COLUMN: Advertising fallacies, fun times

False advertising: the use of false or misleading statements in advertising, illegal in most countries. It can take many different forms, most commonly “undefined terms.” Examples are “light” food, “ultra-light” cigarettes, and , most recently, a performance I attended.

My darling boyfriend bought two tickets to the show “Tango and Other Human Passions” for my birthday. I love to dance tango, so the title sounded promising. Particularly when the box office lady at the Fox said she didn’t want to “ruin the surprise” when we asked what to expect. To me a response like that equated to, “best tango performance of your life.” Right? Wrong.

The opening performance was an Asian woman in a brightly colored, flamenco-style shawl playing Latin-sounding music on an accordion. We arrived a few minutes late and waited in the back of the theater until we could take our front row seats without disturbing the show. The view before us revealed a vast sea of bald heads and brittle halos of white hair.

Afterward, the orchestra took to the stage. The first piece was a homage to the last great Argentinean Tango composer, but I wouldn’t have known if the program hadn’t said so.

The theater was a mass of tweed coats and turtle necks, with a few other young couples looking as surprised and foreign as my boyfriend and I. There wasn’t any room on stage for any kind of dance performance.

A tall, skinny, man in an expensive black suit, black alligator shoes and plum purple shirt and silk tie took to the stage. He looked like Michael Jackson if he became a violin virtuoso. His taut, shiny face must have taken at least eight facials a day to maintain. He was Tim Fain, a venerated young violinist, and the most ridiculous person I have ever witnessed.

The vision of Fain in the purple shirt, laughing pompously at absolutely nothing and smelling the air as if relishing the scent of his own farts confirmed this. Then he started to play. He was incredible, but I had to turn around and check the back wall to make sure there wasn’t a giant mirror. He pranced around on stage, perfecting to a cue how I would imagine a comedian would portray a stuck -up classical musician.

Intermission arrived and my boyfriend and I converged in the lobby with wide eyed tales of our shared bathroom experiences: trembling old ladies commenting on each others giant antique broaches. Old men, who somehow all knew each other, cramming into the the bathroom before they soiled their Depends.

We went back our seats and tried not to die of laughter through another performance. Fain didn’t leave the stage before making the audience struggle out of their seats for at least four standing ovations.

The rest of the pieces were dry and classical. A small Asian lady in the front row, looked like she was asleep. She didn’t move, even during intermission. She may have been dead, we didn’t stick around to find out. As soon as the last piece ended we darted out.

Guess I’m not too savvy for false advertising.