Call me culturally diverse, or seriously confused. I like Coors Light, but also a good porter. I like sushi as well as steak. On Saturday night, I listened to Texas country in a college bar. On Monday night, my wife and I saw Monty Python’s Spamalot as part of the University of Arkansas, Fort Smith’s Season of Entertainment. Spamalot is a musical comedy based on the film classic “Monty Python and The Holy Grail.” That’s right, a Broadway Show. I like musicals. At least, I like some of them. How’s that for nouveau redneck?

If I had seen it on Broadway, it might have been my favorite musical ever. That’s not to say that it was bad. To the contrary, it was roll on the floor funny. I loved it. The humor was off the charts. The cast was excellent. A top quality production in every way. That said, in many respects, I am a person that enjoys the journey as much as the destination. The journey, metaphorically speaking, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just isn’t quite the same as the journey in the Big Apple.

My favorite musical is Memphis, which we saw last summer in New York at the Shubert Theatre. Pre-game, so to speak, involved cocktails in the bar of the London Hotel, where we discussed and explored the makings of a good Old Fashioned, followed by dinner at Le Bernardin, and finally our show. The show was mesmerizing. They actually serve bourbon, mixed 9 parts bourbon to one part water, in the theater. As we stumbled from the theater, we were whisked away by a Pakistani cab-driver, heavy on the horn, light on the brakes, (bungee jumping and bull fighting are no match for a new york cab ride in terms of an all out adrenalin rush) to the Carnegie Deli for a final nightcap and a corned beef sandwich. I’ll let you in on a little secret, you will certainly enjoy the food at Le Bernardin, but I doubt you will need to loosen your belt afterward.

Now, contrast that to my musical experience in my home town of Fort Smith. My pre-game consisted of a series of maneuvers carefully choreographed to retrieve my children from two different schools on opposite ends of town and get one child to a doctors appointment and another to basketball practice, also on opposite ends of town, and back to Casa Zuerker. Le Bernardin? Hardly. How about a couple of chili cheese dogs, wolfed down as I changed into evening wear, jeans and a sports coat, no tie. At least they were Nathan’s hot dogs (in the spirit of New York), and I did manage to wash them down with a Boulevard Wheat. The show, while most entertaining, was sadly sans the bourbon. And afterward, I had to drive myself home. To add insult to injury, I did not honk my horn at a single person and nobody honked at me. We made it home safely, driving the speed limit, and my wife did not perform the sign of the cross a single time. And, much to my dismay, there was no cheesecake nor any corned beef waiting, only children that should have been in bed long before we arrived.

Same destination, different journey.

In any event, if you get a chance, treat yourself to Monty Python’s Spamalot. If you can do so on Broadway, so much the better.