Ranting About Raving at Red Rocks

(story originally written in June, 2008)

So a couple of weeks ago Mrs. Short Fat Goalie and I had an interesting Saturday. We’ve been working the Philly Cheesesteak stand at Red Rocks Amphitheater for soccer fundraising purposes, and we were scheduled to be there together later that day.

For those of you not from around here, Red Rocks is a beautiful natural amphitheater for concerts. If you've ever seen the "Under a Blood Red Sky" video from U2, it was filmed at Red Rocks. There isn't a better venue in the country to see a show.

Anyway, before going there in the afternoon, my boy Mike’s soccer team was having a hike in the foothills early that morning. It was kind of a teambuilding exercise, where they could hike together, build some rapport, and get some conditioning at the same time. It was nice and casual, and the parents were invited. So we thought we’d just take a leisurely stroll on a nice summer morning, come home, rest a bit, and then head out to the Rocks in the afternoon.

Great plan, right? Well, not so much…

We should have hired a fuckin’ sherpa before we went on that hike. There was a lot of climbing on rocky terrain, and what was supposed to be a 90 minute jaunt turned into a three hour death march for us old people that brought little kids along.

The most fun part was coming down the hill. One of the moms, thinking like us that this was a stroller hike instead of an expedition, brought her baby along. I carried her up part of the climb (the baby, not the mom), but now she was back with her mother. Mom weighs around 68 pounds, and they were walking along an unstable path. I was kind of worried, so it was time for SFG to man up, take control of the situation, and carry the baby the rest of the way.

“Macho, Macho Man…”

Well, Macho Man takes about 10 steps and hits a patch of loose gravel. My left leg goes out from under me, straight sideways, and we go boom-boom. I could have put my arm down to break most of the fall, but the mom would probably get defensive if I chucked her kid to save myself.

So the baby never touches the ground, but I scrape a lot of the meat off of my left leg, from knee to ankle. At that very moment I swore revenge on Willie, Mike’s coach who set up this goddamn hike. You don’t know where or when, son, but vengence will be mine.

Now, why am I telling you all this? Bear with me- it will all come together soon. Just a few hours later, we have to report to Red Rocks to work an event called "Global Dance Fest". Annie signed us up for it, and tells me that it will be maybe some polka, some clog dancing, or perhaps some salsa. Old people, like me, would be there to watch the festivities. No biggie- we’d put in our 4-5 hours, and head home. We were both pretty worn out from the hike, the scrape on my leg looked like ground round and had a heartbeat, but we figured we could sack up for the shift.

When we got there, we discovered that my girl wasn’t even close. We were informed that Global Dance Fest is what’s called a “rave party”, and it would be unlike anything we’d ever seen before.

This just screams for a running diary, so here we go…

4:00- We check in, and head to our stand. When we get there, we find a new twist to the normal Red Rocks format. Our concession stand is at the top of the stairs, and usually all the music is on the stage below, and far enough away where noise isn’t much concern. We look, and there is a giant bank of speakers about 25 feet from where we’ll be. Some dickhead with a sideways hat (just hate that look, by the way) is setting up a turntable and some other sound equipment, so it looks like we’ll have music right nearby. Isn't that just bitchin’?

But what kind of music will it be? I’d ask Annie, but I think she’s still clinging to the clog dance notion. Dumbass...

4:15- One of the security guys comes over, and starts to brief us about how the evening is going to go. He goes over procedures concerning what happens when a fight breaks out, how to deal with a fake ID, how not to sell to someone who’s eyes are so dilated you can’t see anything but pupils, and who to call if someone overdoses, and starts choking on their own tongue.

Uh, excuse me- what the hell is about to happen here?

4:30- Sideways hat-boy fires up his sound system and puts on some tunes for us enjoy before the gates open up. We then find out what kind of music it is. Well, what do you know! It's techno!

Fuck....me...

On a 1-10 scale, I’d say he has the bass turned up to approximately 19. We don’t know it yet, but that’s the way it’s going to be for the rest of the evening. The music has a thumping, pulsating beat that my kids refer to as “oontz, oontz, oontz”. If I refer back to that, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

5:00- The gates open, and the early crowd starts to parade in. Hey, the Catholic schools in the area must have gotten a great deal on tickets, because about 300 teenage girls just entered in complete uniforms (pleated skirts, knee socks, etc).

Wow, the nuns must have relaxed the rules on the hemlines of the skirts since I was a kid. Not sure the belly-button rings and visible thong-ass are regulation either. I’ll have to check the manual on that.

5:30- The next wave comes in, and its just more knee socks, pleated skirts, and thongs. The one tiny wrinkle is- they’re dudes. Well, this is going to be interesting, now isn’t it? Somewhere, the Pope just shivered a little, and I’ll bet he doesn’t know why.

5:45- C’mon, kids, say it with me: oontz, oontz, oontz…

6:00- The Red Rocks staff just brought in a bunch of earplugs for the concession workers. I’m cashier-boy, so I can’t use them. I’m already straining to hear people, and using my fingers like Marlee Matlin to tell these fucklumps how much they owe for their munchies. We’re only two hours into this. At this very moment, I swear revenge on Annie, who signed me up for this shit. I imagine clog dancing on her lifeless corpse when we get home. It makes me smile…

7:00- Now the hardcore partiers start to arrive. The closer it gets to being dark, the stranger the outfits are becoming. Now we’ve moved on to nylons, garters and tiny undies. Plus a bunch of them are wearing those furry “Ug” boots that look like a yak died around their ankles.

And you should see what the girls are wearing…

7:15- A dude just walked by wearing blue nylons and a matching blue dress. Nice and clingy. Plus he had wings on his back. No shit- wings. I would have loved to be in the room when he passed his dad on the way out the door tonight.

“Don’t wait up, dad. Oh, dammit, I have a run in my nylon! And I have a crease in my wing! Hey, dad? Why are you putting a gun in your mouth?”

7:25- Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. A girl made a skirt out of a furry shower mat. Plus, she had another mat wrapped around her legs like the Ugs. Later tonight, her mom is going to break her goddamn neck stepping out of the tub, just so this little nymphette can be fashionable.

7:30- Now here’s something worth mentioning. A bunch of the girls, and some of the guys, are walking around sucking on pacifiers. Yep, I said pacifiers! This is already a degenerate’s dream with the schoolgirl outfits, and the stockings with garters. Do we really have to throw pacifiers into the equation? To put this in medical terms, it’s getting really icky around here…

7:45- Now, just to be different- oontz, oontz, oontz…

8:00- M.C. Sideways Hat just played a kicky little tune, not only featuring the never ending “oontz, oontz, oontz”, but five minutes of a girl making, let’s say, “orgasm noises”. Really loud orgasm noises. At least that’s what I’m told they were. I’ve never actually heard those sounds in person before. Is that bad?

8:30- The area where we are working is a mass of humanity. It looks like the barroom scene in “Star Wars”. Muscle shirted dudes with badass glares on their faces who look like they’re ready to throw down at any moment (selling them a ton of Red Bulls). The cross dressing fellas, that can really dance up a fuckin’ storm, by the way.

And I’m just not sure that some of these outfits that the girls are sporting are legal. They are almost all wearing thongs, or half-undies that might as well be thongs. The ones that are even bothering with a skirt have the damn thing hiked up so high, it looks like a belt.

Now, here’s the part where I know for sure I’m an old man. Thirty years ago, I would have been too dizzy to work, because all the blood in my head would have rushed south, camping out in my dork for the evening. Or maybe it’s because I have a daughter, because all I can think is:

“Girls, put some freakin’ clothes on, and for the love of God, could you please get that pacifier out of your mouth?”.

9:00- Now this is really bad. There is an old man standing right in the middle of the party, drinking a beer and just looking at the girls. He’s sticking out like a sore, perverted thumb. Somehow, I don’t think he’s here for the music.

I get the feeling I’ve seen him before, but I can’t tell because he has his back to me. Wait a second, he’s turning around now. Let me get a closer look.

Oh, hell no. Dad?

9:45- Just to review- oontz, oontz, oontz…

10:00- Going into hour six of our fun evening. Let’s take a quick inventory, shall we? I’ve controlled my heart rate, so that my scraped leg is throbbing to the beat of the music. By the way, the music has not stopped, even once, since 4:30. The bass has penetrated my body to a point that I think I may be sterile, so I can now ignore that court order to get a vasectomy. Plus any kidney stones I may have had are all dissolved by now.

Between the mountain climb earlier and standing on concrete for six hours, my knees feel like they’re going to explode. Plus I’ve already made plans to enroll in sign language classes, because there’s no fucking way I still have my hearing at the end of the night.

10:30- A kid just came up to me and asked if I wanted to see his “Prince Albert”. I told him tobacco wasn’t allowed in the park. He laughed, asked exactly how old I was, and then explained to me that a Prince Albert was a piercing on a part of a dude’s anatomy that should never have a giant needle go through it. Thank you, son, I’m going to have to decline your nice offer.

Uh, I’m a little lightheaded. Can I please take my break now?

10:45- While we have a moment, let’s review some of the messages that have been written on the half-underwear of the girls tonight:

“Juicy”
“Perfect”
“Yes”
“Bad girl”
“Dora the Explorer”

Okay, I made that last one up. Geez, when I was a kid, having the day of the week on underwear was as daring as it got. Come to think of it, I used to date a girl that wore underwear like that. Except it said, “September”. That probably wasn’t good. Let’s just move on…

11:00- There are a bunch of guys that are carrying neon glowing lights at the end of strings, and spinning the lights around their bodies like nunchuks. Pretty fascinating, but some passer-by is going to take one upside their head soon, and then all hell’s going to break loose. I’d call security, but I think they’re all partying with the girls by now.

11:30- Still going strong, and selling lots of bottled water (at $3.50 a pop, they should make me wear a mask while I’m selling it). The crowd has been surprisingly well behaved and polite, considering there are more pharmaceuticals here than at the Bristol-Myers factory.

Here’s the only problem I have with this group. Everybody is giving me money wadded up in a sweaty ball- I imagine it’s from all the dancing. I have to almost wring it out before I can put it in the drawer. With the lack of clothing around here, I'm sure I don’t want to know where they stored the money before they gave it to me.

I’m positive I have a case of the Rave Cooties. When I get home, I’m going to dip my hands in battery acid, just to be safe.

12:00- Eight hours. This is lasting so long, I’m starting to feel the same way as when I play hockey with Marty Richardson. Just wanting to look around for something to plunge into my goddamn heart. If I wasn’t looking so forward to killing Annie when we get home, I would have offed myself by now.

1:00- Hey, we have a special guest DJ that is supposed to close out our night. I didn’t get his name, but let’s call him M.C. Pottymouth, shall we? The first thing he says is, “Somebody scream!!!”. That is officially the 1200th time I’ve heard that phrase tonight, and I go ahead and scream for the first time.

Pottymouth then proceeds to actually turn the volume up on the speakers (I was sure we were at full throttle), and then rattle off 30 minutes of sewage that includes some words that embarrassed me, and I’m a hockey player. His favorite appears to be that 12 letter phrase that starts with “mother”. I know it’s his favorite because he says it 453 times.

At this very moment, I swear revenge…aw, fuck it. I’m too tired.

2:00- Well, the party finally ended in the park, and now they’ve all retired to the parking lot. I’ll bet they’ll have to bring in the National Guard if they want to break this thing up. What matters to me is that I get to go home and ice my knees. This may be the longest day of my life- scaling the Matterhorn in the morning, scraping my leg to the point that it’s currently oozing some kind of mystery fluid, and then dealing with the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen for 10 solid hours. And it’s going to take a week before I get this sound out of my head:

Oontz, oontz, oontz…