The Ravinia Rant

I don't really get out much. That's changed since I met my wife. My weekend used to consist of a "NYPD Blue" marathon, A "Columbo" marathon, six hours of "VH1 Classic" and then surfing "Adult Friend Finder" to see who in some part of the world would perform a sexual act for me on their webcam while a "Law & Order:Criminal Intent/Special Victims Unit" marathon played in the background. That's right. My life was so sad and pathetic that Tom Waits wouldn't even want to use it for song material. My wife is a very warm and energetic Puerto Rican woman who loves life and being with friends. In other words, the hunchback met his Esmeralda and she's dragging him out in fuckin' public. Her, Gabrielle and Miss Kitty decided that we should all meet up at Ravinia for "A Night In Vienna". It was basically a classical concert. Cool. It beats watching "Body Of Evidence" for two hours........Even though I find Dayle Hinmann totally hot. I swear to God. If Marta ever gets finally fed up and kills me, PLEASE LET HER INVESTIGATE MY DEATH!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!.......Sorry.

We all finally hop on the Metra and go to Ravina. I love the place. We all bought lawn tickets and had our uber lawn chairs and food. By the way, my photo album is from is Ravinia story. Feel free to post your comments. Anyway, it started out great. The train dropped us off and we all filed in. Gabrielle and her friend had to go buy a lawn ticket at the box office and I noticed a rule on their sign. "No fireworks, lighters or firearms". I actually had to read that twice. We were in Ravinia Park. Massive uber rich "Risky Business" territory. WHO THE FUCK WOULD BRING A FIREARM TO RAVINIA?!?!?!?!? What concert caused them to have to create that rule and post it at the front gate? I've checked their concert schedule. The rowdiest show that is there is B.B. King with Joan Osborne. I can't believe that the Park has had enough firearm problems that they actually had to post that on a sign. Could you imagine the "picnic basket" list for that shit:

"STUFF FOR RAVINIA"
Pita Bread
Hummus
Wine
Lawn Chairs
Blanket
Candles
Napkins
Camera
38 Special With The Serial Number Filed Off And A Duct Tape Grip and a silencer

Its not like it would've made a difference. No one was searched walking in. Everyone was probably packin'. Classical fans shit seems to always be wound up too tight that I'm sure that somebody got capped during "Mozart's Requiem" at one point.

So, we were all having a great time sharing food and laughing. Then, the concert started and they announced that everyone was supposed to be quiet during the performance. We thought that they were just talking about the people in the Pavillion. The lawn section is over 50 feet away from the place. We couldn't possibly be an issue. Sure enough, the security team is actually walking though the lawn area telling people to "Shhhhhh". They actually had some 70 year old fuck walking around with a sign that said, "Quiet please during the performance". All of us were stunned. We were in a $10 lawn section. Who gives a fuck if we want to hang out and talk while we listened to Strauss. We literally had people give us the evil eye if we coughed or laughed too loud. Fuck you. We paid 10 bucks for this bitch. I actually got into a staring match with some asshole giving my wife and Miss Kitty the evil eye because they were laughing and talking. I was sitting there in hoping to God that my first fight in 15 years was not gonna' be over some asshole being disturbed during the bullshit "Blue Danube Waltz". That would've been a great Monday conversation:

Friend: Hey Jay. How was your weekend?

Jay: It was good even though I had to beat some muthafuckas' ass at Ravinia because he came up on me during a Strauss piece.

Friend: Dude, that's fucked up.

Jay: Yeah. Thank God for that "No Firearm" rule at the door.

Anyway, we waited it out for the show to end and basically ran to the Metra just so we could have a conversation. We all plan on seeing Emmylou Harris in September and hope that things are looser there. Either way, it was an experience.