly you're not a "team player" (as if I ever was), and pegged as difficult, which I may have been called once or twice. Today.

Most creatives I know would wear that label as a badge of honor. We'd all rather fail with quality than succeed with garbage. But it's easy to see just by grabbing the clicker and turning on the TV or radio, opening a magazine or going to a website, that it's not a landscape that supports that point of view very often.

It's not a state secret that in this world of reduced budgets, no AOR/project-based clients and the amount of money being spent on 360 campaigns for everything from running shoes to laundry detergent (how're those Twitter and Facebook engagement numbers for Tide working out?), agencies operate much more fearfully than they ever have.

So I just want to take this opportunity to raise a glass and say thank you to my fellow creatives, creative directors and everyone who keeps pushing to make the work better, tirelessly fighting the powers working against them and managing to turn out work that's as creative, interesting and inspiring as it is results-getting.

Also, thanks for leaving your dancing shoes at home.

Thriller

I was in Vegas this past weekend.

Usually when I'm there, I can be found in my natural habitat - the end of a crap table rolling the bones.

But this time it was a family weekend, the last one before young Mr. Spielberg heads off to one of the best film schools in the country, and the pricey tuition that implies (I was hoping to win part of his tuition playing craps, but was forced to move on to Plan B - working the rest of my life).

Anyway, to celebrate the start of his film career we decided to see a couple of shows. One of them was the Cirque du Soleil production of Michael Jackson ONE.

Now I always liked a lot of his music, but I never would've called myself a fan. But man, slap me twice and call me Sally, this show was spectacular. Music blaring, dancers gyrating, lasers flashing, it had all the flash and spectacle you'd expect from Jackson and Vegas.

It's a multi-media show, and during a lot of it you have no idea where to look because there's so much going on. Then suddenly, there's one heartbreaking clip that almost takes your breath away: young Michael, in the Jackson 5 days, singing I'll Be There. It's a lump in your throat, not a dry eye in the house moment that doesn't let go.

There was also the first time the world saw him break out his signature moonwalk move on the 25th Anniversary of Motown special. In case you'd forgotten what an electric performer he was.

For all the energy and precision the onstage dancers moved with - and it was considerable - it was an impossible job to ask them to keep up with the footage of Jackson dancing with the intensity and deliberateness he did. He simply moved in a way that can't be duplicated.

No doubt because of his personal life and predilections there are many reasons to dislike Michael Jackson. And one great production doesn't make any of them go away.

But for one incredibly entertaining night, for the first time, I was a fan.

Opening Night

Since the beginning of the year, both my kids have been in rehearsals for the annual production their school does as a fundraiser. It’s called Broadway Showcase, and they’ve been a part of the production for years.

I think it could also be called I didn’t think it was legal in this state to make kids work that hard.

In addition to their regular curriculum, they also have to go to rehearsals every day after school. At first, they got out at 9 p.m. But as it started getting closer to opening night, rehearsals let out at 10 p.m.

Then of course there was the President’s Day rehearsal which went on for about 10 hours. I’m sure show tunes are exactly how Washington and Lincoln wanted to be remembered.

There is also no cutting of the slack. When my kids drag their tired selves home at 10:30 or 11 from rehearsals, that’s when they have to open the books (iPad) and start on the hours of homework they’re still expected to turn in the next day.

But tonight and tomorrow night, it all pays off. The wife and I will be at the Theater for Performing Arts in La Mirada, watching our beautiful, talented kids sing and dance their hearts out to an appreciative, loving audience filled with classmates, parents and grandparents.

Safe to say it’s not a tough crowd. But they give it their all as if they were performing at the Majestic Theater on 53rd St.

History tells me that the second night will be better than the first because they’ll have gotten the nerves and the bugs out. And the second night is also closing night – it’s a short run. So there’s a looseness to the production that’s pretty entertaining.

Afterwards, they’ll have the wrap party. And then, while no one will be getting a Tony for their work, they’ll be getting something even more valuable when they get home.

Sleep.