State Fair Janet

Let's get this much out of the way - there was no wardrobe malfunction.

Really, there were no malfunctions of any sort at the Janet Jackson concert last night. Even though I was there, I'm still kind of incredulous that she played the Iowa State Fair, but hey, who am I to complain. I got to scratch another name off my must-see-live bucket list and got to be in the company of some of my nearest and dearest friends. I also got to participate in the unique experience of the Iowa State Fair (unique, even though it's pretty much the same thing year after year) in a very small dose, which is about all I can handle of it. We ate all the crappy fair food, including red velvet funnel cake, breaded green peppers, polish sausage with everything on it and, of course, corn dogs. We even snapped a couple pictures of us going all Michelle Bachmann on the corn dogs, but those will never see the light of day on any social media EVER. We did, however, pass on the fried butter. Just thinking about it makes me want to hurl.

In all honesty, for as much mileage as I have gotten out of "Janet Jackson's playing the State Fair? How the mighty have fallen!" over the last few months, I was very glad to see her in a setting like this. The Grandstand has about a 10,000 seat capacity and I'd say that a good chunk of those were filled last night, although the show was not sold out. The older I get, the less I like spending tons of cash on arena shows where the performer is so far away from me you can barely make them out. And stadium shows? Forget it. Obviously, Madonna is a huge exception to this blanket statement. The day she plays the state fair will probably be the day I fall over dead.

We had pretty decent seats, although there was a pole next to us. Still, I think most everyone had a pretty decent view of the stage.

Another goddamn unnecessary apostrophe!

Despite the proclamations on Twitter of the local Top 40 radio station saying she would start promptly at 8pm, she didn't actually take the stage until around 8:30. Even with that late start, she was still earlier than Madonna ever is. This, of course, did not stop my friend Jeff and me from making a joke about how Janet had to quick run to the local Walgreens that we could see from our seats. That joke has its origins in a 1991 Whitney Houston concert that he and I attended in which we said "Whitney had to quick run to Target to get some Lee Press Ons."

Jeff (right) and me giving Janet some pre-show tips.

As for the concert itself? Well, it was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Janet looks good and she's one of those people that's been off the pop music radar for so long that you really do forget how many bonafide hits she's had. Rhythm Nation alone had something like seven top 10 hits. And even though I didn't care much for it at the time, Janet spun off many hits as well. It wasn't until about 2003-2004 (the time of the infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction) that her hit-making luck seemed to run out. She did not cheat us either on the hits. Pulling songs only from her 2-disc greatest hits record, Number Ones, she played all the fan favorites. Most of these songs were not in their full versions, but rather medleys of hits. On the surface, this might seem like a bad idea or kind of a cheat way of cramming a ton of songs into a concert. However, it really worked well and served as a bit of a sampler of the 25 years of songs she has to choose from. The only real bone I had to pick with the song selection was that there was no "Black Cat" and the shitty "Feedback" was included ("something heavy like my first day period." SERIOUSLY.)

I took about 12 pictures and only about 3 actually came out! This is the best one.

She was in good physical form and, as I said, looked good and had a lot of energy. That said, I couldn't help but notice the presence of a VERY significant backing track during the concert. This isn't surprising in shows like this. But the thing is, the backing track should be there to support the live vocals, not to be the substitute for live vocals. It was hard to pin down whether or not she was singing live of lip syncing in many places, but I would say that at least half the songs were primarily lip synced or the live vocals were drowned out by the backing track. Normally, this would bother me - it bugs me when Madonna does it, but with her, you can usually hear her very live vocals over the backing track. With Janet, she's always had kind of a paper thin voice and I've heard stories of her previous tours being primarily lip synced so I wasn't terribly surprised. Still, I wouldn't have cared if the dancing had been toned down a little bit to provide for a little bit more of a live experience. (For the record, the second part of the show, which featured several of her ballads, was very much performed live. She has some vocal chops, but I just don't think that she can dance and sing well at the same time.)

The show had a fun energy, even though the video interludes threatened to bring the show's forward momentum to a screeching halt. For someone who's been in the touring business for so long, that amateurish move surprised me. And usually those interludes provide a chance for a outfit change. Not this time - Janet never changed her clothes once. If this had been a Cher show and there were no costume changes, as Cher herself has said, drag queens everywhere would think she'd lost the will to live.

She ended with a great version of a song I had forgotten about - "Together Again" which wrapped up with pictures of her and Michael. The song has clearly taken on a new meaning for her and you could tell by her enthusiasm in performing it.

While the show was fun, let me take a minute to talk a bit about the venue. I don't know that I'll go to another Grandstand show. For one, the chance that your view is going to be obscured by a pole is just too high. Also, the seats SUCK. As Heidi mentioned, since it's an outdoor arena, the seats have to be at least a little bit industrial, but they could still be comfortable! All in all, we'd have rather sat on benches.

It's one of the first concerts I've been to that I feel I slightly overpaid for, but still. It was fun to sing along with all those songs that were a huge part of my high school and college soundtrack. I was also glad that Heidi went along with me even though Janet was only sort of her thing. She and I usually don't go to concerts together, and now we've hit two this year.

In the end, I was just glad to finally get the answer to the question posed by Janet. "Who's that eating that nasty food?" Without a doubt, it's State Fair attendees. I'm going to have to do double time at the gym this week.

Peanut days

A couple weeks back, Heidi and Anna were, for reasons known only to them, at Theisen's. Being a kind of a store for farmers, you can imagine it's not a place that we frequent all that often. When they were there, Heidi told Anna stories about how going to Theisen's reminded her of her girlhood. She and her father would go often and she would go look at the one aisle of toys while her father shopped for whatever it was he was looking for. She also talked about Peanut Days - the time during which the store provided free peanuts and you dropped the shells on the floor which in turn oiled the floor. I vaguely recall doing this at some point in my life, but for the life of me, I can't remember where or when.

As it turns out, Peanut Days is alive and well. We thought that it was going to be March 1st, so we headed out to Theisen's after work, only to be disappointed by the lack of free peanuts. Apparently, we got bad information and the Peanut Days Sale actually started on March 9th. This was not to be missed.

To be honest, I was expecting more peanut shells on the floor, but as Heidi pointed out is WAS only the first day of Peanut Days which lasts a whole week. I imagine if I trekked out to Theisen's today, we'd find a different situation altogether.

Walking into a store like Theisen's is like taking a trip back in time - at least for people like Heidi and me that have relatively rural backgrounds. In comparison to Heidi, I was a city boy growing up, but this is only because she actually lived on a farm for the first decade of her life, until it was lost in the 1980s farm crisis. I grew up in a town of 10,000 people that had it's own version of Theisen's (S & S Store, now closed) and while I didn't have as agrarian of an upbringing as Heidi did, there were definitely more rural aspects than Anna is getting growing up in a college town. But it doesn't stop her from enjoying this kind of stuff. She can't resist mugging for the camera, which makes getting a candid shot of her all that much more difficult.

To my great shock, little-Miss-Picky actually liked peanuts out of the shell.

And if you're looking for wildlife printed long underwear, Theisen's is apparently your one-stop long-underwear shop.


You know I was this close to buying them (not.)

Jackpot

Today was one of those days where I needed to have a label on me that said "Caution: Not for human consumption." It really has been one of those days. Efforts to shake the funk off were mostly in vain, although I will say that the Pat Benatar book Between a Heart and a Rock Place has been pretty good tonic. Not being a huge Pat Benatar fan, it's filled with little tidbits that I didn't know and the writing, while not great, is highly readable. Not surprisingly, it's also made me want to listen to her music.

Heidi made beef stew for supper tonight and it was especially good. After supper, I still had serious munchies so I went looking for something else. I settled on one of my favorite after school snacks - chocolate milk and graham crackers. Boring? Yes, but beyond good. What you do is fill the glass up about 3/4ths full of chocolate milk and dunk the graham crackers. It's always a bit of a gamble because your timing has to be just right. You don't want to the dunk to be too long lest the cracker break off and fall into the milk, necessitating rescue with a spoon.

When I was in junior high, I would come home from school and sit at the kitchen table in front of the black & white TV set with chocolate milk and graham crackers. I would watch half-hour after half-hour of game shows. I kind of miss the 80s game shows but everything changes. The one I most associate with this time of my life was on the USA Network - Channel 7 back in the day. The show was "Jackpot" and it featured 16 contestants, 15 of which were seated and had envelopes containing riddles that were worth varying amounts of money. One of the contestants stood at a podium and selected numbers 1-15 and tried to answer the riddles. One of the envelopes contained the "jackpot riddle" and if answered correctly, the jackpot was split evenly between the two contestants. Much like contestant's row on "The Price Is Right," everyone had a chance to get up to the podium, but many didn't.

As I ate the graham crackers and milk tonight, I got to wondering if "Jackpot" was on YouTube. I shouldn't have even had to ask because of course it is.



As it turns out, the one I watched was a syndicated (and Canadian) version of the game show, the original being from the mid 70s. My father always hated game shows - they were in his list of shows he wouldn't watch ("I don't watch game shows, doctor shows, lawyer shows, police shows, soap operas or situation comedies!"), leaving pretty much "Nova" and "Market to Market" for him to watch. I remember old game shows fondly and the new crop from today just don't have the same feel.

Now, back to Benatar.