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John Cleese: The Alimony Tour

JOHN CLEESE: THE ALIMONY TOUR

From writing to starring in plays, musicals, theatrical and comedy productions, to films and sitcoms, Cleese has done it all, and now it’s time for him to tell you about his jam-packed life.

the alimony tour

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United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital Stereo ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN (1.78:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Behind the scenes, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: For the first time ever, comedy legend John Cleese brings his unique comedic perspective to DVD in John Cleese Live: The Alimony Tour. Best known for his part in 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and as Basil Fawlty in 'Fawlty Towers,' John Cleese draws on his many years in the limelight as well as some of his own personal interests. In Cleese's very own words: "it is an evening of well honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical tit-bits and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin." Cleese has achieved a lot in his career which started as a sketch writer for BBC Radio's Dick Emery Show and then The Frost Report. After this stardom beckoned, and Monty Python was created with Cleese co-writing and starring in four series and three films. He went on to achieve further great success as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with then wife Connie Booth. After huge UK success John went on to crack the USA with A Fish Called Wanda (which he wrote and starred in with Jamie Lee Curtis). The late 1990s saw the unstoppable Mr Cleese appear in Bond movie The World is Not Enough and later Die Another Day. From writing to starring in plays, musicals, theatrical and comedy productions, to films and sitcoms, Cleese has done it all, and now it's time for him to tell you about his jam-packed life. ...John Cleese Live! The Alimony Tour 2011 ( John Cleese: The Alimony Tour )

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  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
  • Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.48 x 5.31 x 0.55 inches; 2.82 ounces
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Julia Knowles
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Import, Widescreen, PAL
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 79 minutes
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ John Cleese
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Producers ‏ : ‎ John Cleese Live! The Alimony Tour 2011 ( John Cleese: The Alimony Tour ), John Cleese Live! The Alimony Tour 2011, John Cleese: The Alimony Tour
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0075D5YCO
  • Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ United Kingdom
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • #30,859 in Comedy (Movies & TV)

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John Cleese: The Alimony Tour Live

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John cleese: the alimony tour live.

For the first time ever, comedy legend John Cleese brings his unique comedic perspective to DVD in John Cleese: The Alimony Tour. Best known for his part in 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and as Basil Fawlty in 'Fawlty Towers,' John Cleese draws on his many years in the limelight as well as some of his own personal interests. In Cleese's very own words: "it is an evening of well honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical tit-bits and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin." Cleese has achieved a lot in his career which started as a sketch writer for BBC Radio's Dick Emery Show and then The Frost Report. After this stardom beckoned, and Monty Python was created with Cleese co-writing and starring in four series and three films. He went on to achieve further great success as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with then wife Connie Booth.

John Cleese

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John Cleese: The Alimony Tour

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11 aug 2011, releases by country.

79 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

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loureviews

Review by loureviews ★★★

Much of this material evolved into shows Cleese parroted around in the wake of divorce number three, and it underlies what a negative and bitter old fart he has become. I'll be forever grateful for Python and Fawlty Towers, but there comes a time to say, enough, and to stick a ferret up your nose and buy that licence for your pet fish, Eric.

Jack

Review by Jack ★★★

The funniest thing about John Cleese's Alimony Tour DVD is that the credits show he hired a further four writers simply for the opening salvo of material slagging off his ex-wife.

Sascha Nolte

Review by Sascha Nolte ★★★★

Cleese berichtet live über biographische Details seinerselbst und seiner (vorerst) letzten Scheidung. Für Fans ein Muss. 8,25/10.

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Live comedy in london | manchester | scotland, john cleese: the alimony tour.

Note: This review is from 2011

Review by Steve Bennett

Well, at least he’s honest about it. John Cleese isn’t back on tour because he just loves making people laugh, or because he’s got some vital message he just has to spread. He needs the cash, pure and simple.

Following his $20million divorce from third wife Alyce Faye Eichelberger, Cleese is pleading penury, forced out on the road to scrape together a living, when he’d rather be at home with a good book, enjoying his hard-earned retirement.

There is a slight feeling that with the flagrantly money-making Alimony Tour that he’s done just enough to get by. He’s gone for the simplest route; a straightforward retelling of his rise to fame, full of all the anecdotes he’s polished over five decades of interviews and chat-show appearances. Hell, he hasn’t even bothered to learn the script, reading his lines from a none-too-discreet autocue. Perhaps at 71, learning almost two hours of material is too much of a strain, even if it is based on your own life – not that Cleese otherwise shows any sign of age, as convivial in his performance as you might expect.

That good humour softens what might otherwise be a acidic, barbed demonisation of his money-grasping harridan of an ex-wife and her grotesque lawyers. It’s personal, even nasty, but his indignant bitterness seems justifiable, and he delivers it with a smile, albeit one through gritted teeth.

But this is atypical of a warm, upbeat stroll through Cleese’s life which – by this sanitized account – appears delightfully charmed. Born into a poor but honest (‘the worst possible combination’) family in wartime Weston-super-Mare, it’s obvious that the rigid class hierarchy and a morbid threat of ever doing anything embarrassing would later prove the well from which he drew his comedy. His father even changed the family name from Cheese to avoid ridicule.

Cleese has, of course, always represented that rather formal establishment figure; and we’ve seen him play a headmaster-type character so often that this almost feels like an entertaining school assembly; educating, informing and entertaining. Occasionally he meanders down a little psychoanalytical aside, such as his relationship with his depression-prone mother, but largely this is a ‘My Showbiz Life’ story of after-dinner anecdotes,

He found a gift for humour when at school, when jokes could deflect attention from his tall frame, and joined the Footlights at Cambridge, when he was overshadowed by Bill Oddie and Tim Brook-Taylor. From thereon, fans will know his history: The Frost Report, Python, Fawlty (inspired by a trip to a notoriously appalling real-life hotel) Wanda – although some achievements, from I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again to Clockwise – are ignored.

With a CV like that, it’s no wonder there’s plenty of love for Cleese. Even mention of a phrase such as ‘Cheese Shop’ provokes titters throughout the room. There’s a feeling that his audience have gathered plenty of entertainment from reciting Cleese’s work on their own – so being in the presence of such magnificence is reward enough, never mind that they’ve heard or read his well-polished anecdotes time and again.

Perhaps because of this, the show gets particularly lazy in the second half, when it becomes a live version of one of those cheap TV clip shows. Cleese introduces plenty of extracts of his work, all of which you’ll have seen repeated ad infinitum on digital TV, with only a minimal nod to context. There’s an occasional aside about the psychology of bad-taste comedy, or how the world of entertainment has changed (Python was commissioned for a 13-part series on a single BBC exec’s whim, without anyone having much of an idea what the show would actually be), but nothing too substantial.

Yet although Cleese is merely going though the motions, the show proves decently entertaining. He’s got a few sharp lines in the mix, and his delivery, timing, and emphasis remain unrivalled. He’s selling tickets based on the idea you’ll want to spend a couple of hours in his good company, and that’s exactly what you get; no more or no less.

Review date: 4 May 2011 Reviewed by: Steve Bennett Reviewed at: Cambridge Corn Exchange

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John Cleese plans 'alimony tour' to pay his ex-wife

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John Cleese is to embark on his first-ever UK tour next year at the age of 71. The comedian, who recently agreed a divorce settlement believed to be in the region of £12m, has dubbed it the "Alimony Tour".

Cleese, who rose to fame with Monty Python, promised the show would be "an evening of well-honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical titbits, details of recent surgical procedures, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin".

His marriage to his third wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger, broke down in 2008 and the divorce was settled in December of that year. It is not the first time Cleese has turned to the stage to pay his alimony. He previously took his A Ludicrous Evening with John Cleese ... or How to Finance Your Divorce tour to Scandinavia. He said at the time that he was unhappy at being forced to go back to work.

Cleese said: "I get angry that I have to pack my trunk just to make money. That I, at my age, would have to plan my life anew to pay her all the money she is to get for seven years – well it irritates me. I'd rather have been drinking coffee, reading books and writing. I can't afford that now. But if I really have to earn money, this is as pleasant a way of doing it as I can think of.

"The thing about being in the final stages of my career, is that I can be pretty sure that anyone who's bought a ticket doesn't hate me. So, when I walk on stage, I get a nice reception, and the nerves disappear."

The comedian let slip the size of the payout to his ex-wife, saying: "What I find so unfair is that if we both died today, her children would get much more than mine. At least I will know in future if I go out with a lady they will not be after me for my money."

Cleese also complained about the ongoing payments to his former wife, an American psychotherapist, author and talk radio host, saying: "I mean people are surprised when I say the figures. When Alyce Faye and I split up she got $13m [£9m] and I got to keep $8m. But over the next seven years I have to pay her $1m a year. She needs it."

Tickets for his 2011 tour went on sale yesterday, £36.25 each – or 0.0004 per cent of Cleese's alimony settlement. The run begins in Cambridge on 3 May, and visits Birmingham, Bath, Liverpool, Oxford, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow before finishing in Bristol.

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the alimony tour

After that £20m divorce, our theatre critic watches the first night of John Cleese's 'alimony tour'. And he's not amused...

By Quentin Letts for MailOnline Updated: 10:16 EDT, 5 May 2011

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Not amusing: John Cleese's Alimony Tour gets off to a decent start as he mocks his ex-wife Alyce-Faye Eichelberger, but the show peaks after 20 minutes

Not amusing: John Cleese's Alimony Tour gets off to a decent start as he mocks his ex-wife Alyce-Faye Eichelberger, but the show peaks after 20 minutes

Old clowns are always sad figures. John Cleese was once the long-legged looney from the Ministry of Silly Walks, bowler-hatted and sometimes terribly funny. These days he is more rueful - even, in the true sense of the word, pathetic.

On Tuesday night he took to the stage in Cambridge for the start of a two-month tour of Britain. He is calling it his Alimony Tour because he says he needs the proceeds to pay for his most recent divorce.

Cambridge’s Corn Exchange must sit an easy 900. With tickets knocking around £30 (if you can get them), that represents a hefty haul for Cleese for four nights’ work - with 12 more cities to follow.

Add bar takings and programme sales - £5 for a slender brochure filled with old photographs - and you could be looking at a £1 million profit for the old boy

His people are flogging knick-knacks with noisy insistence. Keyrings are being hawked for a fiver, ‘Don’t Mention The War’ T-shirts for £20, £3 for unsigned posters, mugs for £6. Six quid! ‘Mugs’ may indeed be the word.

The Alimony Tour gets off to a decent start. Cleese wanders onstage after a few chords of the Monty Python theme tune. He is almost unrecognisable as the spidery thirtysomething who in Seventies satire sketches played the Whitehall authority figure.

He is dressed not in his old trademark dark suit, but in the jeans and open-necked shirt of Californian OAP grooverdom.

He has a tummy. His face has lost its sharp definition. He has something of the later-years Charlie Chaplin — another funnyman with a black moustache whose comic powers faded as his ’tache turned grey.

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The audience, average age well over 50, greets him with cheers. His routine is initially funny. He mocks his American ex-wife, Alyce-Faye Eichelberger. ‘I am here because, frankly, I have fallen on hard times having been through a costly and acrimonious divorce. I call it the Alimony Tour or Feeding The Beast.’

The big screen behind him flashes up a well-known photograph of Alyce-Faye at a cashpoint, ‘helping herself to some of my money’.

The camera zooms in on a fat wad of banknotes in the former Mrs Cleese’s mitt. My God. Alyce-Faye Eichelberger. What a name. Could he not have guessed she was going to be trouble?

Cleese’s delivery is brisk, that of an old- fashioned newsreader. The audience is loving it, loving him. He describes his ex-wife as ‘the spiritual godchild of Blackbeard the pirate and Heather Mills’. Barks of laughter from the crowd.

He says he ‘got off lightly’ because the  $20 million divorce settlement could have been even higher ‘had she contributed anything to the marriage - if she’d had children or even a two-way conversation’.

The wit is acid, but the Corn Exchange crowd enjoys it. Cleese goes on to attack his ex-wife’s lawyer, Jacqueline Misho. ‘She was turned down for the role of an orc — because her skin was too bad,’ jokes Cleese.

He calculates that Alyce-Faye collected $3,650 (£2,209.69) for each day of her union — and that’s before counting what it kept to feed and stable her during those years of married hell. 

John Cleese is calling his latest tour his Alimony Tour because he says he needs the proceeds to pay for his most recent divorce from Alyce-Faye Eichelberger, pictured here with Cleese

The loves of his life: John Cleese's latest tour pokes fun at his ex-wife Alyce-Faye Eichelberger (left) who took $20 million in the couple's divorce settlement. His new love is sculptor Jennifer Wade

We are shown an image of banknotes piled on a marital bed and he says that was what the marriage amounted to. Attaboy, thinks the audience. Stuff it to Alyce-Faye Iceburger.

At this rate the ticket price for Cleese’s one-man show seems good value. The man is on fire!

Or is he? The show peaks after just 20 minutes. At this point Cleese stops talking about his financial trials and starts submitting to self-analysis. ‘I’m interested in psychology,’ he says - words any dinner party attendee dreads.

He embarks on a long account of his family history, his childhood in Somerset’s Weston-super-Mare and his relationship with his mother.

From now on, the show stalls. Cleese enters nostalgia mode, telling anecdotes about the Monty Python years. He includes unexceptional stories about the young David Frost, Peter Sellers and others. It is all mildly familiar and unexciting.

The audience tries to jolly him along, but the fizz has evaporated. Topical satire has yielded to autobiographical dribble.

Cleese takes a breather from speaking and shows numerous clips from his better-known sketches and films such as A Fish Called Wanda and Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

He casually describes himself as a genius. He compliments himself on the editing of Fawlty Towers and then admits: ‘I haven’t done anything interesting for the past 30 years.’ Oh dear. The tale of John Cleese is a salutary one.

In a way he is symbolic of what went wrong with his clever, sarcastic generation at Oxbridge, riddled as it was with a strange mixture of self-satisfaction and cultural doubt. It loved to mock, but now finds itself adrift.

The glory days: Cleese's show was a far cry from his days in Monty Python's Flying Circus. He is almost unrecognisable as the spidery thirtysomething with razor-sharp wit from the seventies (above)

The glory days: Cleese's show was a far cry from his days in Monty Python's Flying Circus. He is almost unrecognisable as the spidery thirtysomething with razor-sharp wit from the seventies (above)

Cleese was still a Cambridge undergraduate when he found success with the university’s Footlights drama club. He was picked up by television’s weekly satirical sketch show The Frost Report, which regularly attracted an audience of 14  million.

Monty Python followed, as, in time, did great riches from his business interests in training films. Alyce-Faye Eichelberger may have relieved him of $20 million, but Cleese is still rich enough to live on a ranch in California, having moved to America in the early Nineties. His fortune today is put at around £5.4 million.

One of the clips he shows the Cambridge audience is a moment from Wanda when Cleese’s character, an uptight Englishman, claims the worst thing about being English is the constant embarrassment, the inability to enjoy oneself.

To this day, Cleese asserts we are much better advised to let it all hang out. ‘The English of my generation held back and it cost them a lot,’ he claims.

But this isn’t necessarily true in his case, is it?

Tart and topical though his material about ex-wife has been, something nibbles at the back of my mind. I can’t help remembering reading about Cleese at the time of his marriage to psychotherapist Alyce-Faye.

Were there not gooey interviews when he said how happy he was? Were there not declarations from him that she had taught him so much about psychology?

And if he had only kept up his Anglo-Saxon reserve he might never have been trapped in the marriage. See? He should have remained more like the traditional, emotionally-buttoned Englishman he often mocked.

Monty Python had its surreal moments, but its humour could be self-indulgent and silly. The reluctance of Cleese and co. to act their age may have felt, at the time, like liberation. Now the drawbacks are plain to see. After surrendering his self-control, Cleese went and stepped on the Alyce-Faye Eichelberger landmine.

It is hard not to like the old boy, if only out of gratitude for all those brilliant moments in Fawlty Towers and The Life Of Brian and other classics. But he’s a rum figure in many ways.

Past his prime: It is hard not to like the old boy, if only out of gratitude for all those brilliant moments in Fawlty Towers (above) and The Life Of Brian and other classics. But he's a rum figure in many ways

Past his prime: It is hard not to like the old boy, if only out of gratitude for all those brilliant moments in Fawlty Towers (above) and The Life Of Brian and other classics. But he's a rum figure in many ways

His accent veers all over the place, Bunter on a bicycle. Certain words - ‘understand’, ‘movie’, ‘kinda interesting’ - are given an American twang. Yet he pronounces ‘Edwardian’ in the old-fashioned English way, ‘Ed-wahr-dian’.

There is something unrooted, self-disowning about John Cleese. Self-contradictory, too. Though he made his reputation out of satire, eroding respect for the Establishment, he today attacks the London Press for being too impertinent. He also deplores the celebrity age. Er, isn’t Cleese himself a celebrity?

‘England - the cultured England - has gone rapidly downhill,’ he claims. ‘The Press have destroyed what was a perfectly decent culture 30 years ago.’

Of course, many people said exactly the same thing in the Sixties about the Young Turks of The Frost Report.

Cleese talks about the importance of allowing comedians to be insulting. He is all for attacking taboos and for being rude (he boasts about how he said the F-word at the memorial service of his Python colleague, Graham Chapman).

Yet the same Cleese emigrated from rambunctious Britain to California, a society practically paralysed by political correctness. The same Cleese demands to be treated with respect.

What would the young David Frost and co. have made of John Cleese as he is today? I suspect they would have fondly ragged him rotten.

They would have teased him for being a snowy-domed buffer who, having made and lost millions, now wants to be revered and pitied.

It all seems a very long way from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

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Chris Rock in a Hard Place: On Infidelity, His New Tour and Starting Over

By Stephen Rodrick

Stephen Rodrick

Last October, Chris Rock drove from his New Jersey home to Greenwich Village’s Comedy Cellar and slipped inside undetected. The Comedy Cellar charges patrons $24 to see anonymous comics, with the unspoken tease that you might see Louis C.K. or Amy Schumer working on new material. Tonight was no different. The patrons sipped away their drink minimums and endured unknowns sprinkled with knowns – both Judd Apatow and Dave Attell did sets. Then the MC announced Rock. The audience went silent for a moment before jumping up in a roar as Rock, in jeans and a T-shirt, took the stage.

He hadn’t been seen much on the stand-up scene in a while; he’d spent his past few years starring in movies both sky-high ( Top Five , which he wrote and directed) and crawl-space low (co-starring in Adam Sandler’s Grown Ups ). There had been a turn as Oscar host in 2016 – the year of no black nominees. In fact, much of what the Comedy Cellar crowd had recently read about Rock was regarding his divorce from Malaak Compton-Rock after 18 years of marriage. Every divorce is unhappy in its own specific way, and Rock’s was no different. There were claims that Malaak kept Chris from their two daughters, Lola and Zahra, a charge she vehemently denied. After a tense two years of negotiations, the divorce became final in August.

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That night, Chris Rock was still a wound that had not been cauterized. At 52, he somehow doesn’t look much different from when he played crack-addled Pookie in New Jack City exactly half his life ago. Still reed-thin, he smiled with perfect teeth – the one cosmetic change from his early days – and paced the claustrophobic stage for a few seconds. He then began describing how much his ex now hated him.

“If someone wants 52 percent custody, you know they want to kill you,” he said.

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There were some knowing giggles, but the response was muted. The audience was eavesdropping on a therapy session. Rock mentioned that he had slept with only three women on his last tour. Some of the women hissed, and many of the men stared into their drinks. Rock smiled. “Men, it’s a lot easier to be faithful when no one wants to fuck you.”

There was uneasy laughter. Someone whispered he was glad he hadn’t brought his wife. Rock spoke about Donald Trump for a minute, predicting his victory. In October in New York, this made the crowd pity him like a sad clown. He quickly returned to his own life, occasionally glancing at some notes he kept on a stool. He mentioned he might have to take on some shitty TV work to make his alimony payments. He then went into a bit about being in court and realizing he was paying for everyone – his lawyers, her lawyer, the court reporter: “Everyone woke up today and said, ‘I’m billing Chris Rock.'” There was more unsure laughter. Then he ended his set with a rhetorical question.

“Would I ever get married again?” He paused. His voice raised an octave. “Not if it would cure AIDS.”

The crowd clapped, because Chris Rock is one of the greatest comedians of our lifetime, but they wondered what the hell they had just witnessed.

Rock was at the bar about an hour later watching the Los Angeles Dodgers try to stay alive in the playoffs against the Washington Nationals. Desperate for a win, the Dodgers brought in Clayton Kershaw, the Chris Rock of pitching, to make his first relief appearance of the year. Kershaw had pitched just two days earlier, and the bar speculated whether he would have his good stuff. He did, getting a pop-up followed by a strikeout with high heat. Rock watched with wonderment. “Man, he still has his fastball,” he said. “After all that, he still has his fucking fastball.”

A few months later, Chris Rock headed out on the road for the first time in nine years , openly wondering “if I still have my fastball.” He had just signed a two-special, reportedly $40 million deal with Netflix and was adjusting to sharing custody of his girls. The stakes had never been higher.

By March, the world has changed . Rock is in Denver on an early leg of his Total Blackout tour that will lead to the taping of the first special, in December. “I can’t tape it now,” jokes Rock. “It’s the alimony tour. I’ve got to make some money first.”

Tonight, Rock is riding over to do a soundcheck at Denver’s Bellco Theatre with opening comedian Ali Wong and a longtime friend, the writer Nelson George. Few comedians do a soundcheck, but Rock is a self-described “anal little bitch when I’ve got to do a gig. Meanwhile, Dave Chappelle can get off the plane and, like, tumble into 30,000 seats and blow everybody off the stage.”

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His Trump prediction came true. The talk turns to how Trump stole Rock’s nine-year-old joke about how could John McCain be a hero if he got captured. “He messed it up,” says Rock. “The man can’t tell a joke.” Someone asks how he knew Trump could win, and Rock delivers a well-reasoned argument about how “of the moment” candidates like Barack Obama and Trump always beat the “it’s my turn” candidates like McCain and Hillary Clinton. “Presidential politics is like show business, it doesn’t give a fuck – ‘Whoever’s hot,'” says Rock in a mocking tone. “‘Ooh, you paid your dues. We don’t give a fuck. Migos has the Number One record, fuck you.'” Rock gets out of the van, and someone mumbles props about the Trump pick but whispers sotto voce that Rock also keeps predicting the L.A. Clippers will win the NBA title.

Rock looks out at the 5,000-seat theater and tries to remember if he’s been here before. He steps to the mic and checks his level with an old-school rap.

“He is DJ Run, and I am DMC, funky-fresh for 1983.”

From predicting Donald Trump’s presidency to where he draws his comedy inspiration from, here are the five things we learned hanging out with Chris Rock. 

Rock was raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and was bused to a school where he was the only black kid in his grade; the white kids threw bags of piss at him. (Those memories provided the inspiration for his sitcom Everybody Hates Chris .) Despite the hazing and abuse he suffered, Rock doesn’t reflexively reject white culture. His tastes are expansive, and his fandom runs deep. On the day of his father’s wake, Rock, the eldest of seven, had to decide if the casket would be open or closed, yet still found the time to run to the record store and buy U2’s Rattle and Hum , which had been released that day. “I love Bono,” he declares.

Rock dismisses the pigeonholing of black acts, whether in comedy or music, as only commercially viable to American audiences, and he’s proud of his global reach. “I mean, if Simply Red can play Wembley Stadium in London and then the Beacon in New York, I can do that,” he says. After soundcheck, he lets me in on a secret. “The great thing about comedy is the low overhead,” Rock says. “I don’t have to split the money with a band. I make more money per gig than the drummer in Metallica.”

In his dressing room, a few candles burn next to a framed portrait of Prince. Rock’s crew is responsible at each stop for putting a new photo of the legend in a place of honor. Rock won’t say he and Prince were close, but they talked, and Rock loved his music. He saw Prince do one of his final shows, at a New Year’s Eve party in 2015 on St. Barts with Paul McCartney and Leonardo DiCaprio in the audience. He was distressed that his hero seemed to be surrounded by new people. Prince didn’t appear to have brought a girlfriend or a buddy along. “He just seemed all alone,” Rock says.

What’s left unsaid is that, like Prince, Rock is divorced and in his fifties, as he heads out on a yearlong tour filled with lonely hotel rooms and FaceTime with his daughters.

Rock took another thing from Prince: He makes his audience hear the new stuff. He starts every tour with nothing, and doesn’t sprinkle in a greatest-hits package like many comedians do; even Jerry Seinfeld adds only 20 minutes of fresh material a year.

“Would I ever get married again?” His voice raises an octave. “Not if it would cure AIDS.”

“He has an incredibly high pain tolerance because it is difficult to go out there with material that you’re not sure of,” Seinfeld says. “To constantly go back and start over is very impressive, and a little insane.”

Rock may be comedy-neurotic, but he isn’t a performer who needs to sequester himself away before a show. It’s 15 minutes until he goes on, and he talks about the old days versus the new days like anyone over 40 tends to do. He grouses about young comics asking for favors and selfies: “In my day, you didn’t fucking walk up to Eddie Murphy – are you kidding me? No, you shut the fuck up and watched and waited.”

That’s precisely what happened to Rock. Murphy saw him at a New York club in 1986 when Rock was 21, told him he liked his set and invited him to see She’s Gotta Have It the next day and meet then-first-time director Spike Lee. That night, Murphy invited Rock to fly to Los Angeles with him the next morning. Rock said his dad would have never given him permission, but he was working late that night. In the morning, Rock was on a plane for his first time.

“I got to hang around the real Eddie Murphy,” says Rock. “Not Dr. Dolittle . Leather-suits-every-day Eddie. Elvis.”

Someone gives Rock the two-minute warning. He paces a bit and then heads onstage to the sound of Jay Z’s “You Don’t Know.” A large “CR” lights up. The crowd rises to its feet and gives him a long ovation. There are no smartphones flashing; Rock has insisted all concertgoers lock them in a sleeve that can only be unlocked when you leave the show. He grins with a scrunched, devilish face, a look you only see Rock give onstage. 

Chris Rock

He then launches into 90 minutes of controlled comic rage. Rock has always been a mix of Lenny Bruce social commentary and his dad Julius Rock’s fierce sense of personal accountability. Julius was a longtime New York Daily News truck driver, and he did not suffer those who did not shoulder their burden. His father’s teachings could be seen at the root of one of his son’s most famous bits, “black people versus niggas,” from his 1996 Bring the Pain tour. It’s a routine, Rock says, that he couldn’t do now. “The joke wouldn’t work because there would be so much freaking backlash,” he says. “Too much politically correct backlash.”

This is a different Rock than the one I saw at the Comedy Cellar. He waits until about two-thirds through the show before hitting his divorce. He is more introspective. “I was a piece of shit,” says Rock as the crowd goes quiet. He segues into his infidelities and gets disarmingly specific, describing three women: one famous, one semifamous, and one a member of the retail class. Nelson George warns me that “the ‘I’ onstage is not the ‘I’ of Chris. He’s trying to create that persona of the new Chris and keep some separation for the real Chris.” Still, this doesn’t seem like persona, particularly when he urges his audience that if they love someone to hold on tightly. (And travel a lot, and fuck when you’re angry.) 

Later, Rock will describe the current set as less rap-influenced than his earlier material and more of a Mary J. Blige record. “This is all ‘hold tight, fight through it,'” he says. “This is all R&B shit.”

He ends the set with the story from the New Jersey courthouse where he is footing the bill for everyone. But this time he slyly turns it around. Now Rock sees it as a sign of success. He exits the stage to rapturous applause and beelines it back to the dressing room, where George and Wong tell him it was the best show of the tour so far. 

“Tomorrow will be better,” says Rock. “Tonight’s show went on sale first. Tomorrow there will be more black people.” He smiles. “Black people don’t like to tie their money up for six weeks.” Rock hasn’t chosen a spot, but he will record his special before a predominantly black crowd. Someone asked him what he thought of a special from SNL ‘s Michael Che. “I liked it,” he says, “but it’s too many white people in the audience. You do cutting-edge humor about race and you cut to white people – it does not have the same effect.”

Rock’s stand-up hero is Richard Pryor. He mentions Pryor’s famous routine about Africa: “Pryor does the Africa bit, about ‘there’s no niggas here,’ but it’s a bullshit bit if it’s done in front of a bunch of white people. When black people laugh, there’s a rumble.” Rock pauses for a second before going back to his favorite metal band. “You watch Metallica – I want to see them in front of fucking metalheads. I don’t want to see them in front of guys in suits.”

A little later, Rock sits in the corner of the lounge at Denver’s Four Seasons with George, Wong and Matthew Claybrooks, a comedian and former Everybody Hates Chris writer who is helping Rock decide what is working and not working in the set. Rock nurses a mojito.

His three decades of material suggest that his ambivalence about marriage has always been there. He made a movie called I Think I Love My Wife, and he did a bit about Nelson Mandela splitting from Winnie Mandela: “Marriage is so tough, Nelson Mandela got divorced. … He got out of jail after 27 years of torture, spent six months with his wife and said, ‘I can’t take this shit no more.'”

Reminded of that, Rock half-grimaces, half-laughs. 

“Some of it was a prophecy,” he says. “I wasn’t a good husband a lot of the times.”

Perhaps trying to deflect, he asks me if I am married. I tell him I am, for a second time. I joke that my first relationship lasted nine years and I was seeing if I could break the nine-year barrier. He asks if we have kids, and I tell him we have a toddler. Rock insists it will work out. 

“You got a kid now,” he says. “You’ll be fine. You need each other. Need is big. A woman breaks up with you, the first thing she says is ‘I don’t need this shit.’ She doesn’t say, ‘I don’t love you,’ she says she doesn’t need you.” He doesn’t mention whether this wisdom comes from hard-won personal experience. A few minutes later, Rock looks at his phone. He shakes his head and laughs. “My own daughter has blocked me on Instagram.” He stands up and heads to his hotel room. “They grow up so quick.”

There are two kinds of talent in the world : the guy who shows up hungover 10 minutes before the game/gig (think Keith Richards or Yankees legend Mickey Mantle) and coasts by on natural charisma; and the grinders (think Seinfeld or Tom Brady), who hijack their talent to another level solely on their obsessive work ethic. Rock is firmly in the second camp, and owns it. Rock and Louis C.K. have been friends for 20 years, and C.K. told Rock a story about his early days in Boston when he would pester older comedians for advice and beg clubs to put him onstage when he wasn’t on the schedule.

“All those comedians kind of hated me,” remembers C.K. “They would write mean graffiti about me on comedy-club walls. I told Chris about that and how I was ashamed I was such a pain in everybody’s asses. Chris just yelled at me, ‘No, you’re wrong. They’re wrong. That’s what it takes.'” Rock even threatened to break off their friendship if C.K. didn’t stop writing for other people and write for himself. 

Rock never lacked confidence, but, sometimes, it didn’t stick around. He has always toggled between Muhammad Ali’s “I am the greatest” and Rodney Dangerfield’s “I get no respect.” His stand-up career rose and fell meteorically. According to Rock, he was around 19 years old when he stepped out of a line buying tickets for an Eddie Murphy show at Radio City Music Hall, wandered over to a Manhattan club and killed in his debut performance. The next half-dozen times out, he killed some more. Then he bombed, and, the way Rock describes it, bombed for the next three years. 

Chris Rock,Eddie Murphy

Murphy’s first comedy album came out when Rock was 16. He wasn’t overly impressed: “I thought it was OK; I was that much of an asshole. I was like, ‘I can do that.'” But then Delirious was released, and Rock was properly cowed. During the Nineties, Rock was playing a theater in Chicago with Martin Lawrence opening for him. He heard what he thought was a fight in the audience and looked out from the wings: It was just people losing their minds over Lawrence’s set. Rock wasn’t even 30, but he feared the game had already passed him by. So he worked harder. A few years later, Rock and his brother went to a Lawrence show in New York. As they were leaving, his brother told him, “You’re better than that.”

“It never occurred to me,” recalls Rock. “But it was a key moment in my life. A year later, I did Bring the Pain and realized I didn’t have to wait in line.” Besides work ethic and talent, Rock has his shit together. There was nothing like Pryor setting himself on fire, Lawrence disoriented and wandering in traffic, or Chappelle disappearing into Ohio. Sure, Rock once owned a gun, and it once went off, putting a hole in his mattress, but those things happen. He has joked onstage about the benefits of a breakdown: the ability to start again. But it hasn’t happened.

“I never had one,” says Rock. “Getting divorced, you have to fucking start over. You get to reset. It’s not a breakdown, but something in your life broke down.”

Rock spends the day after his first Denver show holed up at the Four Seasons with George working on a script that he will only say is centered on pundits. He’s worked with George for 25 years, since they collaborated on the Spinal Tap-ish rap-spoof movie CB4, which was pilloried upon its release but has aged well. (That night, a fan outside the hotel asked Rock to sign some CB4 material. “Damn, there’s, like, a cult of CB4, ” Rock says with amazement.)

Every artist wants to be good at something else; musicians want to be actors and actors want to be musicians. Rock is no different, but much of his film career has lurched from forgettable to forgettable. (Rock defends the Sandler stuff as “good hangs.”) It wasn’t until the Julie Delpy-directed 2 Days in New York and Rock’s own Top Five that he began receiving respect from critics. Not coincidentally, both were released after Rock spent six days a week on Broadway working on his acting in The Motherfucker With the Hat. And yet, the much-sought roles haven’t been rolling in. 

“Maybe I’m like an alcoholic – I have to show I’m sober, make a series of good movies,” jokes Rock. “I’m never gonna get the Chiwetel Ejiofor part, so I have to write my own stuff.”

“I asked myself, ‘Do I want to be angry for a year?’ It’s not healthy. I’m not Sam Kinison – I loved Kinison, but that’s not where I want to hang out every night.”

Offstage, Rock is quiet, almost reticent. He’s not a comedian with an insatiable need for endless yuks. He is a fan of authenticity and even gives Donald Trump a little credit on that front (at least the Trump of ancient times). Rock did a stint at Saturday Night Live in the early Nineties and would sometimes run into Trump at the China Club, a New York hot spot.

“Trump would walk in and women would be all over him,” says Rock. “And you’d say, ‘That’s Donald motherfucking Trump.’ I give him this, too: He just never really gave a fuck. You’d see him out all the time, but he’d have his suit on, his red tie. He was never trying to be someone else.”

That minor key of admiration doesn’t prevent Rock from ripping Trump in his new show. His main point is that the President is a classic bully, and in sissified modern America we have no clue how to deal with a bully. Rock’s set is surprisingly pro-bully; his reasoning is that being bullied toughens you up and gets you ready for the real world, which is filled with assholes. There’s more than a little self-reference here: Rock’s drive to succeed began with those school days in Brooklyn, with the grandsons of Irish and Italian immigrants stealing his lunch money. Onstage, he wonders why cops don’t occasionally shoot a white kid just to make it look better when they mow down black kids. Speaking of black kids, Rock half-jokes during his set that any responsible African-American father should begin his son’s day with a punch to the face.

On the second night in Denver, the significantly blacker crowd stamps and howls. Rock was right. The theater rumbles all night long. 

Rock and his small crew pile into a rented Gulfstream after the show for a red-eye flight across two time zones for tomorrow’s show in Richmond, Virginia. The jet isn’t exactly a party plane. Rock and I order PB&J sandwiches, and the flight attendant apologizes that there are no lemons on board for Rock’s tea. Everyone else dozes off. “I told you this was the alimony tour,” says Rock, munching his sandwich and explaining the overnight country-crisscross. “I can’t waste time.”

We settle in as the plane sails over the Midwest and talk for the duration of the three-and-a-half-hour flight. I tell him that I saw him at the Comedy Cellar and noticed that the current show has less pure anger than the October set. 

“You might have caught me just coming out of court,” says Rock. He pauses for a minute and looks out the window into the night. “I asked myself, ‘Do I want to be angry for a year?’ It’s not a cool place to be. It’s not healthy. I’m not Sam Kinison – I loved Kinison, but that’s not where I want to hang out every night.”

Rock mentions in his act that he thought he could get away with bad behavior in his marriage because he was the famous breadwinner. He now knows the opposite is true. “That’s bullshit,” he says, rolling his eyes. “That actually goes the other way. My faults are magnified. Your significant other, if they really love you, has a high opinion of you. And you let them down.”

Rock admits that he has toned down the marriage part to keep the peace and not be a dick. “It’s not fair,” he says. “I have a mic, she doesn’t. God forbid people are bugging her in the supermarket. That’s not cool. I’m going to have to see her at weddings and graduations.”

Still, it hasn’t been an easy time. His mother came down with cancer during his divorce. She was treated at Sloan Kettering in New York, which happens to be on the same street as his divorce lawyer. “I thought that was the most evil street in the world,” says Rock with a wan smile. 

Rock cared for his mother at the New Jersey home he bought in the same neighborhood as his ex-wife. “There was days where I just prayed she would die when the girls were at their mother’s,” he says. “I didn’t want them to see that.”

But happily she recovered. Rock began to see some slight benefits of having shared custody. He got out to see more comedy and could slip over to Brooklyn and check out an art gallery at his leisure during his noncustody nights. But Rock is the son of Julius Rock, the eldest of 14. I get the sense Rock felt his divorce set a bad example for a family that he proudly attests has had no out-of-wedlock births and no one in jail. He says being the oldest has its burdens, but it has gotten easier over the years. 

“It’s not so much a job now,” says Rock. “Well, I gotta find my brother Brian a job. Like, that’s a literal thing I have to do. It only comes into play during emergencies. Then your rank matters.”

Rock orders a Coke, a dietary splurge rare for him. He nearly jumps out of his seat when I suggest he couldn’t be serious about his bit advocating that black fathers start the day by punching their sons in the face.

“You have to physically show them – the consequences of not listening to your parents are death,” he says. “It’s death. This is not a joke. I was in Bed-motherfuckingStuy.” Rock gives me a name to look up on my computer. “He is in jail for rape and murder. That guy used to take me to the fucking baseball games. What’s the only difference? We were on the same block. I got a father that did not play that shit.”

He sips some Coke and clenches a fist.

“Maybe I don’t have to punch a kid in the face, ’cause I have fucking time up the ass. But if I’m working 12 hours a day, you tell me how I’m gonna do this, how I’m gonna keep this black boy alive.”

Rock dropped out of high school, but George describes him as an autodidact who is well-read and devoured the Bible and the Koran. George insists Rock could have been a great music critic if he’d chosen that path. It is the critic’s cold-eyed approach that made him certain that Trump would defeat Clinton. He shut up around his teenage girls as they celebrated Clinton’s impending victory, and he was there to comfort them after the loss. As Rock is telling me this, George wakes up.

“There’s white and gray,” says George sleepily. “He veers toward the gray.” Rock doesn’t disagree. “I have no trust in mankind,” he says. 

Rock later tells me where that comes from. Partially, it’s the loss of his beloved father when Rock was 23. His dad died on Election Day in 1988, and Rock dreaded that day until President Obama’s victory in 2008. He cites a stat that a high percentage of U.S. presidents lost a parent early. “You have to succeed because you have no lifeguard,” he says. “With a lifeguard, you can do flips and shit. But without one, you’ve gotta go, ‘Shit, how long is it going to take me to reach shore?'”

Chris Rock, Zahra Savannah Rock

The other grind on Rock is simply being black in America. Fame doesn’t get him a free pass. Rock doesn’t travel with an entourage and knows the stares he will get when he walks alone into a strange place, like another school where his daughter is playing a game, until everyone realizes it’s Chris Rock. 

“I see the looks: ‘What are you doing here?’ Shit that white people, especially white men, don’t have to deal with. I literally get treated like a nigger a few times a day.” He pauses. “I can’t imagine what it is like for my brothers and what they go through every day.” So Rock looks for some serenity in a familiar place. He talks in his set about finding God before God finds him. That is not persona Rock. “I wanna find some peace, ’cause people usually find that peace in a horrible time,” says Rock. It’s now 4 a.m. somewhere, and Rock looks more vulnerable than before. He talks in a small voice. “Why does that have to be? Maybe I can find God without being in shambles. Maybe I can reach a higher plain spiritually without being in a near-death experience.”

The pilot announces that we’re approaching Richmond. We talk about the stereotype that the only way to create art, whether you’re a comic or Picasso, is by being irresponsible and an asshole. 

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” says Rock, rubbing his red eyes. “You can be fucking nice.”

At the Altria Theater in Richmond , tonight’s Prince picture features the artist scowling. 

“There’s so many shows that I got to stand right at the side and watch him get mad at motherfuckers,” says Rock. He impersonates his hero for a moment: “That was a B-flat, motherfucker. ”

Rock and Claybrooks, the Everybody Hates Chris writer, are in Rock’s dressing room to go over the Denver shows and see what worked and didn’t work. Rock brings up his bullying bit. He worries it’s too preachy. “I used to do ‘I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for bullying. I’d be, like, a Fed Ex guy – don’t get me wrong, I’d be the funny Fed Ex guy.'”

“You should do it,” says Claybrooks. “Especially in a town like this.”

“It brings it back to me,” says Rock. “Makes it less preachy.”

“I see the looks: ‘What are you doing here?’ Shit that white people don’t have to deal with. I get treated like a n–ger a few times a day.”

It’s a common concern for Rock. His grandfather was a Southern preacher, and you can hear the cadence and repeating of lines like in a sermon. Rock occasionally tunes in to preachers like T.D. Jakes or Joel Osteen. “I can watch them like I watch George Carlin,” he says. He fantasizes about collaborating with a preacher on a set. “You’d gotta get a preacher who is down,” says Rock. “Do a remix.”

Claybrooks and Rock move on. Claybrooks asks him if he wants to do his bit on the reality show Basketball Wives . 

The gist of the material is that women on TV used to be known for their independence, like on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and now, according to Rock, “Women just want to be known for guys they used to fuck. Half of them aren’t even wives. They should just call it ‘Ho’s of the Pros.'”

Rock decides to table the bit for tonight, but it touches on the third rail of Chris Rock scholarship: Onstage, he is an essentialist; Rock sees women as one way – not always kindly – and men another way, two species with very little in common. 

I ask him about it. For the only time, Rock gets a little defensive. “Most singers have, like, three songs, four songs that they keep writing over and over again,” he says. “If you’re Prince, you might have five or six. So I have four or five jokes.”

In the end, Rock argues that the material works because people laugh, the surest sign that comedy has the ring of truth. But it doesn’t come without a cost. His daughters are now at an age where they occasionally voice their displeasure. Rock shrugs it off – “That’s how we eat,” he says. “I would love it to be different.” For the first time, Rock makes reference to Megalyn Echikunwoke, his girlfriend. Echikunwoke is an actress who has starred on CSI: Miami and Arrow. The two have been seen canoodling at Knicks games. “Actually I’m dating a girl now,” he says. “She’s got her own dough, it’s amazing.”

The set review continues. Rock decides to add a bit about how after a black funeral everyone serves soul food: “It’s the same food that killed the guy!” Rock cracks himself up, a rarity. The session ends when a familiar Afro pokes into Rock’s dressing room. It’s Questlove of the Roots. He was in D.C. and decided to pop down for the show. “It’s Ahmir Questlove, ladies and gentlemen,” announces Rock.

Rock is clearly happy to see his friend. Questlove has a nice surprise for Rock. He gives him his headphones and whispers he’s cueing up an unreleased Prince song few have heard. Rock is a Prince completist who owns nine versions of Computer Blue. He goes wide-eyed. The music plays, and Rock does a rubbery-leg dance around backstage. The song is the adrenaline shot that the jet-lagged/missing-his-kids Rock needs. Soon, it’s time for him to take the stage. He’s still grinning ear-to-ear. “Damn,” he says. “I think this is gonna be a good show.”

Chris Rock

A few weeks after Denver and Richmond, Chris Rock did three shows in New Orleans. That Saturday night, the “CR” was illuminated, but Rock didn’t come out. Instead, it was Dave Chappelle. He did a half-hour before Rock appeared and the two icons traded riffs, to the crowd’s delight. Chappelle does not give a fuck about propriety and asked Rock what kind of shitty lawyer he had that made him lose his home to his ex-wife. Then Chappelle turned shrink and asked Rock if he cried during the divorce process. Rock said he cried once: “During the custody battle.”

Afterward, Rock says it was a revelatory moment. “No one’s ever asked me that,” he says. “I don’t even know if a shrink has asked me that. We live in a world where men are assumed to not have feelings.” He gives an example. “All my friends assume I moved into the city after my divorce, away from my girls. When I say I bought a house around the corner, it blows their minds.”

Three days after the Chappelle catharsis, Rock is at Madison Square Garden for Garden of Laughs, a children’s charity event affiliated with New York Knicks owner James Dolan. 

It is, as they would say in the old days, a cavalcade of stars. John Oliver; Leslie Jones; Seinfeld makes a surprise appearance, doing a droll piece on why bathroom stall doors don’t go all the way to the floor. And then Rock closes the show. He looks exhausted, having flown in a few hours earlier. He does a compressed version of his set and ends on his divorce. Where he usually says, “It was my fault, I was a piece of shit,” Rock pauses and improvises. “Was it my fault?” He lets it hang in the air for a moment. Then he mumbles, “Who the fuck knows.”

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I ask Rock a few days after the show if this marked a new step in the divorce spectrum, from denial to guilt to ambiguity. He is sitting at the counter of a diner in Tenafly, New Jersey, with SportsCenter on mute on the TV. Rock maintains that was just an exit line. He says the current set is even more angst-filled and self-reflective than when I saw it. He’s even eliminated some of the more Rock-ian bits, including “pussy costs money, dick is free.”

He grimaces. “You go back and you’re like, ‘Why the fuck did I ever say that?'”

Rock knows that most will focus on the breakup part of the set, but to him the crucial component is his quest for serenity. 

“I’ve been thinking about that stuff for years, I just didn’t have the gravitas,” he says. He hesitates. “Is that the right word” He then makes a final analogy before finishing his meal. 

“It’s like a kid singing the blues. Justin Bieber can’t sing the blues. You gotta go through some shit. That’s me talking about finding God, but then God finds me.”

He pauses for a moment. “That’s my fucking U2 song.”

After a bitter divorce, and frustrated with Hollywood, Chris Rock wondered if he could still kill.  Find out the five things we learned hanging out wth the comedian, here.

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Jeff Lynne's ELO announce final tour: How to get tickets to Over and Out

the alimony tour

Jeff Lynne’s ELO dazzled audiences with a show of sonic perfection when the band reappeared in the U.S. in 2018-2019.

Now, the melodic wizard and his ace musical comrades will hit the road a final time for The Over and Out Tour. A 27-date outing will commence Aug. 24 in Palm Desert, California and wrap Oct. 25 in Los Angeles. In between, Lynne and ELO will visit cities including Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Cleveland, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Houston and Washington, D.C.

An ELO presale begins at 10 a.m. local time March 20, with the general sale starting at 10 a.m. local time March 22. VIP experiences will also go on sale at 10 a.m. local time March 20. Tickets will be available via livenation.com and details about the VIP packages at jefflynneselo.com.

During the band’s last U.S. run , Lynne offered a 20-song setlist that included Electric Light Orchestra gems “Evil Woman,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “Telephone Line” and “Do Ya,” all reproduced with stunning clarity. Even the underappreciated and much-maligned “Xanadu” from the 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie received its due.

In addition to his prowess as a producer, Lynne was also a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. The collective also received a nod in the live production with a comforting rendition of “Handle with Care.”

Lynne was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2023 and ELO ushered into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

Jeff Lynne's ELO 2024 tour dates

wendy 1

Wendy Williams’ Ex-Husband Demands Back Alimony Amid Financial Dispute

Mail

In the latest development of the ongoing saga surrounding former daytime talk show host Wendy Williams, her ex-husband Kevin Hunter has taken legal action to demand two years of back alimony payments. This move comes after Wendy’s guardian claimed she had no remaining funds, sparking a financial battle between the former couple.

the alimony tour

According to recent reports from The Sun, Kevin Hunter is insisting that Wendy resume the payments that he claims were agreed upon in their Marital Settlement Agreement. These payments abruptly ceased just before Wendy was placed under guardianship in 2022, leaving Kevin without his expected income for nearly two years.

In exclusive court filings obtained by The U.S. Sun, Kevin Hunter expressed the impact of the sudden halt in payments on his financial stability. He stated, “I rely on the severance pay for my living expenses and having been without this income for twenty-three months has affected me greatly.”

the alimony tour

Kevin’s legal filings reveal his intention to bring the matter before the court once again after failed attempts at out-of-court mediation. He has petitioned the court to compel Wendy, through her guardianship, to fulfill any outstanding severance payments owed to him immediately.

Kevin Hunter is seeking a resolution regarding Wendy’s AFTRA Retirement Plan. He requested the court’s intervention to ensure Wendy signs the Qualified Domestic Relations Order for the AFTRA Retirement Plan or appoint him an Attorney in Fact to execute the document if Wendy fails to comply within seven days of the court’s order.

“I would not have to file this motion if the plaintiff did not stop my severance payments and if the plaintiff would have signed the qualified domestic relations order for the AFTRA retirement plan,” Kevin emphasized in his filing, indicating his frustration with the lack of cooperation from Wendy’s side.

The legal dispute between Wendy Williams and Kevin Hunter underscores the complexities of financial matters in high-profile divorces. As the legal battle unfolds, it sheds light on the challenges individuals face navigating post-divorce financial arrangements, especially when one party’s financial situation becomes uncertain.

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Ask the law: Ex-wife seeks clarity on child custody, alimony

  • Environment

What the UAE Personal Status Law prescribes regarding child custody, alimony

Child custody

I am a Muslim woman. Two years ago, I got a divorce ruling and custody of my children – two sons and a daughter. Last year, the two boys turned 13 years old and the girl turned 14 years old. Currently, my ex-husband wants to file a lawsuit to gain custody of all my children because they have reached the legal age, according to my ex-husband.

My question: does my ex-husband have the right to gain child custody do i have the legal right to file a lawsuit to demand an increase in alimony because my ex-husband’s salary had increased please advise..

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I would advise the questioner the following:

Your husband has the right to file a case to forfeit your custody as per Article 156 of the Personal Status Law, but it’s up to the court to decide about it, as per the interest of the child. If you can prove that their interest is to stay with you, instead of their father, then your custody shall be extended.

The mentioned Article 156 states that “the right of women to fosterage of a child shall end upon his reaching the age of eleven (11) years, if a male, and thirteen (13) years, if a female, unless the court deems that extending this age to the age of maturity, for the male, and up to her marriage, for the female, is in his/her best interest.”

You have the right to file a lawsuit to increase the alimony, since more than 1 year had passed from the date of deciding it. According to Article 64 of the Personal Status Law: “Alimony may be increased or reduced according to the change of circumstances. Save in exceptional circumstances the action in increment or reduction of the alimony may not be heard prior to the lapse of one year as of the date of deciding it. The increase or decrease of alimony is computed from the date of claim in court.”

But the burden to prove that your ex-husband’s salary had been increased lies on you, according to Article 1 of the Federal Decree by Law No. (35) Of 2022, promulgating the Law of Evidence in Civil and Commercial Transactions which states that “1. The plaintiff has the right to prove his claim and the defendant has the right to disprove it. 2. The facts to be proven shall be relevant to the action, have a bearing on evidence, and be admissible. 3. No judge shall render a judgment based on his personal knowledge.”

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  • Moscow Tours
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The wonders of Moscow metro

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Moscow Metro Underground Small-Group Tour - With Reviews & Ratings

Moscow metro underground small-group tour.

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Tour Information

Key Details

  • Mobile Voucher Accepted
  • Free Cancellation
  • Duration: 3 Hrs
  • Language: English
  • Departure Time : 10:00 AM
  • Departure Details : Karl Marks Monument on Revolution Square, metro stop: Square of Revolution
  • Return Details : Metro Smolenskaya
  • If you cancel at least 4 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is no cancellation fee.
  • If you cancel within 3 day(s) of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee.
  • Tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.

Go beneath the streets on this tour of the spectacular, mind-bending Moscow Metro! Be awed by architecture and spot the Propaganda , then hear soviet stories from a local in the know. Finish it all up above ground, looking up to Stalins skyscrapers, and get the inside scoop on whats gone on behind those walls.

Know More about this tour

We begin our Moscow tour beneath the city, exploring the underground palace of the Moscow Metro. From the Square of Revolution station, famous for its huge statues of soviet people (an armed soldier, a farmer with a rooster, a warrior, and more), we’ll move onto some of the most significant stations, where impressive mosaics, columns, and chandeliers will boggle your eyes! Moreover, these stations reveal a big part of soviet reality — the walls depict plenty of Propaganda , with party leaders looking down from images on the walls. Your local guide will share personal stories of his/her family from USSR times, giving you insight into Russia’s complicated past and present. Then we’re coming back up to street level, where we’ll take a break and refuel with some Russian fast food: traditional pancakes, called bliny. And then, stomachs satiated, we are ready to move forward! We’ll take the eco-friendly electric trolleybus, with a route along the Moscow Garden Ring. Used mainly by Russian babushkas(grannies) during the day, the trolleybus hits peak hours in the mornings and evenings, when many locals use it going to and from their days. Our first stop will be the Aviator’s House, one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and you’ll hear the legends of what has gone on inside the walls. Throughout your Moscow tour, you’ll learn curious facts from soviet history while seeing how Russia exists now, 25 years after the USSR.

Local English-speaking guide

Pancake snack and drink

Additional food and drinks

Tickets for public transport

Souvenirs and items of a personal nature

Tips and gratuities for the guide

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking

Dress standard: Please wear comfortable shoes for walking. For your Urban Adventure you will be in a small group of a maximum of 12 people

Traveler Reviews

This tour exceeded our expectations. Nikolai (Nick), our tour guide, was very knowledgeable, thorough, and has a great personality. He didn't take shortcuts and really covered everything that was on the agenda in great detail. We saw beautiful metro stations and learned the history behind them, including many of the murals and designs.

We did the tour with Anna her knowledge and understanding of the History surrounding the metro brought the tour alive. Well done Anna!

This tour was amazing!

Anna was a great tour guide. She gave us heaps of interesting information, was very friendly, and very kindly showed us how to get to our next tour.

Amazing beauty and history.

An excellent tour helped by an absolutely amazing guide. Anna gave a great insight into the history of the metro helped by additional material she had prepared.

great tour and guide - thanks again

great will do it again, Miriam ke was very good as a guide she has lived here all here life so knew every interesting detail.a good day

Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

  • 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
  • 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
  • Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

  • Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
  • Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
  • Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
  • Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
  • Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
  • Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
  • Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
  • Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
  • If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
  • Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
  • Have fun time with a very friendly local;
  • + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

  • Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
  • + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

  • Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
  • Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
  • The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

  • + A friend in Moscow.
  • + Private & customized Moscow tour.
  • + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
  • + An authentic experience of local life.
  • + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
  • + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
  • + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
  • + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
  • + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

Write your review

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Get into the groove: 25 fascinating facts about Madonna’s Celebration Tour

Madonna stands on stage looking off during a performance of her Celebration Tour. She has long blonde hair and wears a large sparkling necklace, draped over a low cut, black laced long sleeved shirt.

After 14 albums, 38 top 10 hits, 11 tours, and the esteemed title of biggest-selling female recording artist of all time , Madonna more than earned a victory lap.

That’s why her twelfth global jaunt –– a greatest-hits retrospective with nearly 80 shows across the globe dubbed “The Celebration Tour” –– is nothing short of iconic, historic, and well, celebratory.

The tour kicked off in October 2023 with a three-night run at the O2 Arena in London.

And with every show since, Madge has reminded us why she’s the Queen of Pop –– bringing fans to tears, reinventing iconic moments, and making headlines with special guests and off-the-cuff comments.

It’s no surprise that tickets sold out in record time . New Yorkers snatched up seats for three shows within 15 minutes; Parisians bought out the arena in under seven minutes, and tickets for London’s first two shows were gone within 20 minutes.

Fittingly, in 2023, Rolling Stone dubbed it “one of the most popular shows of both this and next year.”

If you weren’t able to see the herstory-making spectacle in person, worry not.

Ahead of its expected closing show in Mexico City this April, we’re diving into the lore, history, and preparation behind Madonna’s most ambitious (and successful) tour ever.

Here are 25 fascinating facts about Madonna’s Celebration Tour.

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1. She harkened back to Truth or Dare for its announcement.

If you’re going to announce a retrospective tour and you’re Madonna, a basic social media post won’t do! To unveil the plan, Madge recreated an iconic scene from her 1991 documentary Truth or Dare , playing the game at a dinner table alongside famous friends like Amy Schumer, Bob the Drag Queen, Larry Owens, Jack Black, and Meg Stalter .

And when Schumer dared Madonna to go on a world tour and play her greatest hits, it was game on!

2. The tour put the Madonna biopic on an indefinite hold.

Julia Garner, with short blonde curled hair, pearl necklaces, and a laced black top, holds up a cardboard sign that says "10." Sitting next to her is Madonna, with short blonde hair in a black headband and a tightly fit black and metallic corset. She also holds up the same sign during a Celebration Tour performance.

The press had a field day tracking the development of the Madonna biopic, which was announced in 2020 and set to be directed by the Queen of Pop herself. She worked with Oscar-winner Diablo Cody on a draft! There was an intense singing and dancing bootcamp! Julia Garner beat out the likes of Florence Pugh and Bebe Rexha for the lead!

Unfortunately, Variety confirmed the project was put on hold after the tour’s announcement, as Madge wanted to make sure that was her “sole focus.” Still, she “remains committed to making a film about her life one day.”

Although it seems there’s no hard feelings with the actress who would’ve played Madonna. Garner even showed up at a Brooklyn show to flash 10’s across the board!

3. This is Madge’s first tour not promoting a specific album.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Madonna (@madonna)

Although Madonna released a greatest hits album called Celebration in 2009 , she didn’t update the comprehensive collection ahead of the tour’s 2023 kickoff, making this her first global jaunt not pegged to a specific release. Instead, by revisiting her past eras, she sought to “give [her] fans the show they have been waiting for.”

4. A health scare delayed its highly-anticipated opening show.

In June 2023 –– just weeks before the Celebration Tour was set to kick off in Vancouver –– Madonna was rushed to the ICU for a “serious bacterial infection” and stayed in the hospital for several days.

While she made a full recovery, it was a tough period in her life. “It was so hard for me to walk from my house to the backyard and sit in the sun,” she told fans in Los Angeles . “I know that sounds insane, but it was difficult, and I didn’t know when I could get up again, when I could be myself again, and when I’d have my energy back.”

But you can’t keep a queen down! After rescheduling a handful of dates, she hit the stage in October for London’s opening night.

5. There’s a storyline to the whole show.

"This show every night is not really so hard for me physically, it's harder for me emotionally because I'm really telling you the story of my life" Madonna last night in LA ? #MadonnaCelebrationTour pic.twitter.com/2xXUzWUf5q — Madonna Ultimate (@MadonnaUltimate) March 5, 2024

As Madonna tells fans during the show, its expansive setlist reflects her own biography. And according to musical director Stuart Price , the concert is structured to recount her evolution, “from being a young woman in New York and learning the scene, all the way through to motherhood, spiritual awakenings, and all the ups and downs.”

6. Madge teamed up with an old friend once again

Madonna turned to longtime friend and director Jamie King to help stage the massive spectacle. Their first collab dates back to the risqué music video for 1995’s “Human Nature,” where King appeared swinging upside down amidst S&M gear and leather-clad dancers.

And their relationship evolved from front-and-center to behind-the-scenes, as King helped direct her Drowned , Re-Invention , Confessions , Sweet & Sticky , Rebel Heart , and Madame X tours, as well as her 2012 Super Bowl halftime show.

7. She’s got a huge entourage following her…

Madonna stands in a black and red neglige and knee-high black boots, singing during a performance of the Celebration Tour. Surrounding her are shirtless dancers, suggestively moving on their hands and knees with their arms above their head.

The Celebration Tour is like a full-on Broadway production, and fittingly, it takes a village to put the show on. Each and every city, Madonna brings 24 onstage performers (plus her own children who take the stage!) and a production crew of 200-plus, including “25 [people] in the costume department alone.”

8. And that’s not the only thing she brings!

If you’re traversing 15 different countries, you want to be comfortable! In addition to lugging along the show’s massive production and crew, Madonna reportedly brings three mobile gyms, three physical therapists, and eight humidifiers for her dressing room everywhere she goes.

9. There’s a very good reason she doesn’t have a live band onstage.

A first in Madonna’s career, the Celebration Tour does not feature a dedicated live band on stage. While there are live musicians who perform throughout each act, the concert heavily relies on backing tracks and recorded audio –– and for good reason.

“The original recordings are our stars,” musical director Stuart Price told People . “Those things can’t be replicated and can’t be recreated, so we decided just to embrace that.”

10. Madge experimented with some new tech to make tour visuals.

What happens when Madonna doesn’t like the sky? She makes her own. When the queen did not approve of the “swirling, sunset-tinted” clouds that appeared during “La Isla Bonita,” her team worked with a rising tech start-up to create their own using a text-to-video A.I. program. According to creative director Sasha Kasiuha, Madonna has always been a strong proponent for “[bringing] in new technology and new kinds of visual elements.”

11. She’s got a very on-the-nose quick-change secret.

How does Madonna stay fresh as she rushes through different eras and iconic costumes? Her own perfume, duh!

According to People , there’s a bottle of the MDNA Rose Mist spray “in each quick-change space.”

12. The merch pays tribute to her past tours and eras.

Some Celebration Tour merch I’ve picked up from the Vegas shows. @Madonna #MadonnaCelebrationTour pic.twitter.com/FLE6qY6ao2 — Drew S. (@DrewSrivanlop) March 3, 2024

If a gay goes to a concert and doesn’t buy a t-shirt, did they even really go? With that in mind, Madonna and her team crafted nearly 50 merchandise pieces for the tour, including recreations of tees from her “Like a Virgin,” “Blond Ambition,” and “Who’s That Girl” tours . And, of course, one that says “Italians Do It Better” as an homage to her “Papa Don’t Preach” visual. Look at the material –– literally!

13. You’ll never guess how many costumes Madonna travels with…

Thank you Barcelona ??…………… incredible. Energy ?????? pic.twitter.com/GQpMmlv7uI — Madonna (@Madonna) November 3, 2023

For her expansive wardrobe, Madonna turned to design experts Eyob Yohannes and Rita Melssen, who created and designed nearly all the outfits –– with some help from Versace and, of course, cone-bra genius Jean Paul Gaultier. “We wanted to reference everything that she’s done, and make something new out of that,” Melssen told Vogue . “We created a whole new world.”

Even during her triumphant performance of “Like a Virgin,” Madonna’s style is omnipresent, as all the dancers on stage sport recreated looks from her personal archives. That’s probably why the production lugs around a whopping 45 wardrobe trunks !

14. The setlist isn’t concrete…

Madonna, wearing a leather biker hat and a laced, low cut black dress with sleeves that cover her hands, sings out to the crowd during a Celebration Tour performance. She has long blonde hair, and the audience is indiscernible amidst the lights.

The Queen of Pop has typically stayed loyal to the same setlist, but that doesn’t mean she won’t pivot if inspiration strikes. Case-in-point: on her daughter Lourdes Leon’s 27th birthday, she serenaded her with “Little Star,” a cover of Cesária Évora’s “Sodade” snuck in during her Lisbon shows, and she paid tribute to the city that made her by singing “I Love New York” during her Big Apple performances.

15. And “Express Yourself” originally did not make the cut!

You read that right! “Express Yourself” might be one of Madge’s most beloved hits, but she didn’t dust off the bop until her 2024 tour dates –– after already hitting countries like Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and two of her New York and D.C. shows.

The track took the spot of “I Will Survive,” though the moment remains just as powerful as Madonna recontextualizes the top-10 hit on the acoustic guitar.

16. She’s brought out some incredible guests to strike a pose.

Madonna brings Pamela Anderson on stage as a guest judge during “Vogue” in Vancouver, 02/21/2024. How I wish I was there! ? #MadonnaCelebrationTour pic.twitter.com/yV2YxKjMgl — Drew S. (@DrewSrivanlop) February 23, 2024

One of the most iconic traditions to come out of the Celebration Tour happens during the ballroom segment, when Madonna brings a special guest to help judge her dancers’ –– and daughter Estere’s –– best moves. (Spoiler alert: everyone always deserves 10’s across the board!)

So far, celebs like Diplo , Julia Fox, Aquaria , Donatella Versace, Pamela Anderson, Miz Cracker, Trinity The Tuck , and even Madonna’s private chef have walked the runway!

17. F*ck a start time! Madge is defending her punctuality “vigorously.”

Have you ever heard of “fashionably late”?! In January, two attendees of a December 2023 show in Brooklyn filed a lawsuit against Madonna for “deceptive trade practices” and “false advertisement” after coming on stage “roughly two hours after the start time listed on their tickets.”

In a statement, the pop star’s team claimed a technical issue delayed the show, adding they “intend to defend this case vigorously.”

18. The tour continues her longtime support for the LGBTQ+ community.

From her dancers, to the costumes, and spirit of her music, Madonna puts the LGBTQ+ community front and center during the Celebration Tour. Still, the most meaningful moment comes during a rendition of “Live to Tell” as photos of people she lost to AIDS flash on the screen. As smaller pictures begin to appear, it transforms into a powerful tribute to all those who we’ve lost to the disease.

“Because my show is a retrospective of my journey of the last four decades, told through music, how could I not recognize this incredibly important moment,” the singer explained on Instagram. “Not only in my life, but in so many others.”

19. She pays homage to a performance she thought ruined her career.

In a white wedding dress, Madonna made herstory (and kind of showed her butt) while performing “Like a Virgin” at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Although the performance is now iconic, Madonna told Jimmy Fallon that back then, her manager said her “career was over with.”

Fittingly, the Celebration Tour’s central circular stage, featuring three revolving layers, is a nod to the wedding cake prop that she danced around 40 years ago.

20. She’s got a history of subverting norms with her opening acts.

During a Celebration Tour performance, Madonna struts down the stage in a short low cut black dress. She has a blonde bob and sings into a microphone. On her side is Bob the Drag Queen, wearing a sparkling silver hat, and a sparkling black cape over black bell bottoms and a tight white dress shirt with bow tie. The stage is decorated in lush purple fabrics and lights.

For the tour’s opener (and resident emcee), Madonna recruited the hilarious Bob the Drag Queen, who’s onstage nearly the whole time with seven costume changes of his own. “[She] respects me as an artist,” he told Los Angeles Magazine . “I have a point of view and a perspective for what I’m trying to say, and Madonna really sees that, and I appreciate that.”

But the RuPaul’s Drag Race winner isn’t the first unconventional artist to kick off a Madonna concert. During the Rebel Heart Tour, she turned to comedian Amy Schumer and the DJ skills of Idris Elba to warm up the crowds in select cities.

21. Two albums got no representation on the packed setlist.

Madonna stands atop of a circular platform singing into a microphone during a Celebration Tour performance. She wears a long, thick black dress with low hanging sleeves and a circular metallic headdress. The lights around her are purple, blue, and extravagant.

With decades of hits and only a couple hours, there’s no way Madonna could fit every album or fan favorite into the jam-packed show. Two fan-favorite albums that didn’t nab a spot in the setlist ? Her eleventh album Hard Candy (which featured acclaimed bop “4 Minutes”), and 2019’s Latin-trap-infused Madame X.

22. The stage is divided into five sections: Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, West, and East.

Madonna floats suspended high into the air in a glass box, wearing a tight fitting and sparkling body suit, during a performance of her Celebration Tour. Underneath her on a circular platform, a gang of futuristic dressed dancers pose, while both Madonna and her dancers' likenesses are projected behind them on huge screens.

Once a New York girl, always a New York girl!

The Celebration Tour boasts Madonna’s biggest stage yet –– 4,400 square feet –– with a set of five metropolitan-inspired grids that she moves across throughout the show.

23. She hit up one of her tour designers via Instagram DMs.

Madonna stands dancing on top of a circular stage in a black leotard. A thin white sheet of chiffon is wrapped around her head and she holds it out to her side. Behind her, she's projected on a gigantic screen.

During her “Bedtime Story” performance, Madonna recreates an immersive, multi-dimensional fantasy world reminiscent of its pricey 1995 music video –– and she turned to 27-year-old artist and video game designer Gabriel Massan for help.

After happening upon a demonstration of one of their video games in London, the singer DMed them on Instagram with an invitation to collaborate. Over 15 days, they built the fantastical universe. “It was really fun,” Massan told Art Net . “She has so much energy and was always thinking about how the work could evolve.”

24. Her opening night was fit for a queen –– literally

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The O2 (@theo2london)

For the tour’s grand opening in London, a giant, Royal Standard flag bearing the cover for Madonna’s 1986 album True Blue flew outside of 02 Arena, made by none other than the Royal Family’s flag manufacturers.

“We’ve been manufacturing flags for the Royal Family for over 20 years, but we’ve never made a flag quite like this,” Chris Taylor of Flying Colours said in a statement . “To have it fly above The 02 every time she takes to the stage for ‘The Celebration Tour’ shows will be really something.”

25. The tour celebrates her greatest hits, in every sense of the word.

Madonna sits in a black and red low cut corset top, transparent tights, and knee high black boots on a piano bench. She sings passionately into a microphone with her eyes closed, while her daughter sits beside her, turned to face the black grand piano and play.

Yes, Madonna does the hits like “Hung Up” and “Into the Groove” and “Crazy for You,” but the true intent of the tour was always to go deeper than the music, and put on a show that touches on her cultural impact in fashion, art, and politics.

“A greatest hit doesn’t have to be a song,” musical director Stuart Price told People . “It can be a wardrobe, it can be a video, or a statement.”

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the alimony tour

Did you see the video Madonna insulting a disabled fan because he was sitting in his wheelchair and not standning. The woman has issues with reality.

the alimony tour

[email protected]

She didn’t realize the lady was in a wheelchair. She apologized immediately.

the alimony tour

Dude You clearly did not see the video because it was a girl not a guy in a wheelchair. Madonna has built her career on getting people to get up and dance. She made a mistake and apologized. I was there and the woman was ushered backstage to meet Madonna after the show. The fan has since come out and said she has no issues with Madonna’s innocent mistake, why should you?

the alimony tour

Oh no, she made a mistake. How awful. She should be tarred and feathered, right? Madonna apologized and the fan forgave her. Thus, end of story. People are fallible, even celebrities. People have got to STOP jumping to instant cancellation. Move on.

I have seen the show twice, one of my favourite concert experiences.

I would argue that “Express Yourself” is one of Madonna’s top five overall hits (with “Vogue”, “Like A Virgin”, “Into the Groove”, and “Like A Prayer” taking the other four spots) so it’s strange it wasn’t included in the original set list. I’m glad they rectified this error.

the alimony tour

Mr.Gavin Elster

As far as the real, young generation: the kids under 40, that go to Coachella, Burning Man and download the “new” music, Madonna is sort of what Rudy Vallee was to the Beatles generation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Rudy could get a 1920’s “kollege krowd” on their feet, singing through a megaphone! He was the bee’s knees. I guess Madge could take the semi-classy Marlene Deitrich or Mae West route? But she doesn’t need the money.

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the alimony tour

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Moscow Metro 2019

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Will it be easy to find my way in the Moscow Metro? It is a question many visitors ask themselves before hitting the streets of the Russian capital. As metro is the main means of transport in Moscow – fast, reliable and safe – having some skills in using it will help make your visit more successful and smooth. On top of this, it is the most beautiful metro in the world !

. There are over 220 stations and 15 lines in the Moscow Metro. It is open from 6 am to 1 am. Trains come very frequently: during the rush hour you won't wait for more than 90 seconds! Distances between stations are quite long – 1,5 to 2 or even 3 kilometers. Metro runs inside the city borders only. To get to the airport you will need to take an onground train - Aeroexpress.

RATES AND TICKETS

Paper ticket A fee is fixed and does not depend on how far you go. There are tickets for a number of trips: 1, 2 or 60 trips; or for a number of days: 1, 3 days or a month. Your trips are recorded on a paper ticket. Ifyou buy a ticket for several trips you can share it with your traveling partner passing it from one to the other at the turnstile.

the alimony tour

On every station there is cashier and machines (you can switch it to English). Cards and cash are accepted. 1 trip - 55 RUB 2 trips - 110 RUB

Tickets for 60 trips and day passes are available only at the cashier's.

60 rides - 1900 RUB

1 day - 230 RUB 3 days - 438 RUB 30 days - 2170 RUB.

The cheapest way to travel is buying Troyka card . It is a plastic card you can top up for any amount at the machine or at the ticket office. With it every trip costs 38 RUB in the metro and 21 RUB in a bus. You can get the card in any ticket office. Be prepared to leave a deposit of 50 RUB. You can get it back returning the card to the cashier.

the alimony tour

SamsungPay, ApplePay and PayPass cards.

One turnstile at every station accept PayPass and payments with phones. It has a sticker with the logos and located next to the security's cabin.

GETTING ORIENTED

At the platfrom you will see one of these signs.

It indicates the line you are at now (line 6), shows the direction train run and the final stations. Numbers below there are of those lines you can change from this line.

the alimony tour

In trains, stations are announced in Russian and English. In newer trains there are also visual indication of there you are on the line.

To change lines look for these signs. This one shows the way to line 2.

the alimony tour

There are also signs on the platfrom. They will help you to havigate yourself. (To the lines 3 and 5 in this case). 

the alimony tour

the alimony tour

Rocky alum back in QC for ‘Book of Mormon’ tour

F or the first time since Mason Moss got to play keyboard for a national tour of the Broadway smash “Book of Mormon” at Davenport’s Adler Theatre, he is bringing the new tour back home nearly six years later.

“It’s really nice to be full circle, and back into it after two years of touring with the show as music director, to come back to Davenport and perform in the first place I ever did the show, get to bring it as my show – now that I’m leading it as conductor, it’s really special,” Moss said this week in an interview with Our Quad Cities News.

An immensely talented 29-year-old Rock Island High alum, Moss first substituted for the exuberant Tony-winning show when it played for a week in June 2018 at the Adler, and they liked him.

In 2019, they asked him to come on the road to play for the national tour, as an interim to get his feet wet in touring. Moss played keyboard and conducted many performances when “Book of Mormon” toured the U.S. and Mexico in 2019 (about five to six months altogether), including the last one in Peoria before COVID in January 2020.

In the first run, Moss was on the road off and on in several week-long increments. He became the national tour’s conductor and music director in August 2022, starting that national tour in late September 2022.

The current production will perform at the Adler (136 E. 3 rd St., Davenport) on Friday, March 29 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, March 30 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

“I grew up going to shows at the Adler, whether it was symphony concerts or musicals or other special events, it’s really neat to go full circle and now that I’m going to be performing there and I get to see the backstage areas from the other end of things,” Moss said, noting he’s looking forward to seeing friends and family after the show. “That’s really amazing.”

Moss also has conducted “Mormon” on Broadway, and he credited the show’s music supervisor Justin Mendoza, for giving him that priceless opportunity.

“To get that experience and be so young and get that experience, like understand that place within the industry – to be honest, at all levels, it’s just good people trying to create good art,” he said.

12th-longest running in history

On Dec. 28, 2023,  The Book of Mormon  played its 4,643rd performance on Broadway, surpassing  Jersey Boys  to become the 12th-longest-running show in Broadway history. The cast of  The Book of Mormon  celebrated this milestone by paying homage to  Jersey Boys  with a mash-up performance of “Walk Like A Man” and “Man Up” during their celebration.

The Book of Mormon  holds the record as the longest-running show in the 98-year history of the  Eugene O’Neill Theatre . The show follows two bright-eyed Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda to spread the word of God, as they quickly learn that the locals are not as excited about religion as they are.

Even though Moss has been part of almost 500 performances, the beautiful thing about the show is that the jokes can land differently with the audience every single night.

“Depending on who the actor is in a given role any night, or how they’re feeling, how they’re interpreting the script and the book that night, it can really create a different experience,” Moss said. “I can assuredly say, I’m close to 500 performances now and like, every show is unique, every show is different and every show is one of a kind, which is special.”

In the industry, there are two rules everyone must follow, he said.

“Be prepared, show up ready to do your job, and ready to be excellent at what you do,” Moss said. “And the second thing is, being a good person, first and foremost. Leading with empathy, leading with kindness, treating people with the respect and the kindness that they deserve goes a long way.

“As I work more in this industry, people that I see that are really successful, that I really admire and inspire me, are the people that lead with those sorts of ideals in mind and that morality,” he said.

Back to Circa

After the tour, Moss will return to Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse to perform with veteran Brad Hauskins in his Neil Diamond tribute concert, “Solitary Man,” which has been done there a couple times before.

That next will be at Circa on May 30, 2024, with Moss and his band, plus singers Laura Hammes, Sunshine Ramsey and Sydney Richardson.

He also hopes to return to Moline’s Spotlight Theatre this summer for other events. Moss previously was a regular in accompanying Spotlight co-owner Sara Tubbs in “Tubbs & Moss” jazz nights at the Blueprint Bar there.

The winner of nine Tony Awards, including Best Musical, “The Book of Mormon” will have a digital lottery ticket policy in Davenport. A limited number of tickets will be available at $25 each for every performance via a digital lottery. 

The wildly popular lottery for the Broadway production has attracted as many as 800 entries at some performances.

“The Book of Mormon” at Adler Theatre rules are:

  • Entries will be accepted online HERE through March 25 th . On Monday, March 25 th , names will be drawn at random for a limited number of tickets priced at $25 each, and winners will be notified by email and/or phone.
  • Only one entry is allowed per person. Emails and names are checked for duplication (for each performance) prior to drawing. Winners can pick up their tickets any time before showtime at the Adler Theatre box office.
  • Just bring your valid ID and form of payment to purchase tickets. Limit one entry per person and two tickets per winner. Tickets are subject to availability.

“The Book of Mormon” features book, music and lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. The Broadway production is directed by Parker and two-time Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw, and choreographed by Nicholaw. The tour is directed and choreographed by Jennifer Werner based on the original Broadway direction and choreography.

For more information on the tour, click HERE .

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.

Rocky alum back in QC for ‘Book of Mormon’ tour

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    Description Moscow Metro private tours. 2-hour tour $87: 10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off 3-hour tour $137: 20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. Metro pass is included in the price of both tours. Highlight of Metro Tour

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