The Purpose in Life

Street sign of Avenue Q on the stage set.

Ever wonder what it would be like if Sesame Street was for adults? This could possibly be the one and that’s what the audience saw in the latest production at Illinois Central College.

On Sept. 26, the ICC Arts and Communication Department Theatre Program presented “Avenue Q:  The Musical” in the main stage at the Performing Arts Center. Based on the book by Jeff Whitty, the story is about a newly graduated student is on the hunt for what his purpose is in life while meeting his new friends on Avenue Q. 

The characters in the story are puppets,  the actors performing with lot of expression of vocal and facial as they sang and performed. So think of it as Sesame Street plus The Muppets plus Comedy Central and you got a production that will just make you laugh out loud out of your seats. 

“I really thought that this show was simply hilarious,” said Alex Johnson, 45, of East Peoria, of the play. “They had so many funny songs that were catchy.”

 Johnson was mentioning the songs in the show. Since this was a musical, there were many songs that got the audience simply laughing out loud; songs from “Sucks to Be Me,” “If You Were Gay,” “The Internet is For Porn” “The Money Song” and “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist,”

But one song got the audience really laughing, “You Can Be As Loud As The Hell You Want (When You’re Making Love).” That song number came when Gary Coleman and the Bad Idea Bears, portrayed by Matthew Henry and puppeteers Emilie Dierks and Christopher McHenry, this came when Princeton and Kate Monster, puppeteer by Ryan Groves and Trisha Bagby, had a night of drinking and decided to go to her apartment and have some fun, in a way.

“That number really had me laughing so hard,” said Johnson.

The set on stage was of a neighborhood like of a New York City suburb, with an apartment building and an old store which is used for other things like an apartment and etc.  The show used the projector screen during the show to help audience to where they are located at and also with word pronunciation with words like “purpose” and “commitment.”

The show also used music a lot and not just for musical numbers but for each of the character’s theme,. It symbolizes of its character’s own character. There was an orchestra that was conducted by Tony Jones.

“I thought that the characters of Nicky and Rod were familiar to me in a way,” said Susan Kelly, of Peoria. “They reminded me of Burt and Ernie from Sesame Street; they had almost the same characteristic and were very funny.”

“Avenue Q” is a musical about how sometimes you are not always going to find what you want to do and that it has turns to something that you don’t expect. There’s humor, education and some romance as well.

You can see “Avenue Q: The Musical” playing now on Sept. 26 through the 28 and again on Oct. 3 through the 5, at the Performing Arts Center. For tickets contact the box office at 694-5136 or order them online at www.ArtsAtICC.com. 

Jeter, Thanks for the Memories

This has been tough to write about. I literally have been putting this off for quite some time now and it just get's harder and harder everyday goes by with every hour, minute and second goes by that I don't think how this day is coming. The day that we bid farewell to The Captain, Derek Jeter. 

Words are never enough to describe it. I feel happy that we wants to move on from baseball. He does deserve everything that he has come to him and ahead of him. He is one of the greatest players to have played the game. 

He may not be a home run hitter like a Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth, but my god, when it comes to tie ball game at the bottom of the ninth inning and Jeter is up, you know for sure that he is Mr. Clutch when it counts.

The game Thursday night was the moment that prove who Jeter was, that when in a time to win the game, he's there ready to finish it. 

I grew up watching Jeter probably since I was not even ten years old. I remember seeing him make that amazing catch that he did in one game back in 2001 where he just ran and jumped caught the foul ball and landed in the stands. When I saw that with my grandparents and mother I was just blown away. 

I remember the one game back when the Red Sox and Yankees were playing in the Playoffs in 2004, Jeter catches the ball just before pasting the foul line and couldn't stop running and just dive into the stands. That was a moment there.

Since then the New York Yankees have become my American League team to root for as I'm an original fan of the Chicago Cubs. 

I can't image what it would be like when today, if he plays at Fenway Park, what it would be like when he is finally gone from baseball. I guess that's what others before us might have said when Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Banks, Koufax just to name a few when they played their last game. 

When the new season comes, there won't be #2 there at shortstop anymore. A new era will begin for the Yankees and for MLB, who will be the next Jeter. 

That's another question for another day or until next season starts. 

Jeter has been the perfect image for MLB, the perfect role model that we have looked up to and just hopefully we could play like him. 

This year with all of these commercials of his thanks #2 or #Re2pect, the Gatorade and Nike ads that has us all in tears (don't deny it, it really did) that it shows us that even if we are not a Yankee fan, there's a player that we can relate to in so many ways. 

I thought that that moment at the end of Thursday game was a moment that we will never forget. I had another idea for what would be a great moment to send Jeter off. 

It's the bottom of the ninth with two outs and when the third strike is called out, we see  both Rivera, Andy and Jorge come out towards Jeter and give him a hug. As they hugged, they tell him it's finally time and at that moment they walk off the field. 

Just to let you know that I've thought about that this whole season. I really think it's a great idea. It sure got me emotional just thinking about it. 

As I said before, there are no words to describe the lost of Derek Jeter. He is just a simple guy, who day in and day out works his butt off trying to win games and championships for the town that he represented. 

He is a man that puts his fans and team first besides himself. He is the most unselfish ball player that has ever played the game of baseball. 

I have not doubt that he will make it into the Hall of Fame. he is a first ballot, no questions asked.

 He is literally The Captain..Derek Jeter. Jeter thanks for all the great moments and memories that you have given us for 20 years. Every game if it wasn't a good one or not you play til the game is over. You are literally an inspiration to us all and in that mind we thank you. 

  

Parenthood "Vegas" review

We never really thought that this day would have come, that we would never seen this family ever again. But tonight's not the cast at all. Tonight was the season premiere of the final season of "Parenthood." We've seen this family gone through a lot of different realistic issues that we've never seen on television making, Tuesday and Thursday nights family time. 

We thought it was going to be the series finale and not a season finale, but NBC picked it up for one more season and tonight starts the emotional roller coaster ride of what will the Braverman family face this time.

In the last season finale,, we saw the Braverman ended up being happy. Haddie has come home and informed her parents that she was gay, Kristina's idea of forming a new school for special kids like Max is in the works, Joel and Julia were still separated, Sarah and Hank are together and Amber spent some time with Ryan until he left to recover and move back to his mom's place, but not without saying goodbye. 

In the season premiere we first come to hear a heart beat sound and we see Amber at the doctor's exam room. She is pregnant and apparently pretty shock too. Her doctor informs her that she needs to think about what to do about this, she doesn't have much time before someone finds out. 

We see Crosby's family at home and see Aida walking for the first time. Zeek is planting in his garden and is excited to be pickling as well. Camille is painting as they are both outside their new home. 

Sarah and Hank are having breakfast, apparently they are stay together in his new place. And Hank talks about how his daughter, Ruby, is going to be coming back to stay with him. As that happens, Sarah has plans to take her father to Las Vegas for his birthday. 

We come to Sarah and Zeek at Vegas, playing the slots and drinking until when he was playing cards and he got up and fainted to the floor. They both go to the emergency room and find that there was nothing wrong with his heart but wants to do more test. Well, Zeek being Zeek, he through a big fit. 

Meanwhile the family is having a bit of a hard time dealing with it. Camille is worried about him, Julia get a call from her and she soon heads to confront her. As for Adam and Crosby, Adam talks to Sarah and asked her to have the doctor speak to him but Sarah thinks she has it all handled. That had Adam and Crosby go to Vegas and they met at the hotel where Zeek wasn't there but instead playing at the cards table. 

As Kristina's new school is only a couple days away, it still needed more work. So the family from Haddie, Amber, Max, the kids, Camille and Julia were helping get things put in order and put up as well. Then comes Joel, who seems to be happy to see the family and seems to miss them too. Kristina asked him if he could help with the pluming. He offered and also offered to call some guy to help. But not before we see Julia being a bit nervous when he was in the room. 

But there is an issue that Max doesn't want to go to this school, instead he likes it being home school as he gets his work done, no one holds him back and he can go to work with Hank after. Even though both Adam and Kristina tried to make him go and understand he went anyway.

Later on for the first time in like a long time I would think, Amber and Haddie had some girls time together and talked about as Amber told her that she's pregnant. The talk in their high school that they use to go to and remember some moments that they have had years ago. 

As Hank's daughter comes, in a teenage fashion attitude, his ex wife comes too. She wanted to talk to Hank about splitting her 50/50 of taking care of her after a bit of a tough time handing her in Minnesota  And they agree to do just that. 

As soon as Zeek comes home, Camille give him a hug and told him that he has a doctors appointment to see his heart doctor that day but he was a bit tired and wanted to lay down due to the flight back. As soon as they see the doctor, the doctor didn't like what he was seeing from the results from the hospital in Vegas and that he was going to have to perform surgery to see what's the cause. 

We've seen the Family go through so much life situations in the past five seasons, this might come to near the top. Word is that this season the family will experience a death in the family. Could Zeek being going? The trailer for the upcoming season gives a lot of what will happen but also you might want to grab tissues if you are going to watch it. 

You can catch "Parenthood" Thursday nights at 10/9c on NBC. 

Chicago PD "Call It Macaroni" review

After a cliffhanger in the season one finale that led to Jin being found murdered, the question remains: who did it? Was it Voight's fault? The second season of the hit TV cop drama is back as they kicked it off with a bang.

Voight is questioned by the higher power of the Chicago Police Department and asked if he was there at the time of Jin's murder.

Voight isn't too pleased about what's happening, and as her heads back to the house, he gets questioned by his unit. He does blow up a bit from all the questions and asks for any updates.

Later, Antonio gets an inside source that there is going to be an exchange of a piece of evidence for money. When the gang goes undercover, Ruzek enters as the insider and the others follow; the unit gets ambushed, and a shootout begins.

As the squad returns to the house, Al informs the group that the guy involved in the exchange was the man who had killed a girl years ago, and that the evidence that was to hold him had disappeared, and without that evidence, the guy is a free man. And it upsets Al.

Meanwhile,  Halstead gets a package sent to him six weeks ago and finds out it came from Jin. It was a hard drive that had information. He talked to Erin about it and found out that it had some intelligence of Commander Perry, and it turns out that Jin wasn't going beyond Voight's back after all.

Deciding to give or not to give to Voight, he does, and Voight takes it and tries to make a deal with Perry, but Perry turns things around and threatens Voight if he turns him in that, he'll turn him, tone beyond his squad's back.

We see that Burgess is getting a new partner; after we saw last time, her partner was a big someone with experience but not in tip-top shape. She's introduced to Roman, who doesn't quite like to work with female partners because of his history of falling in love with one.

As Antonio speaks to his source again, they got one of the guys who's part of the exchange for over $200,000. And so they set up a sting, with only one member knowing. As the squad awaits the arrival of the guy Al wants to put back in jail, they set up and see them coming. As the group gave the others the money and then gave them the evidence, they started shooting.

The squad goes in, and the mod guy and his gang leave, riding off. They're stopped, and the guy's brother steps out. As Halstead and Erin come out, the brother grabs his gun, and Halstead shoots down the brother, and he's dead.

Later, Voight gets a visitor, who turns out to be Jin's mother, who wants to tell him that he always wanted to be a police officer and that at the academy, he was mistreated. Adding that, since he joined Voight's team, he felt more of a team than before. Voight is later called back by the head CPD people and asks for his shield and gun, but he then wants to talk to the chief and discuss what Jin is doing.

Later on, some of the gang are at Molly's talking to the new member of Firehouse 51, the one who replaced the late Leslie Shay. He gets an inside source saying that there's a hit on Halstead after killing the brother of the guys they were after. Al gets to Molly's and tells Halstead about the bounty on him.

As the episode ends, Voight is seen in the storage room, moving a shelf where a vault is shown, opening it up, putting the hard drive in there, and grabbing about $10,000 for Jin's father to clear his gambling debt.

The season of Chicago PD has started with a bang. It seems that the squad is still intact after Jin passing, not like what happened over on Chicago Fire. It seems Voight does have some heart in him, but also that he still isn't telling the truth about him being this dirty cop to get the bad gangs in jail.

Burgess and Ruzek are more robust in relationship. She still hopes that she will make the intelligence squad.

You can catch new episodes of "Chicago PD" on Wednesday nights at 10/9c on NBC

The Mysteries of Laura "The Mystery of the Dead Date" review

As an online date had gone wrong for one person, it's up to Laura to figure out who killed the romance and also how to deal with her own now ex-husband as her new boss.

The story starts out as we come to a maid coming into a room, dancing, about to clean. She gets a startling reaction when she sees a woman who is hung by a silk curtain.

Then cut to Laura eating a pretzel and spots an elder person being robbed by two guys. She engaged  and speaks to them, one being a bit cocky tell her to mind her own business and calling her a soccer mom. That's where she dropped her pretzel and teased one of them.

Robber's never learn right?

And then we see Laura pick up her pretzel, a kid tells her that it's disgusting and she tells him that there's a five second rule that was more than just a five second rule, say 25 seconds. Anyone would have done the same thing if it was that good of a pretzel.

When Laura get's the call about the victim, the only clue is the victim's underwear and a horrible smell of cologne. Billy and her head to the business where the victim got the pair of underwear.

Laura runs into a problem with the worker, due to the fact that Laura isn't wearing their kind of style wearing. Until she calls out to everyone in the store telling that she had tried on a lot of clothes and she has a bit of a rash. That was one of many that was funny.

Laura finally get the cashier's attention.

That got the lady's attention and helped her find who the victim was.

On the other side of things, Laura comes back to the office seeing about everyone checking her ex-husband, Jake's ass out as he puts a up a poster. She doesn't know how this is going to work, thinking that it'll go bad while he thinks it's going to workout great.

Jake seems to be wanting to be everyone's friend and buys cronuts and a cappuccino machine and wants to have some guy time with Billy. He might have been hoping to get some tips of getting back together.

As the investigation is still going, Laura meets with the ex-husband of the victim; he got confused of the new because he thought it was his current wife that had died not his ex. Apparently he doesn't care at all about her.

Laura meets the suspect and his wing-man.

Laura finds that the victim had an apartment and see that she had a child and promises her that she will do everything to solve her mother's murder.

Everything points to a website where the victim was trying to find love. So, Laura goes undercover, filling out a profile and signed up with up to 12 dates. As she dress up as a detective meets a female James Bond, she meets a bunch of weird, freaky guys until one guy spills his drink on her. The man, named Mic gave her a card but also was rude to her, until another guy stepped in and told him to leave.

She comes to find out that this was the guy that was suppose to be with the victim but she turned him down. Which lead to that guy who spilled the drink on Laura that turns out to be the guy's wing-man. There was also another clue that it was the wing-man, due to the fact of the strong cologne smell.

So she calls him and sets a date with him, having both Billy, Meredith and Jake as her backup. Laura plays with the guy and they go to his apartment. As soon as he starts playing with Laura, she goes in and then when she sees his scares decides not to go and that's where he slaps her to the group.

It got to be a real serious dramatic fight as she returns with a punch and kicked him down to the group. Then at the perfect timing that the guys had the power turned off, the lights go out and the guy hit Laura with a metal candle holder. As soon as you think that he was going to bash her hand with it again, backup shows up.

Laura meeting "The Wig-Man"

After a long couple of days, turns down Jake for an invite, she decides to hangout with two other people, her boys as they are in the bedroom watching TV and they are sleeping each by her side.

"Dead Date" seems to be a lot of fun and yet had some dramatic sides like the fight scene. You sometimes tend to forget that this is a drama at times with it also being a comedy with some funny lines.

The character, Sammi, was just a hilarious as a child who protested her own father's work. Doesn't want to get paid but as soon as she was release she was hoping for some money for the bus. But it turns out that we might see her again soon as Laura gave her her card for some babysitting.

The episode was more of how Laura had the balance between her job and facing the fact that her ex-husband is now her boss. Which has made it very funny, with their dialogue.

You can catch new episodes of "The Mysteries of Laura" Wednesday night at 8/7c on NBC.

Always and Forever: Chicago Fire "Always" review

(Warning: Stop reading if you haven't watched the episode, there are spoilers.) 

When we last saw the gang from House 51, they had thrown a wedding for their Captain, and as soon as the party was underway, a call about a fire in a warehouse building. That's where everyone went in except for the Captain. 

There seems to be a problem. Quietness sets in, and suddenly, the top building explodes. Boden yells for Casey and Severide to respond, but nothing happens, and everything goes dark until Tuesday night when we find out who will live and who will die.

The premiere of Season Three of the hit NBC series "Chicago Fire" picked up where we left off. Severide wakes up from the mess and ensures that everyone on his and Casey's teams is all right. 

We see that Mills is injured with a leg injury, and they call the Captain to Shay and Dawson. But it was at that moment that Casey and Severide heard that Dawson and Shay were in the building at the time of the explosion. 

They searched for them and came to an emotional Dawson performing CPR on an unresponsive Shay Severide. Casey tried to help Dawson, but he didn't want to stop. They try to do as much as they can, but no response. Leslie Shay has died.

As we cut to Severide and Dawson looking at each other while Shay is carried away, we come to one of many flashbacks of Shay's first day at House 51, meeting Dawson and the gang.

The second was when she met with Severide, and we found out how they became roommates. The third was as both Shay and Dawson went into the building to help a victim, we came to what had happened to Shay and how she died of a head injury. Some of the rest were just of both Dawson and Severide's good times that they have had.

Months after the incident, we come to a depressing firehouse 51; everyone returns to doing their best. Mills is back, and Dawson came in late after her appointment.

Dawson is having a difficult time when trying to find a replacement. Also, we see that she isn't quite herself, and then we meet Shay's replacement, Sylvia Brett, who looks like Shay. If that wouldn't be enough on her plate as it is. 

Severide hasn't been back since Shay's death, and House 66 is pissing off Casey and the team for their remarks about Dawson joining their team. 

Casey looks for Severide and finds him at his logo cabin. Casey explains that the only thing that matters is the lives they save and that he should represent death. 

Severide thinks and later comes back to House 51.

Dawson goes to her appointment with the firehouse chaplain, who she's been seeing for the last five weeks and has not spoken yet. That is until she finally talks and tells him that she blames herself for the death of Shay.

Near the end, we see Casey helping Severide pack up Shay's things for her family. Severide comes to a recording of a promise they made on the first days as roommates: that they "always" kept a guarantee that they would not bring work home and stay as friends. 

This series shows that no character is safe; this is what it is in the real world. This episode proves that not even our favorite character can last forever. It packed so many emotions that it's hard to wrap my head around. This could be one of the saddest episodes of the series so far. 

"Always" seems a game-changer for Beveride and Dawson in the series. We'll see how this season plans out. Overall, I give the season premiere a 9/10.

You can catch "Chicago Fire" on Tuesday nights at 10/9c on NBC. 

The Blacklist "Lord Baltimore" review

When we last saw "The Blacklist," we discovered who Berlin was and that a war was still coming. As the new season kicked off last night, we learn about more questions than there are answers, but we are left with a pretty amount of one hour of drama to take.


The show picks up a few months after seeing the season finale—Red Needs, who is hunting him down from the man known as Berlin. The name "Lord Baltimore" comes and gets Liz and the newly run FBI on the chase to find him.





Mostly everyone on the FBI staff is still shaken up by the loss of Agent Malik and that Harold Cooper is recovering from his injuries from the finale and may not return to work. Even Ressler is somewhat tight-lipped about the events, as an FBI psychologist wanted to talk to him.



We Find that "Baltimore" has been scheming a person named Rowan. Keen and Ressler investigate it and learn she has a twin sister she thinks is still alive. Well, busy is a loose word to use for someone like her.

Meanwhile, we see Red and Dembe going back to their hotel when, all of a sudden, a helicopter comes in a somewhat fashionable "Godfather" moment where guns are firing, and another group of people kidnaps Red.

Red is soon released and finds out that Berlin isn't after him but someone, a woman. When Red sees a list of people and profiles, he comes to someone important to him, someone from his past: Naomi, his ex-wife



Keen convinces Naomi to come with her for her protection. She does not want to, even if her life is in danger. But then we find out who is "Lord Baltimore" when he turns out to be a she with a dissociative identity disorder, too.

Naomi is kidnapped and brought to Berlin. Berlin seems to have a plan for her to get Red like he did with Berlin.

Near the end, we see that Keen is moving on with her life after Tom, Kessler is somewhat in denial that he isn't okay, and we see that Red gets a package with a phone that turns out to be Berlin with a message for him that gives a look to Red's face unlike any other.

This season starts strong, as if it picks up from last season. We learn what Berlin is doing to Red. But still, who is Naomi? We know she's Red's ex-wife, but who does that make it to Liz? Her mother? Her Aunt? Her cousin? She does mention that she had a daughter.

Even in next week's episode, the showdown will continue as both Berlin and Red will meet for the first time in, as they say, 20 years. I know that I won't want to miss that greeting.

You can catch "The Blacklist" airs Monday nights at 10/9c on NBC.