There are so many great shows around this weekend, you can almost smell the sweaty summer concert season right around the corner. I’ll provide the short list. You bring the ear plugs …

MEN AND THEIR GUITARS
Diabetic 82-year-old blues legend B.B. King sold out the Keswick last night and tonight, so if you want to catch him before he’s gone (and I do mean gone), you’ve got to head to the House of Blues in A.C. for Saturday night’s close-to-sold-out show. $43, standing-room-only tickets . If you’re more into the jazz guitar thing, you can’t go wrong with Philly’s own Jimmy Bruno, who gives a jump start to the weeklong Chris’ Jazz Cafe Guitar Festival on Saturday with two shows at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. Tickets are $15 and $20.

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Because you can’t resist flashing back to the ’80s, when the world was still so promising …

FILM
Ah, poor, poor Val Kilmer. He once had something. What, I don’t know. But something. See whatever it was in Philebrity’s 100 percent free screening of Real Genius at National Mechanics. 7:30 p.m.

MUSIC
Don’t know where the hell they’ve been, and not entirely sure I’ve thought about it more than once or twice in my lifetime, but the English Beat surfaces tonight at the Trocadero. $23. 7 p.m.

Next Tuesday, Pink Martini, the West Coast authors of 2007’s overplayed Hey Eugene!, take the stage in Verizon Hall for a night of the exotic Cuban-lounge-supper-club thing (with lyrics in Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian and Croatian) that they do so well. If you want to win a pair of tickets, e-mail me and tell me why you are so deserving. The winner will be announced here on Impresario on Monday morning. If you’re not feeling quite that lucky, a fair number of good $36 to $45 seats remain.

You’ve gotta love an 82-year-old guy with 14 Grammys, 15 children (supposedly), and a bad case of diabetes who’s still doing his thing. The legendary bluesman gave a “farewell” tour in 2006, but it apparently wasn’t the last — he begins a three-night area engagement this evening. Tickets ($72.50) are sparse but available for tonight’s 7:30 p.m. show at the Keswick (the show there tomorrow is sold out). As for Saturday’s show at the A.C. House of Blues, reserved seating is gone but plenty of general admission standing-room tickets ($43) remain.

Because you’re too cheap to pay the big bucks usually required to see Broad Street’s newest tenant, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, I give you …

A pay-what-you-will preview of two shows from Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Basically, two talented high Philly high school kids with very, very proud parents get the plays they wrote professionally produced by Philadelphia Theatre Company in the latter’s illustrious new home. If you click on the link, you’ll note that the dates listed are February 28th through March 1st. Tonight is a sort of secret preview, but consider yourself invited. 8 p.m.

After a just-funny-enough opening segment by comedian Mario Joyner, a completely lackadaisical digital (as in vinyl-free) set by Philly’s own DJ Jazzy Jeff and some unnamed emcee, and then a 20-minute intermission, Chris Rock finally took the stage at the Academy of Music last night in front of a mostly white crowd to kick off his three-night stand, for which tickets remain.

He started off disappointingly by making fun of our cheesesteak obsession, but not in a remotely amusing way, and then seriously asking whether Will Smith’s childhood house had surpassed the Rocky steps as a tourist attraction. After these unfortunate attempts at acting like he knows anything at all about Philly, he launched into his act, which was way too long (people who paid $79.50 for their seats started leaving) but, overall, proved that he is one of the funniest fucks alive.

Some highlights:

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Veteran New York Times foreign correspondent and bestselling author Stephen Kinzer makes two appearances in town today as part of his “The Folly of Attacking Iran” tour. He hopes to clear the air about Iran and explain that — like in any rocky relationship — we don’t have to be friends, we just have to tolerate each other.

Why did you get involved with this tour?
As a staff reporter, I was not able to beat my spoon on the highchair. That’s one of the reasons I left the New York Times. … I wanted to be sure if the United States got involved in a military confrontation with a country I knew something about, I would be free to speak about it. I do not want to wake up and hear that missiles are falling on Iran and think that “You didn’t do anything to prevent this.”

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So it turns out that the hardest ticket to get for tonight is not the second Chris Rock show at the Academy of Music, for which a good number of tickets have magically appeared (including pairs in the super-fancy proscenium box that you always wanted to sit in), but is, instead, for John DeBella’s Comfort Food Fest, where chefs from Tangerine, Lacroix, Positano Coast, and Brasserie Perrier will lay down their foie gras and fumet in favor of their fresh takes on Rice-A-Roni and Manwich. It’s a free event and it’s almost at capacity, so if you want in, try contacting the station or getting on the waiting list by calling 215-627-1060. Cescaphe Ballroom, 923 North 2nd Street, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

PHOTO: The Philadelphia Weekly

Because there’s just not a whole hell of a lot going on tonight and because you, for whatever reason, aren’t content with new episodes of Law & Order, I give you …

That dirty little secret, Quizzo, at Fergie’s (free, well, except for the booze; 9:30 p.m.) or the ever so slightly more highbrow First Person Story Slam — this month’s subject: “Brotherly Love (And Sisterly
Affection)” — at L’Etage at 7:30 p.m. $5 to $10.

When I heard that Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, was coming to the Franklin Institute, my giddiness had nothing to do with science. I wanted to see props from the movies without having to lightsaber-fight past hordes of convention nerds to get close to them. I wanted Chewbacca suits, scale models of the Millennium Falcon and anything related to Boba Fett.

To that end, the exhibit delivered. The first display gives you an idea of what’s to come: a full-sized Landspeeder from Episode IV, backed by video interviews with Industrial Light & Magic special-effects gurus explaining how they made this wreck hover and hum in the movie. From there, you’ll find costumes galore (Darth Vader’s imposing suit), props (Boba Fett’s blaster — sweet!) and trivia (the booster rockets on the Imperial starships are plastic L’eggs pantyhose shells).

The only disappointment was the “Falcon Millennium Experience,” as our heretic hostess mistakenly called it. Sitting in Han Solo’s seat, you want to feel like you’re blasting through the trenches of the Death Star, not stuck in a 6th-grade science lesson narrated by Anthony Daniels. The link between science and Star Wars never feels complete, but really, who cares?

Just watch out for the gift shop — surely Lord Vader would approve of its unavoidable placement at the end of the exhibit, intent on separating parents from loads of hard-earned cash in exchange for Greedo bobbleheads and Yoda slippers. How Dark Side of them.

GRADE: B+

— RICHARD RYS