This year's Holiday Pain™, threatening to become a tradition, it would seem, was the Jesus Christ Superstar musical at the Wilshire Theater, starring Ted Neeley as Jesus of Nazareth. 

Neeley played the same role in the 70s movie, a fact I didn't know until later, though I did wonder why he looked rather familiar. Of course, the guy just can't pass for a 33 year-old anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he still looks like Jesus. At least from 50 feet away he does. Well, a 50-ish Jesus anyway.

When I was a child, the nuns used to torture us with songs from this movie. They'd have us sing them during mass in lieu of the normal songs. I Don't Know How to Love Him was a favorite of theirs o_O Innocent as I was, even I knew there was something ewww about that. At one point the sisters actually got a hold of the film and made the whole school watch it at the local movie house. Good times.

The thing that sucked most about tonight though, apart from the flashback to my Catholic school days and the closeted hippy nuns that figured so strongly in my so-called upbringing, was the lousy timing. I was really hoping to catch the last show of LDRKI afterwards (since I was in the area anyway) but the damned singing didn't end until after 10pm which was about half an hour too late. It would've been perfect if it weren't for the stupid half-hour intermission between the two acts. I say stupid because altogether the whole thing was barely an hour and a half long and yet they insisted on an intermission. Sooo ridiculous.

So yeah, no LDRKI tonight. Thanks for the flashback though.