The Time I Booed Garth Brooks

It’s not often that one is given the chance to heartily boo a country music icon, so when the chance came up, I quickly joined in with the rest of the crowd, adding to the soaring crescendo of displeasure that filled the expanses of the arena.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s jump back a bit to about two hours prior, or roughly 8:27 pm. The location was the Target Center in Minneapolis, and along with thousands of others, I was waiting for Garth Brooks to appear.

Now, Garth is definitely Top Three in my book (along with Merle and Strait) so needless to say I was excited. However, I was also bored, as I was sick of watching the advertisements for GhostTunes that had been playing on the big screen for about two presidential administrations as we waited for Mr. Brooks, who I was beginning to think had forgotten about the concert and was sleeping on his couch in Oklahoma, to make an appearance.

For those unaware, GhostTunes is the new digital music service that Garth has launched, and he’s definitely pushing it at his concerts. Now, I don’t know much about the service itself, but all I can say is that its logo is a little ghost with headphones who’s quite familiar looking, to the point where as I watched the stream of never-ending advertisements, I kept waiting for Pac-Man to show up and chomp it.

Everybody else waiting with me must have been sick of GhostTunes adds too, and the crowd, apparently thinking that it was still the 90’s, decided to try and get The Wave going. During the first few attempts, it died rather quickly, as one grumpy section of fans refused to participate. I watched them enviously, wishing that I could be a part of their stubbornness. (I’m very good at non-participation.) The rest of the crowd, however, kept trying, and eventually even the crotchety individuals of Section Grumpy were driven by implicit social pressure to throw up their hands, and thus The Wave made several successful circles around the arena. This was amusing for a minute or so, but soon everybody got tired of it and continued to wait in a non metachronally-rhythmic fashion until the lights finally went dim.

Garth hadn’t forgotten about us!

After a 60 second countdown on the big screen, he came out onstage amidst a tidal wave of hissing steam, seizure inducing lights, and blaring music, singing the title song to his new album “Man Against Machine.” Nobody in the crowd knew the words, and so the general response was one of mild confusion, along with a lot of blinking due to the massive amounts of flashing lights. I half expected a holographic ghost to go floating by.

But this didn’t last long, as the lightshow ended and Garth quickly dove into his catalog of classic hits, starting with “Rodeo,” followed by “Two Of A Kind.” Most of the crowd quickly joined in the singing, but I held back, as it takes me quite a while to work up to engaging in something so boisterous and flamboyant as singing at a concert.

An unexpected moment came during “The Beaches of Cheyenne,” where I noticed there were two fiddles going, which made me quite happy, since fiddles just make everything better. (Why do you think “fiddlesticks” is such a great word?)

Eventually, we got to one of the highlights of the evening, which was “The River,” during which time hundreds of glowing cell phones were held aloft, giving the arena an almost magical feel, and everybody (including me!) happily sang along. By this point we’d all been totally sucked in, as evidenced by the fact that we were soon cheering wildly and singing along to a song about grisly murder. (“Papa Loved Mama.”)

Next, Garth mentioned how he was about 110 years old, but that he’d learned to pace himself, at which point he then jumped into the frenetic “Ain’t Going Down ('Til The Sun Comes Up)” where he ran around like a maniac and climbed the spherical cage that the drummer was playing in. During this time I’m quite certain that he suffered several cardiac events, along with possibly a mild stroke, but man was it entertaining!

The concert rolled on, and soon we were again cheering wildly and singing along to another tune about grisly murder. (“The Thunder Rolls”)

Then came something else from his new album, a song titled “People Loving People,” which was the cue for about half the arena to head for the bathroom. The rest of us stayed behind, and at Garth’s instructions, we clapped and sang along to the lyrics that were showing on the big screen. (I’m not sure if they were for him or us.) Or at least we tried to clap and sing along. I’m terrible at clapping in rhythm, and after screwing up several times, I gave up and decided to instead focus my energy entirely on screwing up the lyrics, which I accomplished even though at several points during the song they were, and I quote: “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

Once everybody returned from the bathroom, Trisha Yearwood joined the party and we all cheered wildly and sung along to a song about cheating on your partner. (“In Another’s Eyes.”) When it was over, Garth stepped back and let her sing “X’s and O’s,” during which time the big screen showed clips of bloopers from her cooking show. I’m not kidding. I still don’t get it.

To be totally honest, I expected to be bored by Trisha’s part of the show, but the woman can sing, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying her five song set. I also spent part of this time people-watching, which I found to be thoroughly entertaining because the vast majority of the crowd was by this point dancing in a manner that can only be described as incredibly awkward. (“Sway left… sway right… what am I supposed to do with my hands?!!”)

After Trisha left the stage, Garth returned and soon after came another highlight, “Calling Baton Rouge,” a great song with chaotic energy. I didn’t even mind the fact that there wasn’t anybody playing the banjo. (Banjos are almost as cool as fiddles.)

Next up, “Friends in Low Places,” which is where the booing came in, although initially the place erupted into hearty cheers that lasted throughout the first two verses and chorus. After that came the break before the third verse, which is where Garth typically engages the audience for a while, just to make them have to wait for what’s going to be arguably the highlight of the entire show. During this time, he casually mentioned that during this tour they weren’t going to play the third verse, which is what elicited the loud cascade of good-natured booing. Sticking to his script, Garth reiterated the point, which meant that we got to boo him again, which was an incredible amount of fun. Finally, he gave up teasing us and launched into verse 3, and we all cheered wildly and sung along, despite the fact that the song wasn’t about grisly murder.

After a requisite performance of “The Dance,” the band and Garth left the stage, which then led to the first encore, which was “The Fever” and featured an incredible fiddle part. During this time, a long treadmill (honestly) was activated on the front of the stage, which allowed Garth to moonwalk if he went against the grain, and sent him flying if he went with it. At one point the fiddle player jumped on, zoomed across, and nearly took out the moon-walking Garth, who was on the other side. All in all, it was great fun, even though it seemed like the entire concept had been designed by a six-year-old boy whose only goal in life was to see people crash into each other.

After the song, the treadmill was shut down and the band again left the stage. We all cheered, and eventually Garth came back out by himself for the second encore. With just his guitar, he sang pieces of several lesser-known numbers before doing a bit of another new one, “Mom.” Then the rest of the band came out and I got to listen to my second favorite song of all time, “Much Too Young.” (Anybody who knows me should know what my favorite is...) The finale then came in the form of a rousing rendition of “Standing Outside The Fire,” which was a great way to end the show, at which point I couldn’t hear anymore, due to prolonged exposure to an arena full of people yelling directly into my ears.

Overall, it was an excellent experience, and I highly recommend it to anybody, although ever since then the stupid GhostTunes mascot has been constantly floating through my thoughts, to the point where I’m pretty sure I’ve been mildly brainwashed by the pre-show advertisements. Hmm….maybe if I listen to a song about grisly murder, I can flush it all out.

 

 

 

 

Update: Part 2

"If you don't have anything funny to say, don't say anything at all." - Me, a couple of seconds ago.

Yup, it's been quite a dry spell for this blog. I keep waiting to get hit with inspiration for a hilarious post, but the only thing that's been hitting me recently is the urge to take a chair nap and drink gallons of coffee. I'm not sure why this is happening. Maybe I'm training for winter.

Regardless, I refuse to pump out subpar material just because I feel like I should always be posting something, so please bear with me as I travel through this barren desert of writer's block, searching desperately for an oasis of creative inspiration, while hoping not to be drawn in by mirages of what look to be great topics to write about but which really aren't.

Together we'll get through this, but in the meanwhile, if you need me, I'll probably be in my chair, drinking coffee.

Update

I know, I know, I've been neglecting this blog. However, in my defense, I have been spending a lot of time growing facial hair.

Logic And Sports Injuries

In general, guys can be pretty good at long term thinking, but there are some areas where that just isn’t an option, such as dealing with sports injuries.

You see, guys hate getting injured while playing sports, as to them it’s the same thing as walking around with a big sign that says: “I’m a wimp! Feel free to punch me in the face!”

Now, I realize this doesn’t make much sense, as injuries are a part of life, but guys and logic sometimes just don’t mix.

Usually, upon incurring an injury, a guy’s first instinct is to ignore it and “play through,” with the worst case scenario being to pause for a moment to “tape it up,” even if that means reattaching their head to their body. Now, as you might expect through the use of common sense, this short-sighted thinking usually makes things worse, and sometimes turns minor injuries into major ones. (There’s that whole logic thing again.) However, just because I’m aware of how preposterous a guy’s line of thinking is here, don’t assume for a moment that I’m immune to it.

For example, during a recent pickup softball game, it came to my attention that my batting ability had degraded over the years to the point where a little old lady swinging a broom would have had a better chance of getting a hit. So, not surprisingly, when I finally did manage to hit a dribbler to the left side, I hurled myself out of the batter’s box with reckless abandon, determined to get a hit, although I must admit that I did briefly entertain the thought of sprinting all the way to my car so I could drive away and not have to endure the shame of lowering myself to the level of trying to beat out an infield single.

Anyway, since I’m no longer in my early twenties, and instead at an age where hurling oneself around with reckless abandon is generally a poor idea, a delicate portion of my body, best defined as the upper inner thigh, decided that it was time to go, and I quote: “POP!!”

At this point, I should have been done for the night, but like any rockhead guy, I immediately decided to “play through,” so as to not let down my team, which had been playing together for almost an entire forty-five minutes and had developed an incredibly deep bond amongst its players, by which I mean I’m pretty sure we all knew each others’ first names.

Reduced to essentially playing on one leg, I immediately became a defensive liability with a range of about one step in any given direction, and I was no better on offense, where my maximum running speed on the base paths was now comparable to that of a turtle on crutches. (In a later at bat, I somehow managed to drive one over the center fielder’s head, and even though it went all the way to the wall, I still almost got thrown out at first.)

Now, I’d like to say that the story ends here, but sadly it doesn’t, as the next night was sand volleyball night, and I don’t miss sand volleyball night for anything, as it’s easily the best sport ever invented, and missing it would be the same thing as walking around with a big sign that says, “I’m a wimp! Feel free to punch me in the face!”

However, it was only a day later and I couldn’t really jump, which, as it turns out, is a major component of the sport. Still, undeterred by facts and logic, I did what any rockhead guy would do, which was ignore all of the warning signs and play anyway.

In my defense, I wasn’t completely reckless in the matter. No, I made sure to take the time to wrap my injured leg for support, like they do in the pros. Not that it helped me to be able to walk or jump, mind you, it just made me feel like I’d taken steps to address the situation. Plus, I got to play with tape, which is always a fun thing.

Anyway, and this is tough to admit, by doing this I’d basically turned into one of those weekend warrior middle-aged guys whose body is crumbling down all around them, and who wear various braces and headbands and mouth guards, and who I always want to shake my head at and say, “Dude, give it up. Go balance your checkbook or something before you end up killing yourself.”

But it was sand volleyball night. Did I have any other choice?

Luckily, I somehow made it through without injuring myself even further, and ever since then, I’ve managed to heal up nicely to the point where I’m almost back to 100 percent.

Still, I’ve learned a very important lesson from the whole ordeal: No more mad dashes from home plate during softball!

Either that or get a little old lady with a broom to pinch-hit for me.

The Chair

If I had a bucket list, and on said list was an item titled: “Sit on a cloud,” I’d now be able to cross it off.

Yup, I got a new chair. It’s soft. It reclines. It swivels. It perfectly cradles my every ounce. Basically, it’s become the most important thing in my life, narrowly edging out coffee.

I’ve known for a while that I needed a new chair. There was an empty space in my living room that even a life-sized cutout of John Wayne couldn’t fill, and a chair seemed like it would be the perfect thing. I just never got around to it, what with all of my time being consumed with the rigors of everyday life. Finally, however, I got down to business and bought one, and, as a result, I’ll never do anything productive again in my life, as I’ll be using all of my spare time to take chair naps.

Chair naps are amazing. They make couch naps feel like trying to sleep in a dumpster filled with angry raccoons. It’s hard to explain why they’re so much better. It’s something beyond measure, something intangible, but once you’ve experienced a good chair nap, you’ll never go back to the couch. (You may even feel the urge to occasionally spit on your couch in derision.)

As you can probably see, I’m completely enamored by my new piece of furniture. In fact, I now nap even when I’m not even remotely tired. Every time I walk by the chair, I’m inexorably pulled in its direction, as if it’s whispering soothingly to me, “Come to me and rest your eyes. Don’t worry, it’ll only be for a few minutes!!” I’ll then wake up three hours later, dazed, confused, but very happy. Put it this way: I have a hard time foreseeing any future when I’m not late for work less than fifty percent of the time.

Luckily, winter will be here soon, and then I won’t feel so bad about spending all of my time there. My plan is to while away those bitter months napping, reading, and drinking coffee, sometimes all at once. I have a feeling I may even sleep through Christmas.

Let it snow!!!

On Camping

Camping is one of those things that, upon closer inspection, doesn’t make a lot of sense, mainly because it’s a leisure activity that involves giving up modern conveniences in order to make yourself miserable for several days, which, when you think about it, is sort of like looking into the sun for entertainment purposes.

Now, I’ll admit that it would make perfect sense if people went camping for the sole reason of making it so they fully appreciated their modern conveniences upon returning home. (“That was terrible! I’m sure glad to be somewhere there’s a shower and a place to sleep not covered in eighteen layers of mosquitoes!”) However, what you’ll hear when you ask around is that people go camping in order to commune with nature, which sounds like a wonderful idea until nature starts communing back in the form of clouds of bugs with the ability to lift livestock off of the ground and curious skunks with hair-triggers.

So, unless their homes have been flooded or relocated to another state by a tornado, why do people go camping?

The answer’s easy: the low standards.

You see, when you go camping, conventional social standards are immediately flushed down the proverbial toilet, leaving you free to live like their forefathers, assuming they were gigantic slobs with eating habits that would make any dentist blush.

For example, one of the first things to go is the concept of daily showers, which is replaced with the concept of wallowing in your own filth, although I’ll have to admit that several advantages, such as:

• The smell will kill the attacking mosquitoes before they can even get close.
• You have more free time to get attacked by bears.

Not that hygiene is completely non-existent. Toothbrushes and deodorant are typically still used, and I once even saw somebody dunk their head in a cooler of melted ice, although I’m not sure if it was an attempt at cleanliness or a glaring indicator of insanity.

Another standard that disappears is shaving, which is why at any given campsite most of the male population – when they’re not pretending to know how to start a fire – spend most of their time scratching absently at their jaws. Annoying itching aside, as a guy I can say that not having to shave in the morning is a complete luxury, especially for those of us who can’t wear their stubble in the real world without looking like they just got hit in the face with a dirt clod. Thank goodness anything goes when you're camping, even if it makes you look terrible!!

As you might expect, since it goes hand-in-smelly-hand with not bathing, the concept of changing clothes is also nonexistent during camping. In fact, it becomes fully acceptable to wear the same pair of pants for multiple days in a row, even if you shred them terribly during a sprint through a thicket of thorns to escape what you thought was a bear but was instead a very loud squirrel. This is a truly liberating concept, and it also frees you up a lot of time to scratch absently at your jaw, although upon the end of a camping trip, I recommend that you just burn your clothing instead of trying to salvage it.

Another big reason for camping is that food standards drop to the point where it appears that two of your main objectives in life are to contract diabetes and thicken your blood to the consistency of Burger King shakes. Simply put, “eating healthy” is not a term associated with camping, and your food must consist exclusively of either greasy meat or simple carbs. Sometimes, however, despite the rules, people will try to sneak in something else, and these rogue actions must be strictly punished: i.e. salads or other green items must be confiscated and thrown directly into the fire, although fruit is sometimes allowed, assuming that it’s eaten with something from the Little Debbie family.

Another fun part of camping is the last few meals, when most of your food is gone and you’re left cobbling together random ingredients to see what you come up with. While this may seem to be a bit disgusting, one of the mystical things about camping is that food always tastes good, no matter what it is, assuming, of course, that it’s not a contraband vegetable. For example, during my last trip, we had peanut butter and jelly saltine cracker sandwiches for breakfast on the last day, and they were delicious!

In summary: Camping means no bathing, no shaving, no clothes-changing, and lots and lots of junk food, and when it’s put like that, who really cares about a several-hundred measly mosquito bites and the faint odor of skunk that'll follow you around forever, especially when you do finally get around to taking that shower?

Umbrella

I'm now the owner of a new umbrella, and since I’ve never had one before, I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

For starters, I didn’t buy it. It was given to me by one of my employer’s clients. Also, it’s bright red, to the point where if I ever used it, it’d look like I was getting dive-bombed by one of the Angry Birds. (Or a giant, flattened tomato.)

Now, as a guy, I’ve never felt a need to use an umbrella. This started way back during my childhood, where I would refuse to carry one to the bus stop on rainy days. This was because boys back then needed to be tough, since in those days you didn’t get trophies for everything, such as taking last place, or not putting your pants on backwards for the fifth day in a row, and by carrying an umbrella I would have been guaranteed to be beaten up as soon as I stepped onto the bus, mainly by my friends, since one of the official duties of being a friend is to make sure your other friends don’t go soft on you.

And so, in order to not be beaten up, I just elected to be sick a lot, which, I might add, was totally worth it.

But now I’m grown up and living in Minnesota, where we’ve just passed spring and have entered into the monsoon season, which is defined by the fact that it’s only pouring rain when it isn’t drizzling or misting. (At this point, investing in a canoe seems like a smart idea, just so I’ll have a way to get to the grocery store.)

Anyway, an umbrella might come in handy, but unfortunately, there's still a bit of the little boy in me who doesn’t want to be a wimp and get beaten up. That part of me wants to do the opposite of using an umbrella during a storm, which would be to strip down to my underwear, stand outside, and yell, “Is that all you’ve got???!!!! Bring it on!!!”

In short, I’m not sure if I’m going to use it or not. However, I can say that I’m already glad that I have it, for two reasons: One, when it’s not opened, I can pretend it’s a sword and use it to defeat invisible bad guys, which is a lot of fun, and two, I can entertain myself for hours on end by pressing the button and opening it, then folding it back up and repeating. (“Umbrella opens up! Umbrella closes! Umbrella opens up! Umbrella closes!”)

Well, I’m not going to figure this out by sitting in front of a keyboard. I’d better get down to some serious thinking. Unless, of course, some invisible burglars have snuck in, in which case I’ve been working on a few new moves that I'm just dying to try.