Sunday, July 6, 2008

Oh God... Carnies...

So, Thursday I let myself get taken to a Town Fair. Yeah, I know. What the fuck am I doing at a Fair? Obviously, this is not my kind of scene. One, I obviously came over dress what with still having all my teeth and whatnot. Not a great way to blend in. But still, I soldiered on. The guys really wanted to see the Clarks (the epitome of one of those "local hero" bands. Mediocre radio play due to being a maybe two-hit wonder and building a career on, well, playing Town Fair's apparently) and I had the day off and figured that maybe I should finally get out and hang with some friends and, yes, even consume some alcohol for the first time in a month. Y'know, actually be a human being for once. Besides, I went to Fair's as a kid (I think) and never really recalled any bad memories of them. Maybe there could be some fun had here...

... god was I ever wrong...

I already mentioned the teeth thing, and that wasn't an honest to god stereotype joke, that was an honest to god observation. Look up "slack-jawed" in Webster's, and you saw what half of this crowd. And the place smelled quaintly of what I could only describe as Pony and Mullet. And believe me, for those of you that can't believe that Mullet can actually be a smell, it can and it does. Now I'm confused as to how Barry Melrose hasn't been confused for a garbage fire and beaten out.

Anyways, so we're walking around looking at what the place had to offer and to avoid being sucked into the earth since this place was muddier than the set of a Gay Porn Gangbang shoot (I am a master of the imagery I am). But by god, we can for the Clarks and we're staying for the Clarks! Kill me now. So I start looking around. Do we have anything of note here? Anything slightly interesting? Well, we have food stands set up that actually increased my cholesterol just by looking at them. Fuck, if a Fair is a true testament to anything, it really is that you can deep fry just about whatever you want. And they did. I honestly don't know how anyone eats this stuff. I didn't touch a thing and yet I walked out of there a pant size bigger and needing two fillings in my teeth. Susan Powter wept...

The games were everything you'd expect. Shoot something win a prize. Throw a ball at the bottles - beer bottles mind you, this is western PA after all - win a prize. And the ring toss is self-explainatory too except you threw them at not bottle or whatnot, but knives that were wedged blade first into a rotating platform... okay, let's talk about this more. This, honestly, might have been the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. FUCKING KNIVES?! Are you kidding me? You mean I get to toss little plastic hoops on blades that some of which were the size of my fucking head for the right to take them home? And the kids can play too?!? Is this shit even legal? Fuck, you just earned my $5 right there sir. God bless America, I've never felt so Patriotic.

And the crowd, yeah let's talk about them some more. Again, I felt out of place simply because I left my beer gut at home. And my god, these really were just walking stereotypes. Well, about half of them at least, there were some normies there to be fair. But the guys wearing their sleeveless shirts and dirty tractor repairing jeans and whatnot, all acting all badass as they tried to win their girls a fucking stuffed bear while hucking baseballs at fucking empty beer bottles, if you can even call Coors Light fucking beer (word to the wise: it's not).

Oh, and their girls! Talk about their girls. Immediately I'll say this: Thank god it was raining because if the sun had been out, I'd have probably gone blind from its reflection off the bleachedness. And I don't think I've ever seen so much makeup caked on human beings before since the last time I accidentally ended up watching Nancy Grace on the television (which, mark it down now, that bitch is getting hers soon). It's like they fucking woke up that morning, showered, plucked, bleached, etc... and then fucking loaded a cannon with some Mary Kay and opened fire on their faces. Of course, there were some cute country gals, and I'll tell you what, a cute country gal is a damn great thing to behold, but the rest looked like they could have been turned away from the pony rides because to let them on would be animal cruelty.

Oh yeah, and the Clarks fucking blow. Bad enough the highlight was a two-hitter, and that dos-bateador was working with one of the worst sound systems I've ever witnessed at a live show. And I've seen some dive-ass live shows from some punk bands that look like they all sold their sneakers to afford their amps - still better sound quality.

And then we went home and I made a gin bucket (mmm, mmm good!) and all was right with the world. Now let us never speak of this again...

Now I know how Bush fucking won his second term. God Bless America!

Cheers...

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