I Wish I Was a Baller

We spent the first hour at the free jazz festival buying mediocre, over-priced food and drink. I had a forgettable gyro and Kim some kind of sausage concoction. She also had an expensive wine cooler, and I a beer. Twenty bucks and some mild indigestion later, we caught the end of David 'Fathead' Newman's tribute to Ray Charles, and promptly discovered that Fathead has the speaking voice of a woman. (He was portrayed as much more manly in the movie 'Ray'). Luckily, he plays saxophone. After Fathead we pushed our way forward and sat down on the grass twenty feet or so from the stage. A bunch of people joined us, and the Funk Brothers came on.

Apparently the Funk Brothers are really famous in the world of Motown music. This I did not know. They had a large band with them. For much of the show we thought the Brothers were two old white guys, since everyone else on stage was black and about a decade younger. Turns out they use the word 'brothers' loosely -- they're one white and two blacks. One of the blacks wasn't playing secondary to some kind of feud. The white guy has the look of a New Jersey pizza man, if you can picture it (fat, big nose, balding, eating pizza on stage - actually the last one is not quite true).

The band was mostly middle-aged musicians with ample soul and sagging jowls. There were three singers. One was a guy in a sequined, glittery, silver jacket who did a ton of smiling. One an overweight woman in a sheer blouse who sang quite well. And lastly there was a woman in tight black pants and a holter top whom Kim affectionately called a 'middle-aged hoochie mama.'

The show was a good, but a little too 1950s. It was like listening to a stretch on an oldies station. They played 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered,' 'My Girl,' and a bunch of Marvin Gaye, among other stuff. People seemed to dig it. I would say there were about 800 there, and many were dancing, old and young. I even got into it a bit myself at one point and started rocking back and forth.

An intoxicated man in front of Kim kept looking back at her and smiling and staring at her cleavage. Every time he did that I put my hand on her leg. Then this other dude turned around, said something to her, and touched her foot. What the heck? Then it happened again! By the end of the night I was conspicuously fondling her.

We left around 10:45 pm, sober and wholesome. What I needed then was an incredibly large Johnnie Walker on the rocks. In the car, at a stop light, we watched four men in green T-shirts, almost all with enormous guts, crossing the street. "Why are they all in green T-shirts?" Kim said. "That will remain to be seen," I said, "not by me."

On the way home this guy on a motorcycle riding next to us all of a sudden decided he was going to lie down on his belly while going 80 mph. He did so, and Kim said "Oh my god!" I gave him the thumbs-up, and a toothy smile, then stepped on the gas and left him in the dust.

Back in Ann Arbor, the contrast could not be more stark. College kids, partying on a weekend night, dressed up in their Sunday best or what have you, invariably white. The town polished and dull. I found my craving for large amounts of alcohol deadened by the young crowd, which made me feel like I was at camp. "But camp was fun!" Kim said (she was an earnest band-camper back in the day, still sort of is). Suddenly I was craving Diet Orange Tropicana Twister. This means we had to stop at Speedway, which is the only place I've been able to find the drink, and interact with the amusing man behind the counter. He's fat, bearded, and dirty. He's a cross between John Candy and a hobo, kind of John Candy gone destitute. Perhaps to keep his job interesting, he never stops talking, quite literally. He mumbles a lot to himself. Some people are distinctive without even knowing it.

I found my glee at the cold refreshing taste of the Twister sullied by an argument Kim and I embarked upon. I couldn't repeat details. Suffice it to say that it culminated in Kim yelling, "I'm not having your baby!" At this point my Twister was still half full. I closed my eyes and took a huge swig, savoring the artificial orange. In a perfect world there'd be no aftertaste.