Take A Report

I am just gonna come right out and say it… I took my wife to see Huey Lewis and The News the other night in concert. Small concert hall in Northern New Jersey, but it was fucking packed to the rafters with ugly white people.

Here’s a shot of us in the lobby…

The tickets said the show started at 8 PM, but my wife and I got to our seats at 8:10, and nothing was going on yet. Around 8:20 some guy with a guitar came out and performed maybe 4 or 5 folk-ish songs, and after a small intermission the “Main Event” limped out around 9:15 or so. The reason I am giving you such an intricate timeline is because 1) I think Huey Lewis has some set of fucking balls thinking he can keep a phone booth full of people waiting over an hour, much less a theater full of suckers who paid $40 a seat. And 2) Even though he came on at 9:15, me and the missus were headed for the exits by 9:45.

He opened with “The Heart Of Rock and Roll”.

— SIDEBAR: By the way. If you’re in your mid-to-late thirties, and you are reading this, then don’t even try pretending like you don’t know any Huey Lewis songs… I know I am a asshole for actually going to see him live, but you’ve all sang along to “This is It” in your car whenever it’s playing on WPLJ and the 2 kids are asleep in their booster seats in the back, so just fucking stop with the condescending attitude… His old shit is as catchy as the bird-flu, and you know it. And if you’re some punk-ass kid who thinks I am a raisin for seeing this band, then just wait until you and your transsexual bride get a babysitter for your adopted triplets from Guam so you can see the remaining living members of Linkin Park perform at half-time of an Arena League football game in 2023… Then you’ll know what I’m talking about. —

Anyhoo, as I was saying, he opened with “Heart of Rock and Roll”, and immediately 50 women jumped out of their seats and screamed for Huey like he was Elvis Presley. It was at this point, my wife turned to me and asked, “You think this guy killed it with the ladies back in the day?”

And I replied, “Shit yeah… I gotta think dozens of mediocre women woke up in the back of that tour bus thinking they were in love, only to have a half-asleep Mr Lewis tell them that they been ‘Huey-ed’ and to get the fuck out… Maybe he left a shoe-box full of $100 bills next to the exit door, and told them to grab a handful of dough on their way out for car-fare and the occasional abortion.”

So he finishes up that song and then does some new material… Which NOBODY recognized (obviously)… And then went immediately into “I Want A New Drug”. It was at this moment that I had an epiphany– Huey Lewis sounds like shit… Three songs in, and his voice started to reflect the gallons of Dewars and thousands of Marlboro Reds that have passed through his gullet in the past 3 decades. It was just awful, so we gave it 2 more songs, and then got the fuck out of Dodge.

And for those of you who are familiar with my gastrointestinal history at concerts, you’ll be glad to hear that I have NOT learned my lesson. But instead of gorging myself on German food, this time I decided to hit a local Spanish restaurant. And it was there that I threw down the Paella like I was Joey Chestnut going elbow-to-elbow with Kobayashi on the Fourth of July. I couldn’t even make it to the concert afterwards. My wife had to pull into the parking lot of some empty Greek diner one town over so I could run in and use the can. The place was empty and the staff was staring at me, so I slapped a $20 bill on the counter, ordered a coffee, and immediately went to the back of the establishment to destroy their previously spotless restroom. I felt so guilty about the whole thing that I then snuck out through the back door by the kitchen, ran through the parking lot, jumped into the passenger seat of my car, and told my wife to gun it like I had just robbed a fucking bank.

Getting out of the concert early, allowed us the time to grab a flick. We saw the 10:30 showing of Pineapple Express, which was just an okay “stoner flick”… Seth Rogan is a funny Jew and all, but enough already. But what fucking blew my mind was I’m sitting there watching the movie and the title-track from the soundtrack comes blaring through the sound system being sung by none other than Huey-Fucking-Lewis.

So I guess that in the end, it was me that got “Huey-ed”.

Take a report.

-Large

Wrote about the Billy Joel concert last week, and got some pretty good feedback. Didn’t really talk about the actual music much, but I think the whole music aspect of that evening became secondary at the exact moment my colon decided to turn inside out in a stadium filled with 60,000 people.

One thing I will say is that Billy Joel apparently is a big fan of The Beatles. And maybe he was just playing it up because they were the first band to play Shea Stadium while he was the last. But still, he brought out Paul McCartney on the final night, and the show before that, Joel sang 3 Beatle songs on his own saying they were “the greatest band that ever was, and ever will be”.

Now, with all due respect to Mr Joel, but you gotta be out of your fucking mind to say something like that.

Does anybody believe that The Beatles wrote music that can be described as anything more than “catchy”? They hit a sweet spot in American culture where the kids were ready for something different. And their simple melodies, coupled with their edgy fashions, endeared them to a generation of listeners. But to say that 40 years later that they are “the greatest band that ever was, and ever will be” makes me think that Billy-boy was hitting the bottle before he took stage that night.

Plus everybody knows that KISS was the greatest band ever, right?

On a marginally related note… I once went to see Eric Clapton live. And through a dramatic turn of events, my buddy and I (who were originally seated in the nosebleeds) were able to get tickets front row center from a guy whose date was throwing up all over herself in the lobby of the arena. Now I’m telling you this story for 2 reasons…

1) I do not consider myself a Clapton fan, but the guy can play rings around any fucking Beatle you chose.

2) I got so fucking drunk at this concert that during a real quiet part of that song “Tears In Heaven”, I start screaming at the top of my lungs, “WINDOW BARS! YOU SHOULDA PUT UP WINDOW BARS!” And apparently I insulted enough people that they were able to conspire with security and get me thrown the fuck out of the place.

Now for the younger generation who is not repulsed by that second bullet point, I should tell you that Clapton had a kid who tragically died by falling out of his apartment window. And you see, I always wondered why that prick wasn’t crucified more for not having the proper window bars in place to protect the child. But in retrospect, I shouldn’t have aired my grievance in a drunken stupor, front row center at his concert… You live and you learn, I guess. Still the fact remains, if any of us makes the same mistake (God forbid), then we are going to jail for negligence… That prick got a slap on the wrist, another fucking Grammy Award, and the opportunity to write the closing song to Goodfellas… It’s just not right.

But I digress from my original point, which is… Fuck The Beatles. I think those Limey pricks are the most overrated band that ever was, and ever will be.

And if Billy Joel has a problem with that, then he can throw his own fat ass out of Eric Clapton’s window.

Take a report.

-Large

Took the wife to see Billy Joel at Shea Stadium last week because I am old and I’m white, and that’s what we do. Lots to talk about, so lets get started.

First off, Billy Joel sounds great but looks fucking terrible. He’s very compact and sweaty, and even though his proficiency on a piano is unquestionable, it’s amazing that he’s able to pull off intricate melodies with those grubby little hands of his. He really is built like a fucking Hobbit. I would even put him up there as a candidate for “What The Fuck?- Wednesday”, but I don’t think that son-of-a-bitch was ever attractive.

That being said, he was married to Christie Brinkley, is currently married to some little piece-of-ass 30 years his junior, and he even dated Elle Macpherson for a brief stint when she was only 19 years-old (he was 33). Truth be told, I would rather have skipped the whole fucking concert and opt to see some of this cocksman’s home videos.

He had a handful of surprise performers, including 87 year-old Tony Bennett singing “New York State of Mind”, and were I a betting man I’d would bet my house Bennett outlives The Piano Man.

John Mayer was another one of Joel’s surprise guests… he played guitar during one of the slow songs. And although I could give a fuck less about Mayer or Joel, you gotta respect the scattered ass these two have left in their collective wake… Jessica Simpson, Christie Brinkley, Jennifer Anniston, Elle Macpherson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, etc.

Beautiful night weather-wise, but I forgot just how much of a dump Shea Stadium is. The new place they are building next door looks great, but the obvious dichotomy between the old and new Shea really drives home how Met fans have been paying good money to go to what is essentially a modified tool shed to watch their team play since the early 70’s.

And I really fucked myself with the pre-concert plans. My wife and I met 3 other couples for dinner at a German restaurant in Queens. I had been to this shit-hole at least a half-dozen times before, but haven’t been in a decade or so. I order everything on the menu, and wash it down with a couple of those Weiss-beers. As soon as I step outside of the restaurant, I get hit with a wave of that Summer-time-late-day-mugginess, and I start to swell up like a tick. We pile into a couple of Gypsy cabs, and I can slowly feel everything that I just ingested start to move South.

We get to the show and I’m waiting on the beer-line just minutes before the concert is scheduled to start, and my saint of a wife asks, “What’s wrong? Your top lip is covered in sweat, and your as pale as a ghost.”

And then I level with her, and say, “Honey, I feel like there’s a sleeve of hot golf balls in my rectum, and I’m starting to feel some anxiety about dropping wolf-bait in this dump with all these fucking people around.”

“Ladies and gentleman… Long Island’s own… Billy Joel!” blares across the loudspeaker, and everyone rushes in to the arena. I let my wife and friends go without me, and I wait outside of the Men’s Room as I watch the last couple of stragglers rush out to see the beginning of the show. Went in to one of the stalls and wiped the place down as much as I can.

– SIDEBAR — I gotta be honest, the bathroom wasn’t nearly as disgraceful as I had envisioned, but you’d have to think I wouldn’t be so lucky if I was at the “Monsters of Rap” tour… I’m just saying.–

Anyhoo, I sit down, begin dumping, and immediately notice the crack in the door– the one between the side of the door that locks, and the wall it locks into– has a half-inch gap. Now normally a half-inch doesn’t mean much (That’s what she said!), but I’m telling you, no less than 10 guys looked into the stall through that fucking crack while I was dumping. And to top it all off, I had a hissing steam pipe above my head that concentrated so much heat, that I felt like I was having a movement at a bus station in Laos.

I clean up and go back to my seat just as the third song was starting, and I immediately standup, turn around, and head back to that same bathroom for round 2… That German place should be brought up on charges after the horrors it inflicted on my colon. I spent the first third of the concert losing weight.

But this time I am a little wiser, so I take a 4 foot strip of that cardboard’ish hand-towel out of the dispenser, and tuck it into the door crack, creating a virtual “shit curtain”, which leaves me with a modicum of privacy in the tumultuous climes of Shea Stadium’s Loge Men’s Room. I felt so much better, that I actually took my shirt off to combat the heat from the ever present steam pipe that loomed overhead.

And a buddy of mine made a good point… You know why we have less and less privacy in our public bathroom stalls? Homosexuals, that’s why. They spent so much time in public restrooms destroying each other’s pails, and now we all have to pay for it. I just wish the gays would all just get together and make a conscious effort to own vans. That way, they can fire into each other with reckless abandon, and we’d all be none the wiser. Shit, they could probably fit a SOLOFLEX in the van also, just so they can stay in shape on the road.

One last thing, one of the guys in my “posse” had seen Billy Joel in concert 38 times previous to that show. He wore this accomplishment like a badge of honor, but I found it to be stalker-ish and downright creepy. And the creepiness is probably augmented by the fact that this particular individual is A) A big fan of Sarah Jessica Parker, and B) Has a thick pelt of hair covering his entire body… So you basically have a gigantic, hairy Italian man who watches Sex & The City while wearing a concert t-shirt from the Glass Houses Tour in ‘76.

That’s the type of crowd I roll with, I guess.

Take a report.

-Large

NEW RULE: If you are over 16 years-old and own a pair of Crocs, then you’re a douchebag.

Case closed, and take a report.

Oh. And PS… This is also a fucking disgrace…

This will be the last Bar9 (53rd St. & 9th Ave) plug for sometime, but I want you to trust admin here: if you have a job and can’t hide your belt buckle with your belly, you got more than a puncher’s chance at one of the downtown model/actress/Euro broads who will be overrunning Bar9 this Saturday night. Of course you might have to beat out guys like this, but if you can’t that’s your problem.

My best friends are a couple, Scottie and Lina (tip: click showreel or video). He is an artist who fronts Simon Scott and the Band of Infidels. And Lina is just on another level professionally and personally. (more…)

This little sister is right. The next Clinton I vote for is Chelsea in 2032.

Take a report.

-Large

This one’s gonna be a little obscure, but I could care less.

Couple of d-bags from my job recently went to see Eddie Money in concert for some reason. Now I don’t dislike Eddie Money. I just don’t know much about him… I kinda remember “Take Me Home Tonight”, where that old Motown broad sang, “Be my little baby” behind the chorus. Other than that, I couldn’t sing a full line from the rest of his musical library.

Truth be told, I always thought he had some sort of “mild palsy”… Kinda similar to the one Joe Cocker had. He used to contort his face and body in a way that I just deemed “un-normal”. You know what I mean?

Anyhoo, the guys were talking the next day, and the common thread throughout was that Eddie’s daughter and back-up singer, Jessica, was pretty hot.

Hmm. Well, here she is:

Cute girl. Certainly not moving the needle too much, but a real home-run considering her gene pool.

By the way… This chick’s real name is Jessie Money. Fucking great porn name, right?… “MONEY SHOT featuring new-cummer, Jessie Money.” I’d certainly put that in my NetFlix queue.

Take a report.

-Large

PS- Just looked at Eddie Money’s discography, and I gotta come clean… I know at least 5 of his songs. My apologies to the “Money-man”.