This weekend, my colleague, JFK Assassination Fanatic Eric Bushman, invited me to the opening of the opera, JFK, in Ft. Worth.

After a lengthy discussion with our morning anchor about whether it was okay for two bros to hit the opera together on a Saturday night, Bushman and I decided it would be perfectly normal to take in the show together. (She was opposed. Because, I assume, she’s too close-minded to understand that tragic operas are totally the hot new place to pick up chicks.)

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall that I covered the Ft. Worth angle of the 50th anniversary of the assassination. As I settled into my seat, I got ready for a heart warming story of how much fun JFK had in Ft. Worth, so much fun, in fact, that he called on his way to Dallas to thank Ft. Worth for a great show.

An aside: Looking back at that blog now, my comparison of Ft. Worth and Dallas to Delta House and Omega Theta Pi from Animal House was tremendous writing. The next time I see someone at the Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce, I’ll suggest playing up that story line.

But once the show started, it became apparent quite quickly it wouldn’t be about how JFK had a great time in Ft. Worth.

Now, this might come as a bit of a surprise, but I haven’t spent that much time at the opera. That, however, will not stop me from weighing in on it because I’m an American! And it is my right to feel ways about things! (If you’d like to see a real review of the show, try this.)

The show started out with a history lesson (I assume to get children even more excited about opera!), mentioning the way each other president who’d been assassinated was killed.

Listen, gang, this might also come as a surprise, but I haven’t written many operas. At this point, though, I feel like the hilariously ominous thing to do would have been to have an actor lunge out in one of the boxes yell “Sic semper tyrranis!” and jump onto the stage. You know, that would get the crowd excited, a little audience participation. Audience participation is a regular thing at operas, right?

As the show moved forward, Jackie Kennedy was sad and sings about a rodeo clown weeping. That was kind of a bring-down. I mean, rodeo clowns don’t weep in Ft. Worth! Before the show even started, the mayor got up and said how Ft. Worth was the only place you could see a cattle drive, then drive a mile down the road and also see the only Michelangelo in North America. What kind of rodeo clown would weep at that?!

A rodeo clown who hates St. Anthony, that’s who.

I still need to research this, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this is the first opera in which a main character tells another to “please keep your pants on.”

JFK would make that request of Lyndon Johnson, who, in a dream sequence, would walk in and (spoilers) pants himself. I’m not going to spoil the moment even more by saying which state flag appears on LBJ’s underwear, but the Star-Telegram had a real photographer there. If you’d like to see a picture of an underwear-clad LBJ, check that link a little ways up.

There would also be a bunch of kids at one point singing “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You,” but, like, in a really creepy way. That kind of freaked me out. When I went to bed, I sat up worrying that those kids would start singing outside my window. Maybe that’s the take away here: if kids gather outside your room and start singing “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You,” don’t go to Dealey Plaza the next day.

The New York Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera and Boston Opera all had representatives at the show. Imagine all them nodding thoughtfully at each other as they learned the lesson.