Hungry and Hollow

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I really dig your band, but I don't want to eat your hair.

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.

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