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Curtis and I just had one of our greatest adventures yet — watching Nascar at Pocono.

We got up at 4:30am on Sunday to head up to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where we caught an adventure tour bus to Pocono, Pa. Our fellow busers were decked out in their race gear — namely, well-worn Nascar T-shirts that were printed with large, colorful graphics of their favorite car/driver or race venue. I now know that a Dale Earnhardt Jr. shirt is pretty much the way to go, save for a Daytona or Talladega tee.

Speaking of, the bus erupted into cheers when our guide popped Talladega Nights into the DVD player for the ride to Pennsylvania.

Two hours later, we arrived at Pocono Raceway, just as the gates opened for the day. Our bus drove an anticlimactic half lap around the track to the bus parking lot, where we were turned loose, five whole hours before the race started.

Plenty of time to observe my surroundings …

In many ways, Nascar fans are just like diehard fans of any other sport. They dress the part, they cheer loudly, they’re passionate about every detail, they spend money on all the paraphernalia, they show up early, and they talk trash. The only difference is that at say, a baseball game, those diehard fans are balanced out by the more casual fans — the corporate attendants, the father taking his son to his first game, the people who just happened to be in town on game day, daycampers.

There were no casual fans at Pocono. Curtis commented that since the racetracks are all so spread out, and usually only host a race or two, people who live nearby probably save up for it. It’s a big deal for them. It’s also expensive, and super commercialized.

Everyone knows about Nascar’s over-the-top sponsorship. But being at the track takes it to a whole new level. There’s a huge “fan zone,” where every driver/racing team/sponsor has a trailer full of souvenirs, where T-shirts averaged $25. Programs were $15. Radio headsets (to listen to the drivers communicating with the pit crews) started at $50 and up. Earplugs $2. Seat cushions $8. Coors Light $6.50. Skoal Smokeless Tobacco — free.

In terms of the race itself, I found it extremely hard to follow the action. On the straightaway in front of the grandstand, the cars were zooming past at nearly 200mph. They were literally a blur. You had to watch them come off Turn 3 to distinguish who was where, then whip your head as they sped past toward Turn 1, where you could pick them up again before they disappeared toward the back of the track.

It was nice to have play-by-play announcers on the PA, plus a leaderboard and jumbotron within view. But the sport is definitely easier to follow on TV. The coolest thing about watching it in person was getting the full view at all times: the rumble of the cars, watching them come in for pit stops, seeing lots of different passes happening simultaneously on different part of the track, seeing the smoke billow up from a spinout, hearing the crowd cheer for Dale Jr. each time he drove past the grandstand.

Speaking of Dale Jr. — his popularity clued me in to a whole dimension of hero/villain Nascar dynamics. Jr. was by far the most beloved among the drivers. Judging by fan apparel alone, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon were next, followed by Jimmie Johnson. Then there were the villains — Kurt and Kyle Busch. I had no idea! They’re brothers who don’t like each other, don’t you think that’s hard enough without also both being despised by all the fans!?

The worst part is, Kyle Busch is by far my favorite. I even bought a #18 Kyle Busch M&Ms Racing T-shirt at Pocono. Curtis says people hate Kyle because he’s cocky, young and talented, aggressive, currently leading in points, and drives a Toyota (speaking of Nascar villains, Toyota is definitely among them — darn foreign cars invading a distinctly American motorsport!). Curtis also says that Kyle once nudged Jr. out of the way to win a race.

To set the record straight, I was a Kyle Busch fan long before he was the points leader. Back in 2004, I put $5 “on the blue car.” At the time, Kyle was driving the #5 Kellogg’s Chevy — bright blue with Tony the Tiger on the hood. I watched my first Nascar race on TV that weekend, cheering on this Kyle Busch guy, who crashed out somewhere in the first half of the race. I’ve rooted for him ever since, even on Sunday. Fans booed as Kyle appeared. They cheered wildly as he ran out of gas before reaching the finish line. The same fan hatred befell brother Kurt, who apparently didn’t have first gear near the end, and his pit crew had to push him to a stuttering start after every pitstop. The crowd loved that.

My own issues with Nascar have nothing to do with the drivers. It’s hard to support a sport that’s burning through fuel and tires, overrun with sponsors, littered with empty beer cans. But after my first true Nascar experience, I have to admit I had a great time. Daytona 2009, anyone?

Note: This post was inspired by lil sis Sarah, who is faithfully watching Season 1 of 90210 on DVD.

As we sit on the precipice of fall TV premieres, looking down over a broad swath of blah, I feel it’s appropriate to reflect for a moment on the return of a cultural phenomenon: Beverly Hills, 90210.

I don’t have high hopes for the remake. But I can’t wait to check it out, mostly because I’m hoping to catch even a faint glimmer of the glory that was the original. High drama, corny yet engrossing lessons, shifting relationships, taxed storylines, “fashion” — all the makings of a great primetime soap.

But what compels me to watch the reruns again and again is the show’s context. It’s a friggin time capsule of the ’90s — the series ran for the entire decade. That’s why I think watching it in syndication now is an even — dare I say — richer experience. We can look back and laugh at the hairstyles, the innocence, the bad acting. And none of it seems heavy compared to what we see on TV today.

That’s what the remake is going to lack: that irreplaceable ’90s vibe. The new 90210 will likely be oversexed and overproduced. The storylines will probably push the limits of what’s acceptable for the genre today. All that innocence will be gone.

In my viewing repertoire of teen dramas, there’s a logical progression from the original 90210, to The O.C., to Gossip Girl (see New York Magazine article on the subject). I don’t want the remake to be the next point on that line, I want it to bring the whole thing full circle.

So, dearest remake: Take us back, as best you can, to those simpler days! Don’t try to one-up Gossip Girl. Remember your niche, and remind us why we loved 90210 in the first place.

We saw Patrick Stewart as Macbeth at the Lyceum Theater last night. It was the best live production of any kind that I’ve ever seen.

What interested me most was a theatrical layer that the director inserted — the metaphor he chose wasn’t one I picked up strongly from reading the play.

The biggest theme I remember from the play was that of nature. Macbeth creates his own path rather than passively yielding to fate, which is an unnatural act. Lady Macbeth asks to be “unsexed” so that she may have the courage to craft the king’s murder. Macduff was “untimely ripped” from his mother’s womb, etc.

But the director picked up on a more obscure idea: food.

In Act III Scene 4, Macbeth says, “Now, good digestion wait on appetite.” This is the spirit in which this director staged the production. Most of the scenes take place in a kitchen or dining area, and a sink remains at stage right for the entire duration of the play. When I thought about it, I was excited about how perfect this was for setting the tone: Macbeth’s appetite for power is reiterated by scenes of actual food-based appetite.

One of the most vivid applications of this metaphor comes just after Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have first discussed murdering King Duncan. The scene opens with kitchen staff at Macbeth’s castle hacking and chopping and banging around, making preparations for the king’s arrival. There is no dialogue at first, only the sound of cleavers and knives. That really hammers it home.

Later, after the murder is done, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth both end up at the kitchen sink trying to wash their hands of the blood. And in one of the most enjoyable scenes I can recall ever on stage, Patrick Stewart (sorry, Macbeth) makes a sandwich (with a good number of ingredients) and eats it while ordering the murderers to slay Banquo and his son. He literally devours the food of his craving while he plots to consume another life that threatens his power.

On a more disturbing note, at the infamous dinner where Macbeth hallucinates the ghosts of Banquo and Duncan, the audience sees the castle servants bustling around the dinner table with kitchen knives clinched behind their backs.

We all knew that Macbeth was a bloody and terrible play, but this interpretation added a level of sheer creepiness.

The scenes with the witches take place in a morgue, where the three weird sisters hover around three body bags that convulse and writhe. Video projectors shot terrifying images of horror and static onto the white walls behind them, adding a sort of House on Haunted Hill effect. When I read the scenes with the witches in the play, I thought of them as eccentric and otherworldly, but not scary. I guess I imagined them as the Shakespearean-tragedy version of a character like Puck from Midsummer Night’s Dream. But this rendition made them downright terrifying. They were more modern-day horror flick than a dark version of Puck.

Through all of the director’s fascinating interpretations, one thing remained constant: Macbeth. I didn’t find anything unconventional or jarring about Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth, and I liked that. He was apprehensive, impressionable, determined, guilty, cocky … his appetite was insatiable. Stewart’s voice was so strong and sure that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such justice done to Shakespeare’s lines. Although I have always liked Kenneth Branagh in Shakespearean roles.

Anyway, Stewart’s stage presence was, well, fitting for an actor of that caliber. I’ve just never seen something like that live before. And Lady Macbeth held her own. She was never dwarfed by the amazing performance taking place across the stage from her. She was terrifyingly determined and pushy, then pityingly guilt-wracked.

I’ve seen Shakespeare underperformed and overperformed, but this iteration got it just right. I was so glad to be able to see one of the greatest actors of our time in the best production I’ve seen to date. I just hope something else matches or exceeds it eventually, or I’ll have peaked a bit early.