Jun. 16, 2003 - 1:07 p.m.
Dear Meghan:
It is a negative aspect of being a smoker that I occasionally misjudge my cigarette intake for the day and run out at a very inopportune time – such as midnight, when my creative juices and fatigue seem to combine and good material surfaces. I am not so hardcore that I would ever consider hoarding cartons of smokes – that just strikes me as overindulgent and far, far less of a “good idea” than buying a single pack at a time is. So at 1:30am on Sunday morning, I found myself on the streets of Chicago en route to the nearest BP Amoco to buy cigarettes, passing the gated ghost town that is Ribfest.
Ribfest is one of hundreds of neighborhood ‘fests’ that surface like monkey pox on the face of Chicagoland during the summer. Basically, two or three blocks along a main thoroughfare are blocked off to automobile traffic, and the streets are suddenly populated with beer stands, band stands, cell phone booths, odd trinket shops, and a small pen-looking area where one can lock one’s children in so one can more fully appreciate the beer stands, etc. The way to negotiate such a fest is as follows: cough up the $5 donation, walk up and down the street. The amount of time dedicated to walking up and down the street is in direct proportion to how much one misses the $5 one had to spring for the chance to walk up and down a street. If one doesn’t care about the $5, one winds up leaving fairly quickly. If one feels they should get their $5 worth out of the experience, then much walking up and down the street will ensue.
The beer is usually something so bland and innocuous, that no one would order it in real life, let alone plonk down $5 for one. It is served in a clear plastic cup, which not only is not strong enough to hold beer, but magnifies the temperature of the sun on the contents of the cup – thus a beer goes from ice-cold to lukewarm in a matter of minutes. The bands are almost always cover bands during the day, followed by a big-time small-following group, such as the local group Mr. Blotto or groups long since peaked such as Pablo Cruise or the Little River Band (or, in a couple of years time, Justin Timberlake or Boys II Men).
I walked by the ghost town version of Ribfest at about 1:35am and nodded to the poor security guard who paced one of the band stages. Talk about a bad gig. “Walk back and forth on this empty stage until dawn!” And, since there’s still a lot of people out and about at that hour (due in no small measure to how much ice-warm beer these people have drank prior to Mr. Blotto’s closing number), the poor security guy can’t even play air guitar to an imaginary audience – or at least the empty tents. In my nodding, I tried to convey a lot of compassion and empathy, while still being manly. Did it work? I may never know.
Moments after I did my head-jerk nod at the poor security guard, I met a man at the corner. Black hair, slightly balding, thick goatee, round everything. “I met the Lord Jesus Christ. I really did.” “Cool,” I said reflexively (I tend to treat wackos with a detached but understanding reverence). Then I stopped and turned back. “How is he?” “How is who?” “Christ.” “He is the Son of God.” “Well, I know his profession, but how is he? I don’t imagine many people ask him how he is doing… can’t be easy.” “He died for our sins, you know.” “Yeh. Did you ask him how he was? Did you say, ‘hey, Jesus, how you doing?’” “No.” “Maybe you should do that next time,” I said, taking that opportunity to revert to my detachment. “I dunno – just a thought.”
Alcoholism runs through my family like nuclear waste in rivers that pass by landfills, but I am pleased to report that I recall no time when I was a blithering idiot drunk. As I walked on, leaving the one guy on this planet who saw Christ that night, there were many cars driving by. And in those many cars, there were many guys, and from those many guys, there were many screams of “whoooo” and “yehhhh” and “aiiiight”. I thought immediately of how evolution has failed in the area of certain traits of men. Though “yehhhh” and “aiiiight” may be relatively new, I am reasonably sure that Cro-Magnon Man ran around yelling “whoooo,” despite the fact they were probably less self-conscious about the size of their penises than their modern-day equivalents.
You know what we need? The elimination of all sports as we know them and a renaissance of mixing new sport with music. Imagine a sports feel behind the creation and playing of music! A creative competition that would evolve, pushing our musical tastes and abilities above and beyond even Mozart. I’m not sure how it could be done, but if one rooted for the Brahms Airabusters instead of the New York Giants, I think the world’s collective IQ might inch up a little closer to that 100 mark.
Of course, conductors would be disqualified if they used a baton with cork in it.
Tolerably,
Vincent
what they said - what they will say
