The Height Of Hannah Fever

It's really weird. I had a student ask me yesterday in the most reverent and hushed tones, "I hear that Walt Disney died. Is that true?" Stopping short of telling the young man about the whole freezing thing, I informed him that yes, Walt Disney did die... forty years ago.

Anyhoo...

My two stepdaughters, different as they may be (one's 11, the other, 8), do share one thing in common - they both love the Disney Channel character "Hannah Montana". Played by talented teen Miley Cyrus, Hannah is a music star who leads an interesting life offstage as well, where she deliberately keeps a low profile and very few people know she's really a rock star.

Tonight, they will be in their glory.

Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City is going to be tonight's stop on the "Hannah Montana-Miley Cyrus Best Of Both Worlds Tour", and I am probably one of only a handful of people out there who got the tickets at face value. And NO, I AM NOT SELLING THEM. Don't even ask. Opening for Hannah and Miley will be the Jonas Brothers, another popular group championed by Disney. There's a possibility that Miley's dad - the ever popular Billy Ray Cyrus, your achy breaky hunk of a country star from the 90's - will show up too.

(I often confuse the Jonas Brothers with Nickelodeon's Naked Brothers Band, which is populated by offspring of the marriage of Michael Wolff and Polly Draper and is actually quite a funny show, usually written and directed by Draper. Nickelodeon is probably going to put more marketing oomph behind the Naked Brothers, as they cannot get pregnant.)

We'll make a day of it, complete with a visit to the brand-new Sonic that just opened in Waretown - the very first Sonic in New Jersey. Then the girls will go to the concert, homemade poster proclaiming their love for all things Hannah in hand. Tracy and I, meanwhile, have our earplugs all ready, because we're expecting lots of preteen and tween girls screaming at this thing. We'll report back later when our hearing pops back to normal.