August 9
 

On Saturday, my Mother and I went to see Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson at the Yale Field, which is about a mile from my house (potential stalkers, take note!! If you comb the area a block at a time, you might just be able to find my house.  I mean, you know what my dogs look like AND what kind of car I drive and if you were really going to go whole hog, you might remember that I've posted photographs of my house before.  Iíve given you all the clues you need, now get out there and stalk like crazy!  If you're planning on coming to slit my throat or something, at least give me a heads up, so i have on clean underwear).  Anyhow, Bob Dylan.  I bought my mom tickets for her birthday (note:  I believe that this is the THIRD time I've purchased her Bob Dylan tickets for her birthday, but only the first time I went along for the show.  She really needs to start liking another musician, so I can branch out).

We wound up having to park on the Yale soccer field, and had to pay ten bucks, which really pissed me off.  I mean, I LIVE IN THE AREA, why the fuck should I have to pay to park my car?  Bastards.  People were tailgating like crazy, but it wasnít your normal keg of beer and bag of Cheetos tailgate, oh my, no!!  We walked past people with tables set up with CLOTH TABLECLOTHS and CANDLES and FULL BARS outside their Volvo wagons.  Three bean salad!! Rack of lamb!!  (Me to my mother:  "I feel like I should have brought an APPLE for us or something!! I didnít know there would be tailgate parties!!"  Mom:  "We could offer someone 10 bucks to share...")  We get on line, and the woman behind us immediately crawls up our personal space.
She:  I drove all the way THE CITY to be here!!!!
Mom: It's like that time I went to see the Dali Lhama in Central Park!
Me:  What city is that, ma'am?  We're already IN a city.
She:  (with an annoyed/bemused snort)  NEW YORK city, of course.
Me:  Oh, NEW YORK!!! How fancy!!!
Mom:  (stepping on my foot)
Me:  HEH.

We make our way up to the entrance where the woman from THE CITY practically shoved us out of the way.  I guess what they say about New Yorkers is true.  No manners, the whole lot of you!!!!  The great majority of concert goers made a beeline for the field, assumedly to sit and commune at a close distance with their neighbors and to enjoy the fresh country air of West Haven.  (Overheard by me:  Darling! This is so fun!! We're in the BOONIES!!!)  My mom and I headed for the stands (Did I mention the concert was at a minor league baseball stadium?  Because it was).  I headed for a row, but my mother propelled me to the NEXT row, which turned out to be more fortuitous than either of us could ever have imagined at the time.  We sit and people watch.  Oh, lordy, were there people to watch.

The row in front of us fills in.  A nice lesbian couple sit in front of us.  A few seats down from them is a group of people I'm afraid I won't be able to do them the justice of describing but I'll try:

First, there was a guy with a giant, gleaming set of false teeth.  His hair was very violently parted to the side.  He wore khakis hitched too high with a cloth belt, and an overly tight green polo shirt.  He had a comb in his back pocket.

Then, there was a woman wearing entirely brown.  You could tell she was about a month past her last appointment with a plastic surgeon, and she was trying desperately to pretend she was wealthy, but I know clothes from The Dress Barn when I see clothes from The Dress Barn.  You didn't fool me one BIT, Mrs. I'm Wearing Costume Jewlery Because I Spent All My Money Getting a Face Lift and a Boob Job.  Her teeth matched her outfit.  They were brown.

The woman wearing a turquoise outfit with a hand crocheted shawl.  Giant plastic mother of pearl earrings and a necklace.  White platform flip flops she could barely walk around in, which provided my mother and I with GREAT MIRTH every time she jetted out of her seat to go flail her arms along in time to Willie Nelson. (Mom:  You KNOW she thinks her outfit says "I AM A HIPPIE!!"  Me:  Really, what it's saying to me is "I bought this at the Boca Raton Hilton!! ON SALE!!")
 

A very tall blonde woman in a DENIM PANTS SUIT.  Right, a DENIM PANTS SUIT, with a zipper all the way up the front.  She had done her hair into a wild, snarly bee hive and was wearing giant cork soled shoes (note to Shandy:  SHE WAS WEARING YOUR SHOES).  If she had whirled around and shreiked "KISS MY GRITS" at us, we wouldn't have been at all surprised.

A giantly fat cardiac event waiting to happen man with a ruddy face.  We were under the impression that he thought the ruddy equaled GOOD HEALTH, but we were soon to find out that the ruddy skin meant TOTAL ALCOHOLIC IN DENIAL.

A woman wearing some sort of weirdly pattered blouse with COULOTTES.  AND BOOTS.  She also had decked herself out in really tacky costume jewels, and I think she was related to the Lady In Brown, because they had the same shade of tooth.

Anyhow, the guy with the severely parted hair got up to get a beer, which was the first of no less than THREE HUNDRED trips they took to the crapper or the beer line.  Each trip they took found them basically GROPING the nice lesbian couple, who bore their annoyance like champs, because my mother and I were practically in hysterics FOR THEM.  Maybe the Hair guy wouldn't have been so bad had he just been passing them by, but each time he passed them, we noticed that he TOUCHED THEM.  And not just them, friends.  No no!! He touched EVERYONE HE CAME IN CONTACT WITH.  I went off to get us a drink and something to eat, and as I sat there eating my pretzel, the guy came over to me, TOUCHED ME ON THE ARM, and said "DID YOU GET ENOUGH FOR ME??"  and made a pretend "Im Grabbing Your Food in a playful way!!!"  motion.  In response, I mustered up the best snotty look I could do, and said "Huh, you're a funny guy."  It was totally lost on him as he wandered off to get more beer for his gross group of friends.

Before the opening band finished, they'd each had no less than 6 beers.  Try and consider the mathematics of that, if you will.  6 beers per person= AT LEAST 15 trips to the can.  Each trip to the can=MORE BEER, thus catching them up in a neverending spiral of beer shame and need.  They were like zoo creatures, neither my mother nor myself could stop talking about them.

Me:  LOOK AT THEM GROPING EACHOTHER!!
My Mom:  You KNOW they're driving out of here in a crappy, busted Buick.
Me:  They have BMW dreams, but Daewoo wallets!!
My mom:  I haven't seen someone wear a denim pants suit since the mid 70s!
Me:  And YOU KNOW she's had it for exactly that long.  Eventually, some things should be thrown away.
 

The crowd at this show was primarily 50 and over.  With that in mind, you would think that they'd have had at least one or two opportunities to go to a bar and order a drink, right?  Well, fuck me silly, but these 50 year olds drank beer like they had NEVER hAD THE CHANCE BEFORE, EVER.  Like in the town they're from, beer is never sold, and they had to drink every bit of it before it was taken away from them.  People were staggeringly, STUMBLINGLY drunk.  We watched them weave around on the grass, often collapsing into Middle Management I Sell Insurance heaps.  They tripped over things.  They fell down.  They puked.  They emptied the items in their purses onto the ground accidentally.  ALL OF THIS BEFORE WILLIE NELSON EVEN GOT ON STAGE!!!

So, Willie Nelson gets on stage, and for the first time in perhaps the history of Connecticut, a Texas flag is raised.  (Me:  Is Bob Dylan going to unfurl the NY flag???  Mom:  No, it's pretty ugly!)  He does his Willie Business (and I am not IN ANY WAY showing disrespect towards Willie, because I love him.  Am I a hick in my heart?  Maybe.  Am I a hick lover?  For sure.)  I clap delightedly, and the traveling freak show in front of us begin their crazy person boogie, RIGHT THERE IN THEIR SEATS!!  They stomp their feet!! They clap OUT OF TIME!!  They wave their please-for-the-love-of-god cover those ham hocks you call upper arms in the air!  They wave them like they just don't care!! They adjust their crotches!! They slobber all over one another!! They GO FOR MORE BEER!!!

Finally, the women in front of us could take it no more.  They heard me snort, and one of them turns around "Are they pissing you off as much as they're pissing US off?"  "Oh, Lordy, yes."  I reply.  "They are not as precious as they seem to think".  With that, they grab their pulled pork sandwiches and head for less interactive seating.

The sun sets after Willie leaves the stage.  People get a little restless.  We start smelling something in the air.

My Mom:  SOMEONE IS SMOKING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT A CIGARETTE!!
Me:  Me it SMELLS LIKE SOMETHING ILLEGAL!! We shoudl report them to the police!!!
My Mom:  Or, we should try and find where they are and sit next to them!!
Me:  MOM!?!!?
My Mom:  Hee, you don't know EVERYTHING about your old mom, now, do you???
 

As Dylan takes the stage, the line of freaks all throw their arms around one another in their seats.  They sway BACK AND FORTH, all interlocked.

Me:  You KNOW they have orgies!!! Gross 6 person denture orgies!!!
Mom:  Ugh, no they don't!!
Me:  This is Connecticut!! You read the Ice Storm, didn't you??! THEY HOLD KEY PARTIES!! EVERYONE LOSES!!!!
 

Dylan was Dylan.  He sped through his songs with no preamble, didn't speak AT ALL and did very weird things with the way he sang the choruses, for example:

iaintgonnaworkonmaGGIESFARmnomore.

With no punctuation or pause.  The songs were sung SO strangely, that I didn't recognize "Like a Rolling Stone" until he hit the CHORUS, which he turned into:

"howdoesitfeelhowdoesitfeeltobeONyourownacompleteUNknownlikeaROLlingstonE."
 

The freak farm didn't care!!  They remained locked together in their demented sway for the whole show.  When Dylan left the stage, they broke apart, the man screaming out "EVERYONE YELL FOR MORE BOB!!! BOOOOOOOBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB!!!!!!!!".  We didn't yell for more Bob.

When the show ended, there was a mass exodus for the door.  No one was too steady on their feet walking back to the parking lot, which made me a little nervous about the quality of our drive home.  After ducking a wavery arm from a drunken white man with dreadlocks in front of the gravestone store (note:  The field is next door to a GIANT, very cool cemetary) "LOOK!! EVERYONE WINDS UP DEAD!! SOMEDAY YOU WILL NEED TO SHOP FOR THESE!! LET'S LOOK NOW!!"  Me: LET'S NOT, MORON! and walking through the pitch black parking lot (where people resumed their tailgate parties, same as before the show, only now everyone was blasting Dylan), we made it back to the car and out of the lot without being hit from the rear by any overzealous SUV driving morons, and that may be the very last time I go to see Bob Dylan on purpose.
 
 

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