And I Would Walk 500 Miles ...

For those blog readers who are a little younger, once upon a time there was a late night talk show called The Arsenio Hall Show. It was a significant milestone in the sense that it was a regular mainstream talk show on every night hosted by an African American. The problem was that when David Letterman switched from NBC to the 11:30 pm timeslot on CBS, all hell broke loose in late night world, and Arsenio was put out of business overnight.

But before that happened, I was watching Arsenio one night and saw a pair of singing Scottish Brothers perform on his show who had a unique sound and harmonies like you'd never heard before -- or because they're Scottish: like you've never "hairrrrd b-far." The group was The Proclaimers and I immediately bought their album. Before law school was over I had two of their albums. They largely receded into my memory in recent years, however; I remember looking on Amazon for a new album a few years ago and not seeing anything -- until today.

This afternoon at work I saw on the nyc.com events calendar that The Proclaimers were in town today. I dismissed the notion of going. I didn't have tickets. I never do anything spontaneous. I had no one to go with. Oh heck, I could go by the theater on 23rd Street and at least see if there were any tickets. Well, I went to the box office and there were plenty of tickets, I went to the show and it was awesome. They had the Gramercy Theater rocking. I was even able to get a I-love-everything-Scottish friend to join me for the last 2/3 of the show. People were dancing in the aisles, waving the Scottish flag and having a grand old time. And I got to do it all on a whim. In New York, groups like The Proclaimers will occasionally pass by. I'm grateful for the opportunity to live here and to have a chance to stumble onto an incredibly fun night like tonight. Arsenio would have loved it.

Here are a few (low quality) cell phone images of the boys from tonight. Interestingly, they didn't look as boyish as they did when they performed on Arsenio ... I guess I don't look as boyish as when I first watched them either ....