Jerry Stiller is everyone's whore

That's right I said it. I'd thought it for a while but like a good and abiding member of society, I kept my mouth shut, maintained the status quo. But when I saw his visage 15 feet tall in triplicate across the various screens of the White River Amphitheatre, banging his head to the arena-sized rock of RUSH, I couldn't be quiet any longer.

This is but the latest example of the brutal decline of the cast of Seinfeld. The only thing worse than pitching Kentucky Fried Chicken is certainly being a running joke in the multimedia backdrop of a 30-year-old band's reunion tour . . . but like so much of the rest of their careers since, it would make a GREAT episode.

I was going to go on a tyrade about the seedier underbelly of the concert, as if the denegration of David Starsky's dad wasn't enough, but I don't know if I want to.

More or less there were a bunch of Nascar dads--I'm not stereotyping really, they were wearing the clothes and had their children with them--who started to get really aggitated and I couldn't figure out why. The most vocal (well I assume he was talking and not just mouthing, but for the sheer rocking going on, I can't be sure) of the lot was also the most heavy-set and bore the largest mustache. It took quite a while of intense study, but I finally caught a fragment of a sentence: "fucking hate faggots."

I'm no lip-reader and certain words have similar mouth motions as other totally different words, but I'm sure he wasn't talking about olive juice and I can't think of any other phrases with that particular alliterative flavor. When the ringleader physically started to throw things at the best-dressed man in the section, there was no more room for doubt.

This is probably the first time I've actually witnessed this kind of overt hate and it really bothered me--left me seething. It wasn't just the act itself but also the fact that I didn't donkey-punch the bastard. For his part, I'm sure the object of the edible projectiles didn't even realize what was going on, his shirt so stiffly starched that it didn't seem to actually touch his skin and formed a protective shell the popcorn simply glanced off.

I'm still mad at myself for not stepping in somehow, or at least narc-ing them out to security (which if I'm being honest with myself, taddling is just about the ONLY thing I would've done) but for shit sake, they had mustaches.

But looking back on it, I just feel sorry for those hate-mongers, for in their loathing, they missed the real show. Not the band, they really weren't interesting until the pyrotechnics started flaming and the lazers threatened to prematurely blind 10,000-odd people. They missed the closeted gay couple posing as frat brothers.

Right, once again this is body language observation and thus open to interpretation, but I have several friends who were or are in fraternal organizations of the Greek stripe, I know what happens, maybe even engaged a little "bonding" from time to time. There comes a point in a boys life when curiosity outstrips fear and . . . hmmm, I'd go on but I hardly know you. The point is that this was not your run of the mill pledge-week homoeroticism. No, this was full on unrequited love. I have to hand it to them though, they had the aging frat alumnus look down quite well--though that was the ultimate downfall, they had it down far too well.

Maybe they weren't closetted at all, maybe their absurd matching getups were regular weekend attire, maybe they actually walk in the hinterland where gay culture and fantasy sports co-mingle, wanting their homo-erotic cake and buffalo wings too.

This blog isn't about biased commentary, this is about unadulterated truth. They were dressed in identical Rush Tour shirts, identical Lee dungarees, identical beige hats from American Eagle, the artificially weathered kind. The tall one stood ABSURDLY close to his squat mate, far too close for even the most intimate of friends, their entire bodies physically touching for the better part of 4 hours.

The short one didn't move much, mostly just the self-conscious head-bobbing and foot-tapping I've more or less raised to the level of art. The tall one, meanwhile, danced like a goddamned youth pastor, raising his hands to the glory of Rush, each swaying motion glancing his head-nodding friend ever so slightly. Fascinating.

All of this would be mere conjecture by itself. Lumped together it becomes something more. Of course when the taller one had to inch by the shorter one after a bathroom break and the short one helped his friend past with a gentle squeeze of the uppermost thigh, the verdict was in.

Dammit if I didn't forget my camera, otherwise this would be a career making blog . . .