My thoughts on "Ask Your Mama" at the Hilbert Circle Theatre

When my wife said we got tickets to see Ice-T with the ISO, I gave her the confused "tilted-head puppy dog look." Ice-T and the ISO were two things I wouldn't normally put together. And since I haven't seen a live symphony performance since the Owensboro Symphony Chrismas show in 5th grade (some 160 years ago), this was a new experience all around.

The show itself was phenominal. The jazz quartet were the true stars of the show, but Ice-T and the ISO added some depth to the project. But, if you want an actual review, read the Indy Star. These were some random thoughts of the show from last night:

- I offered my wife $5 if when Ice-T walked out, she stood up and yelled, "Wait a minute, I thought this was supposed to be Ice CUBE with the ISO!" And then storm out. She offered me $5 to give her last name back.

- We worried all day about what the dress code would be. When we got there, we realized very quickly...not an issue.

- Why do conductors have mullets? Is this cool in the symphony clique?

- I watched the entire orchestra, and no one was looking at the conductor, so why, exactly is he up there swinging his arms? If Earth, Wind & Fire or P-Funk doesn't need a short white guy in a tux flailing his arms wildly to keep everyone in sync, why do top-level professional musicians?

- OK, one more thing about the conductor: Yes, he looked like Dudley Moore and Michael Kamen had a love child.

- The piano player (who was fantastic, by the way) had a laptop next to his bench. It took me half the show to figure out he was directing the video overhead, but I was hoping that during breaks, he would pull up ESPN.com.

- I thought about a way I could sneak in a plug for my new book, "Crazyman's Economics" into this blog, but then I decided it would be in poor taste.

- At the very back of the stage was the guy who played the gong and the guy who played a shaker for about 20 seconds. The two most bored-looking guys in the whole place. They reminded me of either a bullpen catcher in baseball who works for about 20 minutes a game, or the unnamed crew member in "Star Trek" who has 3 lines then gets killed. How do I get a job like that?

- Is there a cooler dude around than Ice-T? Seriously, Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones were the only other actors i could think of that could bring to the table what Ice-T did, and neither one were pimps.

- I told a few random people during intermission that I had every Ice-T record and didn't recognize ONE song.

Enjoyable evening, nice introduction to the ISO and the Hilbert Circle Theatre, and thanks to SI for the tickets.