Hug Life
Day Six.
People. People. People. I had a moment last night. Seriously, y'all. A moment. We were doing "King of What,” and that's a song where we get all intimate and what have you, and the last couple of shows we've been crowding around Dave's mic and singing it all foklsy-wolksy, and it has been cool and stuff, but, for whatever reason, it happened to strike me at that moment just how fortunate we've been to get to do all of the things that we do. I am guilty, on occasion, of forgetting that this is my dream job, but I'm not going to chastise myself for taking it for granted every now and then because that's just human nature, and what really matters is that I remember to be grateful in a general, overarching, hashtag sense. My own goosebumps aside, last night felt like a pretty special show, and for those of you keeping score at home, we did in fact have time to swing by Galactic afterwards. Warm embraces all around.
I had a scorching hot take about how the one true shortform for "microphone” is "mic” and people who abbreviate it as "mike” are war criminals, but after doing some research, I've come to realize it's actually a really interesting debate. On one hand, there is a very detailed and convincing grammatical case for "mike,” but on the other hand, language is ultimately dictated by common usage- a battle that "mic” has been winning for decades now. In the end, I'm sticking with "mic,” because "mike” looks dumb to me, but consider my horizons broadened. REACHING ACROSS THE AISLES.
As for today, our bus docked in Albuquerque this morning, so we'll spend the day here, watch THE BIG GAME somewhere in town, then depart later tonight. I gotta say, this whole Super Bowl thing has me in a bit of a pickle. If the Falcons win, then the Saints, who I'm pretty sure are standing on the precipice of another thousand years of darkness, can no longer gloat that Atlanta has never won a Super Bowl. But the Patriots? That's like watching The Karate Kid and rooting for Cobra Kai. It's like watching Titanic and rooting for the iceberg. There's nothing wrong with being from Boston and cheering for the home team, but to root for New England without being from or currently residing in New England is patently un-American. I'm pretty sure Joseph McCarthy kept a list of out-of-state Patriots fans in a file cabinet in his office. But the Falcons? I think I kind of made up my mind after reading Sports Illustrated's preview of the big game. They started with Atlanta- the story of a resurgent city, of a struggling franchise finding its identity- I'd be lying if I said it didn't make them danged dirty birds seem kind of sympathetic.
And then the article moved on to the Patriots.
They touched on a lot of the requisite New England football talking points: the ballghazi suspension, the "Patriot Way,” Belichick's sleeveless hoodies- and that was all fine. But then they lost me when they spoke with a prominent New England sports radio personality, who talked about all the hard times his team has gone through- like the time the Pats went an unprecedented 16-0 in the regular season, and he took his kids to Arizona to attend what history will remember as one of the all-time greatest Super Bowls, but the Patriots didn't get to win what would have been their fourth championship in seven years, and then he misplaced his car keys after the game and had to walk across the entire parking lot to find them. Truly dark times.
So it's the evil empire versus the jerks up the street. My money's on the Patriots, but if I have to hold my nose and cheer for a team, then (barf) go Falcons. I'm really just rooting for dark beer, hot wings, and a lot of tear-jerking commercials like this one.
