Complacent
by Chris Kane
I've seen on Downtime, from time to
time, discussions about "the limits of fanhood"... like
"we shouldn't acknowledge this person because they're just
a stupid little whatever who only owns SMFTA because they think
Craig looks like a guy at their school". My first thought
here is that...ya know...AIDS kills, Jerry Falwell is out there
doing damage as we speak, and you've got concern over someone
else's level of appreciation for your favorite band? I tried to
tell the homeless guy at the end of my street about this problem,
because I was sure that he'd been down that road before, but he
was too busy eating dog food out of a dirty old L.A. Gear high
top to listen. Man, some people just don't care about the truly
important things in life.
Well, that's enough of the soap box
for one paragraph I think. My point with bringing up the appreciation
level thing was not to discuss my thoughts on other's shortcomings
as a fan, but rather to share with you the moment where I realized
that "this is where my capacity for being an Everclear fan
stops".
It's actually an interesting concept
because as a freak fan, you start to think that you would go to
some great lengths in many situations to prove your overwhelming
pride in your favorite band. But where would that stop? When they
asked you to wear a colostomy bag on your head and that you demand
that everyone refer to you as "jimmy poo-bag head",
even though your name's not Jimmy? Or maybe a little bit before
that....
For me it was the Santa Monica Pier
show. *fade in to memory scene*..
Ahh, those were the days...my daughter
had just been born...I was operating under the sad assumption
that America wouldn't be stupid enough to put Bush in the White
House...(I totally forgot that this is the same America that put
Dennis Rodman on the big screen.)...and my good friend Dave had
just left my soon to be failed dot com company for a big grand
job at Warner Brothers; Entertaindom to be exact.
From the moment that Dave left, he
had been trying to get me to go work there too. "Dude, we
play ultimate frisbee".."dude, we get free blocks of
18 Karat gold".. "Dude, I play tennis with Jesus on
tuesdays now"...ok, so I'm lying..they don't play ultimate
frisbee at Entertaindom. Well, not after Jesus threw his shoulder
out of socket, at least. One of their other perks, I soon found
out, was concerts. Free to all employees, or whatever. It all
sounded like a good package, except my current job was work at
home. Concerts are great, but there's nothing like sleeping in
until noon every day. Well, maybe sleeping in until 1...on blocks
of gold. Maybe after I conquer the world with my death ray.
So I hear about the Everclear record
release party happening at the pier, and suprise suprise, it's
being streamed live over the net by Dave's Entertaindom. I call
my friend up, lie to him and tell him that I'm interested in that
job, and try pull in a favor he owes me since I had covered his
butt so many times.. (the place that we had worked at together
was real big on spankings). He said he'd try, that it would have
been better if I had asked him maybe a little bit in advance,
instead of the day before. What can I say, I'm a lazy slob, but
I wear it well.
Long story short, the next day, I thought
it wasn't gonna happen. Tears were soaking my pillow and the suicide
hotline was on stand by when an hour before the show, my phone
rings. It's Dave, and he says "I think you're in dude, our
marketing chick is gonna call you in two minutes". The phone
rings again and a female voice inquires "What are you wearing??"
No "hello", No "can I speak to Chris please";
just "what are you wearing?". My first thought: "cool.
Free Everclear show, free phone sex". I trade descriptions
with her and I'm off. I get to the pier about 3 minutes before
show time and there's enough people outside to fill about 9 million
trips to the Jeffery Dahmer all-you-can-eat people buffet. I think
for a second that I'm not getting in when I hear an excited voice
behind me say "Blue sweater! You're Chris!"..... Hey
look ma! I just made a fashion statement!.....Ok, yeah, that one
sucked.
She throws a pass around my neck and
then it's to the front of the line, to rap with Larry the bouncer
about why I should be inside. "I.D. please, he says.''....Now,
I had moved from Missouri a few months prior, and as mentioned
before, I'm lazy. I still had a Missouri driver's license. I produce
it, hand it to the guy hoping that he won't give me static, and
seconds turn to hours as he puts it under his inspective eye.
"This is out of state" he says, my only reply being
"Uhh...Sorry". "It's also expired." he says,
moments later...."WHAT??" I shout, as if he had told
me he was pregnant with my love child. He was right...two weeks
ago I had lost my ability to prove my existence via valid identification,
and I didn't even know it. Did I mention lazy yet? How about stupid,
did I mention stupid? "Ok, well, that's still me, I mean,
it's only two weeks, can't you just..." I say, to which he
replies "Well...I'll let you in, but you can't drink."
WHAT? HAHAHA HA HA HA HA HA...fooled you, I haven't had a drop
since that damn rubbing alchohol incident!
And with that I'm inside. For those
who were there, or watched on the internet, you know it was a
great show. It stands out in my mind as the best one that I've
been to. And here's what I took 900 paragraphs to get to:
At the end of the show, I found the
place where excitement about seeing my favorite band turned into
a real world gross out moment. The set comes to an end, Art's
walking off stage, and I run up to give him a high five, because
I'm a big white dork who's into high fives. At that moment, Art
just falls onto the crowd, wanting to surf the human wave before
retreating back to the VIP area, I suppose. Without bringing a
mitt, I play catcher. Needless to say, it was a pretty cool moment
for me until I looked up to yell with amazement, as my yell was
met with a mouth full of Art Alexakis' sweaty platinum hair. Yum!
Just like mom used to make....
That's the moment where the aura of
ecstatic joy turns into "Ewww! Gross! It's so salty!!".
It was good for me, I think, because it's so easy to put rock
stars on a pedestal and not remember that, you know, their hair
tastes bad too. I think it's something to reflect upon when judging
other fans, like I was talking about earlier. We all have our
limits as to how much of a fan we are, and how much of a fan we
can be. I'm sure some fans would want to eat Art's hair. Maybe
even add some teryiaki sauce to it, you know, for flavor. Not
me, and I'm ok with that. Some fans will eat the hair, some fans
won't...the point being that we're all fans in some capacity,
and that should be enough to earn mutual respect. I'm not the
biggest fan, because I don't want to eat the hair. In fact, this
fall I'll be submitting to congress my proposal for the "All
rock stars must wear hair nets when handling fans" law.
It all worked out in the end though,
I got to sue for emotional distress and my daughter will go to
college now. Well, either that, or I'll buy a 950 hp jet boat.
In retrospect I think, it could have been worse. It could have
been Coolio.
PS>>> For all the gold diggers,
no, you can't REALLY sue for being forced to taste someone's hair.
Unless they're dead.
