“One Crazy Summer”
Anyone remember the movie One Crazy Summer? John Cusack. Demi Moore. Bobcat Goldthwaite. Mid-80s goofiness at its finest. Essentially, a ragtag group of teens band together to win the Nantucket Regatta prize money so they can save the rocker chic’s grandfather’s house from the greedy Pecker Head family (I mean, Beckersted). Look at me learning how to sum up a plot in one sentence! A key ingredient to pitching a book. Anyhoo. I digress. The greedy Mr. Beckersted was played by Mark Metcalf, the same actor who asked the now-infamous question “Is that a pledge pin on your uniform?” and was featured in not one but two Twisted Sister videos—the father in “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and the teacher in “I Wanna Rock”. Forty years later… and we’re living through one crazier summer.
Nothing says summer like a pool. And I think we’ve all learned what happens when leaders spend $16 million to seal the leaks in the cracking concrete of a giant basin of water built on shifting mud with suspect spray-on coating before fixing the underlying pipe issues. The Reflecting Pool's shallow water has always had an algae issue. But the speed at which it returned once the water was refilled, coupled with the American Blue polyurea peeling up in chunks, were unfortunate problems that foreshadowed the doomed event in which the renovations were a part. President Pecker Head says vandals are to blame.
Funnel cakes and meat on a stick. Nothing compares to the fair. The Great American State Fair should have been cool AF if President Pecker Head hadn’t made the nation’s birthday all about himself. Or wasn’t president at all. I heard it didn’t go well. Performers quitting. Stage parts falling on the performers who’ve stayed. Intermittent working Ferris Wheel. $23 turkey legs. But hey, low attendance means light crowds if people aren’t your thing. The heat became a great scapegoat for the failings. In fairness, the past weeks have been scorchers.
Sport and travel are summertime staples. Several US cities were overrun with soccer fans. Oh, sorry. Football fans. We thought the world hated us. But the Scots partied like rock stars, drinking all of Boston’s beer and adding traffic cones to statues. The Dutch turned the streets of Houston into a Links Rechts dance party. And the Norwegians row, row, rowed their fake boat into the hearts of everyone tuned in. Our A/C, free refills, ranch dressing, and clean Buc-ee’s truck stop bathrooms were only some of the surprises our European neighbors discovered while visiting Trump’s America. In fairness, Buc-ee’s is amazing.
It wouldn’t be summer without a trip to the amusement park. Several have had a memorable season. The Georgia, Mexico, and Texas Six Flags locations have all been in the headlines for riders getting stranded in precarious positions. An eleven-year-old boy plummeted 50 feet from the boat of Tiana's Bayou Adventure at Disneyland. He’s miraculously fine, but reports say he may have been acting like an eleven-year-old dumbass. Even my own kid witnessed riders climbing down from a busted coaster at Kentucky Kingdom during a school trip. And I already mentioned the intermittent Ferris Wheel at the Great American State Fair. Fun, fun, fun.
Summer concert season is in full swing. But poop and death are typically not part of the music scene. An attendee of Noah Kahan’s show at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, decided the show was too good to miss a minute and pooped her pants. What’s worse was she shimmied it out of her drawers and proceeded to waffle-stomp away the evidence. Turns out the scene of the crime wasn’t even her seat. A female “rail rider” crapped at a recent Phish show. Nearby concertgoers created a perimeter warning with beer cans and glow sticks. And then there was Paul Kueker, a 51-year-old man from Connecticut, who fell 150 feet from the 300-level balcony at Madison Square Garden during the set break of a Goose show. It remains undetermined if Paul was intoxicated. Reports claim he leaped over the glass barrier.
It’s wedding season. By the time I publish this article, Taylor and Travis will have tied the knot at the very venue where Paul’s life ended less than two weeks earlier. This is unfortunate, but the show must go on. And from all the social media rumors, it was quite the spectacle. A garden. A castle. Performances. 1000+ guests whose phones were sequestered and who arrived underground for total privacy. Boy, what I wouldn’t give to be the head florist at a wedding with an unlimited budget.
Before the wedding, there’s always a proposal. Ivan Kuznetsov got down on one knee and asked fellow adrenaline junkie Angela Nikolau to marry him after they climbed down from the Empire State Building spire, from where they hung a banner with a message of love and peace. Pardon my French, but fucking epic! And the kind of story romance writers like me wish they’d written, and if they had, few would believe. The Scots have suggested they should have added a traffic cone. Ivan set the bar real high for any man thinking of popping the question this year. Pun intended. If I had written this romance story of the ages, Taylor and Travis would have extended the Russian daredevils an invitation to the Garden. Game recognizes game, and all that.
Lawdy. It’s been hot. I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but the weather in Southern Indiana has been close. I learned this term from my former physical therapist. She shared that it was her grandmother’s saying. It’s such a grandma thing to say. Close.
Here in SoIN, we are treated to heat AND humidity. The combination gets close—all up in your personal space. Sometimes it rumbles and flashes. Then, realizing its unfortunate and aggressive behavior, it cries fat tears in a sort of drunken, thunderstorm apology, only to repeat the process. We tolerate the summer abuse for those few weeks when the temps and colors are glorious, and there’s a Toy Story sky. Anyone seen Toy Story 5 yet? We’re hoping to catch it at the drive-in because it wouldn’t be summer without the drive-in. We are lucky there is still one to go to.
The heat and closeness have been a steady drumbeat behind the algae, the fair cancellations, the praise for the American overabundance of A/C, and possibly the feral behavior of concertgoers and Russian daredevils. Milli Vanilli blamed it on the rain, but maybe it really was the heat.
If you happened to score an invitation to the wedding of the century, please share all your findings. Was the chipper chicken served? Were the colors blush and bashful? Was a patriarchal figure curing ailments with Windex, like food poisoning from the gray lamb? I heard Adam Sandler officiated. Maybe he sang “Love Stinks” in honor of Noah Kahan’s pooping concertgoer. Whoop-a-dee-doo (doo)! Hopefully, Taylor didn’t need four muscle relaxers to manage period pain as she married her oily bohunk. If you recognize any of these references, you might just be Gen X. Hit me up in the comments and share what’s going on in your crazy summer. Hopefully, no diarrhea lettuce has made a permanent memory.
