I'm not a big fan of Broadway musicals but I just couldn't resist an airy new soufflé of a play: "On Your Feet: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan." I had such a wonderful evening that my only regret is I couldn't find anyone to go along.

"It's the story of Gloria Estefan told in song and dance?" asked my friend Margo excitedly.

"Not just Gloria Estefan!" I replied. "Emilio too!"

She cocked her head and shot me a funny look and suddenly remembered that she had to wash her dog. Her loss! Because I give this fabulous little musical two thumbs up.

I have to admit I probably would have stayed away if Emilio hadn't been so visibly included. I don't know about you, but I'd see an ad for "On Your Feet: The Story of Gloria Estefan" and I'd think, "Well, she's fun and all, but I'd really like to see her interact with an accordion player who works at the Bacardi distillery."

After all, what is the showgirl without the businessman? Leaving him out would be like an Oscars broadcast without a mention of Price Waterhouse. He discovered her, so naturally we're dying to hear his story. After all, didn't we flock to "This I Promise You: The Enchanted Life of Lou Pearlman"?

I don't think I'm alone in this, either. Everyone's fascinated by the man behind the woman, which is why the Carl&Dollywood theme park is such a massive hit. I swear, the last time I went there I must have waited in line three hours for the "Basics of Accounting" ride.

And Emilio Estefan is so much more than just a businessman. He mentored Marc Antony, Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin, though due to the high cost of getting rights to celebrity names they're called Mike Kasminski, Jackie Pachinko and Fred Mertz in the musical. Permanently burned into my brain is a particularly intense scene where Estefan is determined to make a star of the bumbling Mertz. His voice cracks from strain as he repeatedly prods the young man that it's "la vida lo-CA. La vida lo-CA."

I'm not saying the show would have been unwatchable without Emilio, but it would have suffered. Sure, we would have been delighted by "The Rhythm is Going To Get You," but it wouldn't have resonated half as much without the emotional counterpoint of "Creating A Strategic Marketing Platform With Latin-Oriented Businesses." The kids and the women in the crowd absolutely adored "Conga," but the men didn't really come alive until Emilio's showstopper, "Promoting Trade Diversity in the Miami-Dade Community."

Still, my favorite scene had to be where Emilio and Gloria show each other that their half of the partnership is very hard work. Gloria forces Emilio to sing and dance while wearing bolero shorts, and Emilio makes Gloria sort through her receipts. Is dining in a foreign city ENTERTAINMENT or TRAVEL? I was in hysterics as she tried to decide.

Anyway, I highly recommend this musical. If you've ever wondered about the struggle that comes before success, you should go. If you've ever wanted a deeper explanation of a Gloria Estefan song, you have to go. And if you've ever watched women's gymnastics on TV and thought, "The pommel horse routines are interesting, but I'd really like to know more about that Hungarian guy who pats them on the head afterward," then 1-2-3 get your tickets NOW!

As everybody who doesn't live under a rock knows, a blockbuster new movie just opened. A certain colorful character might call it Star Wars: It Awakens, The Force, Yes It Does, Hmm? but grandma hasn't been the same since her stroke. I'm the series' number-one fan so needless to say I'd been waiting in line at Mann's Chinese since the day Cameron Diaz's movie Sex Bloat opened and closed. Star Wars films aren't just state-of-the-art spectacles: they're an experience shared by virtually everyone alive. Americans adopt Star Wars slang into their lexicon, Europeans debate the metaphorical characters, and Asian kids get the same thrill sewing their four-thousandth R2D2 t-shirt as they did sewing the first.

A lot of people appreciate Star Wars because it doesn't demand a Ph.D. of its audience. It's not asking hard questions like, "Is gender identity more fluid in a post-apocalyptic world?" or "Is this constant violence a result of nature or nurture?," but instead leaves us wondering simple things like, "Wait, so the villain is the only character who's BLACK?"

I love how the filmmakers stay a step ahead of us in knowing what we want. Somehow they've deduced that right after we've met the first woman in a cast of thousands, she should don a bikini in an intergalactic Victoria's Secret fashion show. (Though I'm somewhat relieved they edited out that show's slightly-stereotypical emcee, Gay Gay Bonks.) Even before The Danish Girl hit movie theaters, the Star Wars folks realized they needed to ramp up their feminist punch: finally Leia is promoted to General and given a one-piece.

I also appreciate how intelligent the series is. Think of how much research they must have done, how many scientists and philosopher they must have queried, to finally decide that in the year 45,617 A.D. we'll be bombing everyone who doesn't look like us. How many strange new characters did they invent? How many times did they have to Google "Armenian baby names"? They've populated an entire galaxy with alien races and invented distinct hand-held weapons to kill them all. I think we all remember the iconic cantina scene in the original Star Wars, though it's faded a bit in my memory:

HAN SOLO: Look, Luke! Isn't it incredible here? Fifteen million light years in the future every creature is still a variation on the two-legs, two-arms, central-head rule we saw in The Mummy in 1952. That there is Mando Palrithian. Over there is Mongo Salrathian. That guy is Mingo Casbashian.

LUKE: This is amazing. Look, there's a fish-headed creature in a blue velour bathrobe!

HAN SOLO: Huh. Let's go chop his head off with a buzzing flashlight.

LUKE: Okay!

Imagine being a fly on the wall during those creative brainstorms:

FUTURIST #1: Technology has advanced in quantum leaps. Robots not only have self-awareness and sentience, but they contain all the knowledge of the world. Robots built for different functions will have distinct looks and personalities.

FUTURIST #2: But we'll still need an aggressive white guy to destroy anything really big!

I was on the edge of my seat throughout the entire film. Every time a new character appeared my mind raced. Who would they end up being related to? Is this Chewbacca's nephew? Princess Leia's half-sister? The turd emoticon's father-in-law? And what new weapon would they produce? A gamma ray umbrella? A quantum pine cone? I don't want to sound like a hopeless fanboy but eighty billion years in the future I hope fart cannons become a thing.

Needless to say, I ran straight from the theater to Toys R Us. I ordinarily wouldn't spend $3,500 on needless stuff, but these are investments that can't lose money like my Wumpo Labdabian coin purse. I knew they created toys to exploit every segment of the marketplace, but even I was surprised at the endless rows of action figures. They were big, small, fat, thin, and every shade of the rainbow. There's a little girl action figure who has a single mom and early-onset asthma, and a little boy with a bad lisp and a briefcase he carries to school. I've always gone for the really obscure merchandise, because that's what becomes really valuable, but evidently the Star Wars marketing folks have caught on to this strategy. One figure I bought wasn't even in the movie, but fingers crossed we see more of plucky little Chango Klaptrapian, the home-schooled Christian in the iron lung with the photon cream pies.

Guy Who Got Wartime Medical Deferment Is Absolutely Perfect Now

Meat or Tree?

We've all been there: wandered the twisty streets of some foreign city for hours on end, until our legs ached and our head spun. We try to recover: we duck into an exotic restaurant, grab a table and hope a tasty repast will help. The waiter approaches and he points off in the distance. Our eyes focus and refocus but it doesn't clear up the mystery: is that meat, or a tree?

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