Tomorrow Night at The Dome...

That's right baby! For all of you people out there who, like me, love "people watching" the SuperBowl of "People watching" is making its annual appearance at Reliant Astrodome Saturday night as THE MONSTER TRUCK SHOW comes to Houston! This is the Winston cup of human aquariums. And just like the Winston, it comes as the first event of the year! If you have never been I highly recommend it. You will not believe the passion these people feel for these garish vehicles. They hoot and holler for their favorite truck to win races that are more rigged than the WWF. And invariably there will be a "local boy from Spring, Texas! or Sugarland, Texas! or Rosenberg, Texas!" and the crowd will simply lose their collective mind. There will be the equivalence of Hooters girls out on the floor doing nothing. There will be vendors selling shirts that say Gravedigger and Big Foot. And the pinnacle of the evening will be when the big Truck-a-saurus thing eats a car. All of the kids will scream in joy. Their mullet bearing fathers will raise their Ice Cold Dome Foam into the air with a guttural grunt of ecstasy. And as Truck-a-saurus blows fire from his nose on the mangled wreck of what used to be a '78 Cutlass there will be a pregnant pause of awed silence followed by a lone boy clapping. The people in his section will give him a scornful look that says "How dare you break the silence that this incredible, indescribable event deserves." His father, in support of his son, will then start clapping with him. Across the Dome another little boy will clap. Then another. And another. Before long the tide will turn as the hateful people in the section of the original boy give in and stand and clap along with the little rebel. In the blink of an eye the sold out Astrodome is in a frenzy with people yelling "Bravo!" and clapping mercilessly for the proud Truck-a-saurus. The metal beast will raise the burning car high into the air and drop the Cutlass to the ground. As the show closes there will not be a dry eye in the house. The awestruck crowd will walk out with mouths agape.

The lone boy, while walking out with his hand enveloped by his father’s hand, wearing his Grave Digger shirt looks up and says, "Daddy?"

"Yeah, son?"

"Daddy, can we come back next year?"

And the father, with the proudest tear in his eye will say, "Yes son. We can come back next year."



Not that I have ever been or anything...

 

I am the father sans mullet. I am going. I swear to God. But I am going to PEOPLE WATCH. Not to see if Big Foot VII will win the truck war against his long time nemesis Wolverine. I could care less if Guy Wood will be making his final tour as the driver of Bulldozer. And who cares if this is Tuff E' Nuff's first trip to Houston. I'm just going to see the yahoos in the crowd. And because my 5 year old son REALLY wants to go down into the pits and check out the 557 cubic inch Chrysler Hemi that Andy Hoffman slapped in his red 1998 Dodge Ram Quad Cab Monster Truck named Nitemare. And just because I, too, drive a 1998 Red Dodge Quad Cab does NOT mean that I actually like this mindless crap. I am going to the Dome for the boy!

Just to redeem myself a little, if there is redemption at all, I can guarantee you that I will be the only one at the Monster Truck show tomorrow that was also at Cats, Stomp, Rent, Phantom, Les Mis, Trans siberian Orchestra, and The Houston Symph presents Beethoven. At least the only that went to those events AND wearing a SnakeBite T-shirt.