Oh baby, is your nightlife changing
It's all over, my friends.
As of this fall, I'm going to be a daddy.
Life will change forever.
My music, my hangouts, my friends, my priorities and my bad habits will all change as have my acceptance of all these changes.
Beer bottles in the fridge will be replaced by formula bottles, cigarettes have already made way for lollipops and those long nights partying will now be long nights changing diapers.
But having a baby doesn't mean the end of your nightlife. OK, well yeah, it does for the most part.
But the young parents I've talked to say your home doesn't have to become a Winnie-the-Pooh decorated prison where you spend all of your time catering to the basic needs of the cutest but most-fickle little thing you've ever met. (Me cynical?)
There are still plenty of places you can go.
"We go to Chuck E. Cheese," said Melanie Clark, who was there with her husband Butch and their 16-month-old son, Zachary. "It was his first time, he had a blast."
There are other places, too, like the park and the zoo. "When you do go somewhere you take everything and the house with you," Clark said.
Movies are off-limits for infants, unless apparently, you're the couple who sat behind me at "Finding Nemo" this weekend.
Find a good babysitter and everything's possible, said Shannon and Bill Saddler of Greenville.
The Saddlers say they're fortunate because both of their families live nearby and insist of taking care of 5-week-old Ava.
The Clarks say they don't have someone to watch their son but they still break free regularly.
"Every blue moon," Melanie Clark said. (I didn't say how regularly.)
Speaking of schedules, I've already come to terms with the fact that long nights with the guys will now probably refer to Dave, Jay or Conan.
I won't need a Palm Pilot to tell me how I'll be spending my nights for now on.
"You get together with friends who have children the same age as yours are so that they can play together," Clark said. "And you listen to Barney music instead of regular music."
But all the young parents I've talked to say their child is worth it.
Aww, what the heck.
It'll be worth it.
I will draw the line on "The Teletubbies," though.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hail to the Chicks!
Dixie gives the Dixies a warm welcome
Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines began the band's U.S. tour with an open invitation to heckle her. "If you're here to boo, we welcome that because we welcome freedom of speech," she said from the stage of Greenville, South Carolina's Bi-Lo Center Thursday night. "So we're going to give you fifteen seconds to get whatever you have out."
Instead, the 15,000-strong crowd erupted in cheers. And from the moment the band launched into "Goodbye Earl" to kick off their twenty-two-song set, fans showed their support by standing up and stomping along.
"They said you might not come but we knew you'd come," Maines said, "because we have the greatest fans in the whole world."
It was the Dixie Chicks' first U.S. concert since Maines told a London audience on March 10th that they were ashamed the president is from their home state of Texas. The comments ignited a firestorm of controversy across the country: The Dixies became a punching bag for conservative pundits, their CDs were crushed beneath a tractor in Louisiana, some radio stations pulled their music from the airwaves and a nationally syndicated radio host organized an "anti-Dixie Chicks" concert to take place at the same time as the Chicks' tour kickoff. Outside the Bi-Lo Center, arena officials had designated an area for protests. Among the approximately twenty who showed was Nancy Capps. "I'm a chick from Dixie and she doesn't speak for me," Capps said of Maines. Capps was joined by her nine-year-old son, Steven, and twelve-year-old daughter, Becky, who both held up signs outside the arena: "They're being raised to be patriots, and they're being raised to understand that the First Amendment does not excuse a person from facing the consequences."
Don Wilson of Taylors, S.C., held up a large poster with an altered photograph showing the Dixie Chicks with their arms around Saddam Hussein while burning the flag. Wilson didn't have tickets to the concert, but showed up to make his opinion known. "They have the world stage to speak," he said. "I have Greenville."
The Chicks didn't shy away from making their own statements last night. As they sang "Truth No. 2," large television screens showed images of civil rights marches and woman's suffrage protests, as well as pictures of Beatles and, of course, Dixies albums being crushed.
Later, when Maines emerged for the encore, she mentioned George W. Bush for the first and only time. "They just told me that the president has announced that the war is over," she said. "It seems a little strange to keep playing songs, but I guess we'll celebrate and keep going."
AP
(May 2, 2003)
========================
GREAT PAST COLUMNS
Beer Fest is a priceless treat at a bargain
Friday, May 16, 2003
Two tickets to the second annual Greenville Beer Fest: $60
Two grilled sausages with onions and peppers: $10
Me and my new father-in-law bonding while we sucked down as much expensive beer as we could in four hours: priceless.
In case you weren't aware, the Beer Fest was back in town last week.
Well, it was priceless for me because the paper (hopefully) will pick up my tab. But it's still a pretty good bargain for those not on "official" newspapering business.
You gotta love the Beer Fest almost as much as I love expense accounts. You get 36 tickets for $30 and each ticket gets you anywhere from two ounces to four ounces of 130 options of everything from Anheuser to Weihenstephan.
The price may seem a little steep to you cork sniffers, but the beer fans I ran into say you need to think of that $30 as an investment one that could lead to your new favorite beer of the future. (Let's hear you say that about your Disney stocks.)
"It gets you a taste for a beer you really like," said Dwayne Chism of Greenville. "I like to try something new once in a while."
Actually, the experience was priceless to Chism as well because friend Mike King won their tickets from a radio station. Chism and King, who describe themselves as two guys you would most likely see in the mosh pit at a heavy metal show, said the beer fest not only exposed them to new beer but to new people.
Or, as Chism called them, "a lot of rich, drunk people."
Well, not all of them were rich. But a lot were on the tipsy side. (Designated drivers got in for $5.)
There were about 800 people altogether, said Mark Weisner, president of Bear Foot Sports, the Charleston company that supplied the beer. Though the number of people, vendors and beers were about the same as last year, "people drank a lot more than last year," Weisner said.
Thankfully, there were more portable toilets this year.
One significant change was this year's festival started at 4 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., which meant a lot of hot sun and not much shade. But even those who actually paid the price of admission said the fact that some of the proceeds went to Hands On Greenville made the experience worth it.
"I'd heard about it and I just had to come down because I wanted to give my money to charity," said Alexis Ware of Greenville.
Of course, the beer didn't hurt, either. "I feel like I'm traveling," Ware said. "I've tasted so many beers."
The feeling that you're somewhere else without stepping foot out of Greenville?
Priceless.
Harry Potter and some pills made for a magical weekend
I experienced the magic of riding in a flying car this weekend. No, wait, that was just the Valium kicking in on my way to get my wisdom teeth pulled.
Initially I was a little worried about making a complete fool of myself at the dentists office, considering I dont remember what happened after I walked through the door. But one of the dental hygienists put my fears to rest: she said my performance of "Living La Vida Loca" was one of the best shed ever heard.
It was somewhat of a laid-back weekend. I was so loaded on painkillers that I must have looked like the lobotomized Jack Nicholson at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest."
I did get out of the house some in between bouts of unconsciousness, though I apologize if some of my recollection is a bit hazy.
We saw the opening of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." A lot of the children went dressed as their favorite characters. I went as little-known character Professor Drysocket, a dark wizard upset that he couldnt get his nicotine fix until 24 hours after his teeth were extracted.
The parents in the packed theater seemed to enjoy the movie as much as the children. Most of them, anyway.
Some parents were still upset at Mark Sanford supporters for tactics used in the gubernatorial campaign: Some members of his camp allegedly told schoolchildren that they could use Sanfords vouchers to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (just kidding).
Here are the results of an unofficial poll taken among school-age children asking them what they would enjoy most about being Harry Potter: 41 percent said performing magic; 32 percent said going on wild adventures; and a surprising 27 percent said no one pestering them about standardized tests.
The next night we again sat in a packed theater to watch "The Ring." The premise behind the movie is that you watch a videotape and then seven days later someone kills you: you know, kind of like Blockbusters late-return policy.
That is all I really understood about this flick. Apparently I wasnt on the right kind of drugs for the rest of it to make sense.
I might as well mention that I saw Eminem's film "Eight Mile" the weekend before.
Judging from the applause during some parts, it seemed that most people enjoyed the movie. I did see four people walk out. One couple sitting in front of me, both old enough to be my grandparents, got up and left before the big ending. I think I heard the woman say that they should have gone to see "Jackass" instead.
I liked "Eight Mile," though I dont know if Eminem deserves all the acclaim he got for his acting debut. How hard can it be to play the lead role in a movie about you?
Ive tried to explain this to the studio producing "Paras at Night: The Movie," but they have their hearts set on "Freddie Got Fingered" star Tom Green: Apparently hes more convincing than me at not being very funny.
Hard to believe, isnt it?
