Boy & Oh Boy

I haven't filled you in on my day in Kurihama with Reiko, or the Japanese and American Wives' Club Fiesta, or the recycled kimono sale, or my trip to China Pete's with Sue, or my latest driving adventures, or Katie's decision to intern at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or the banana au lait mushroom-shaped cookies Reiko found, or my recent conversations with Dr. T. But you will just have to stop back for all that (if you care) because today . . . drum roll . . . my James is celebrating his 24th birthday. That's him below with his girlfriend Emily. We are very excited that they'll be here in June for Matt's graduation.

The rest of today's post is for James' godmother, Aunt Cathy, who isn't on Facebook so hasn't seen the pictures from Matt's theatrical debut in "Back to the 80s". He plays Michael Feldman, a frightfully arrogant high school senior who eventually gets his comeuppance to the delight of the entire audience, including the actor's mother. It seems appropriate to be posting these pictures on James' birthday because Matt drew so many aspects of his character from his memories of James at 15 and 16.

He's the captain of the football team and gets himself elected class president by stealing the nice kid's campaign ideas which he presents to his classmates in the form of a rap song. (This is after he sings "Footloose" but all my pictures of that scene are blurry because it's a big production number with the entire cast dancing behind and around him.)

He and the nice kid (my friend Mimi's son Andrew) have a singing duel (above) over Tiffany. Matt wins. The song they sing is "I Would Walk 500 Miles." They are very funny in this scene.

This is another funny scene. Just as the nice kid is inviting the girl to go for a ride on his new bike, Matt comes on stage in a big cardboard car and sings "Get Into My Car." He is really hilarious. I spend a lot of time during intermission informing other audience members that the school provided all the costumes. Some people thought he borrowed the purple track suit from his dad's closet . . .

This is my favorite scene. The two girls are singing the Debbie Gibson song, "Lost in Your Eyes," while Matt changes his facial expression and strikes J. C. Penney catalogue poses in time with the music. You would recognize at least half of those facial expressions because he borrowed them from his brother, uncles, and cousins.

This is the prom scene, after the computer nerd beats him up. I don't have any good pictures of the Star Wars dream sequence when Andrew plays Luke Skywalker cavorting with Princess Leia and Matt shows up in a Darth Vader costume, wins a light saber battle, and skips off the stage arm-in-arm with the princess.

This is the end of the show. The girls are serenading him with "Hey, Mickey, You're So Fine" and then he sings a few bars of "Get Into My Car."

I'm fairly certain he tapped into his "What's for dinner? I'm starving" vein for this scene.

And this is when he's probably dredging up memories of the "I can't believe Santa didn't bring me a PlayStation2" Christmas.

So there you have it. We miss our family more than ever this week. After the final show tomorrow night, I'll get back on track and fill you in on all the things we love about living in Japan.