| I'm sitting in an auditorium (front row, left corner seat of the left section of seats) waiting for the Al concert to start. (There's no recurring theme here, no sirree bob...this is only his fifth concert in my mind…) I'm chatting with Ben, bouncing about and generally being hyper when this strange guy comes out on the stage. He tells us Al's having a bad day (loads of minor injuries and a 9-hour drive to get there that ended half an hour ago) and to go easy on him if he didn't put his leg behind his head, etcetera. (Poor Al.) For some reason, I go into "bitch mode" and say to Ben "Well, we had to drive ten hours to get here." So there we are, waiting, and Al comes out-in a Santa suit- and says "Merry Christmas!" and then launches into a holiday song. Not a parody or silly song mind you, a "normal" holiday song. He hops off the stage and starts roaming the aisles (with everyone reaching out and touching him). As he passes me, he reaches out and grabs my right shoulder-playing the accordion must have given him some strong hands because he could grip pretty darn hard. Ow. He moves on down the aisle. As he does this, the stage is filling up with dozens of electronic Christmas figures. Like the ones at McDonalds, or the mall. (Your mall, anyway…Muscatine’s consists of empty space and Menards.) Elves, reindeer, you name it. Everything's happy and smiling. I can't see Al anymore, so I get up and stroll on back to where he is. He finishes the song, the spotlight goes out, and the room freezes (except for me and him) and I whip out a minidisc case. The minidisc itself is embossed with a cartoon-anime type kittycat. He gives me a blank look. I hand it to him, and in the dim light, he peers at it, reading "Al from 1995" on it. Then we both notice the frozen audience and go back towards the front. On the way he started singing part of a song that went really low (I can't remember which one-how frustrating!) and I gave him a light punch on the shoulder and admonished him for "singing those songs that go down too low for me to sing-silly bass." The concert ends-again, there was more of it that I can't remember-and Ben and I hop into a van and drive off. We have the radio on, and a parody of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (an evil choir song) comes on the radio. We start singing, until I point out what the original song is. We both say "Yuck!" and flip it over to the local "best music of the 80's 90's and Today" station, which is playing an Al song. (Darn right, Al has the best music of the 80’s 90’s and Today!) My Take On It Next Dream |
| Here comes Sant-Al Claus... 01/02/01 |