LAST PLAY AT SHEA

New York's legendary Shea Stadium is being torn down this year. The new stadium sits directly next door to it, waiting to be used. You can almost imagine the new stadium looking at its watch.

Billy Joel announce he was going to close out the 45 year history of the stadium by playing the last ever concert there. Tickets went on sale and, predictably, sold out in about 3 nanoseconds. So they added a second show. Can you imagine? You buy tickets for the last ever concert at Shea stadium by Billy Joel, who barely ever plays anymore...and then they add another one! I was lucky enough to get tickets to the second show...that is, the REAL final show at Shea. I feel really bad for the people who went Wednesday, thinking they were buying tickets to the last show, but I was thrilled to be at the "real" one.

The night was heavy. It was hot and humid and still. We were drenched in sweat after the 15 minute walk from the subway to the stadium. We climbed up and up and up but the wind never picked up and the air never cooled.

The show started about 50 minutes late. We were simmering in our own sweat. We had heard tell of special guests at Wednesday's show: Don Henley, Tony Bennet, John Mellencamp and John Mayer. To be honest I wasn't too excited by those names and we had no idea what to expect tonight. I joked about Ozzy Osbourne or Alice Cooper. We heard rumors about Paul McCartney and Ringo, but nobody believed it.

Billy came on, looking freaking OLD. He's bald and gray and round and sweaty. He made a comment about the heat and took off with Miami 2017. The band sounded great and Billy was really giving it his all. Then he showed a badge he was wearing and announced that it was Ringo's from that first performance by the Beatles in 1964. A few songs in, he began wiping his sweaty head every 10 seconds until he asked for a wet towel and wore it on his head like an Islamic head scarf for 2 songs. I knew how hot I was and he was up there working in the lights, wearing a jacket. His face beet read, Billy pushed on, cranking out hit after hit, sounding great. The audience reacted Pavlovianly to each mention of New York or a Long Island town, but it's all part of the fun.

For New York State of Mind, Billy introduced Tony Bennet and the crowd erupted. I'm no Tony Bennet fan but I have nothing against him. Tony sang very well and seemed to energize Billy a bit.

More hits followed, along with some lesser known album cuts, to which Billy suggested people go to the bathroom now. What a self-deprecating lug he is!

Then it was time for guest #2....Garth freaking Brooks. The place erupted even more if you can believe it. I was flabbergasted. I didn't even know the guy was still alive. Anyway, he actually performed Shameless with tons of enthusiasm and I thought it was pretty darn good.

Goodnight Saigon is traditionally played with a background chorus of military servicepeople. Tonight was no different and the crowd stood and cheered when they were shown on screen. As an anti-war kind of a guy, I felt a little uncomfortable, but I do understand the concept of respecting the people who think they are trying to protect us. But when the song ended and the crowd spontaneously started chanting "USA! USA! USA!" I felt really out of place and felt the crowd missed the point of the song.

Later, Billy introduced Steven Tyler and the place almost LITERALLY erupted. The noise was deafening. Tyler launched into the fastest, most energetic rendition of Walk This Way I've ever heard. He was magnificent in his makeup and scarves. It was an outstanding performance, if a little out of place with the rest of the night. That song kicked off another hour or so of really high-energy hits that kept the crowd on its feet. We Didn't Start The Fire was visually aided by the literal collection of images describing each thing (birth control/Ho Chi Min/Richard Nixon back again), but it was fun.

A little later Roger Daltry came on out and did My Generation. Again, out of place for the show I thought, but a rousing performance ended by Billy smashing a guitar.

Finally, Billy, covered in sweat, said his goodbyes and left the stage. He didn't even play Piano Man, so we knew better.

He took the stage again for his first encore to introduce Sir Paul McCartney. OK, this was the loudest noise I think I've ever heard. Paul looked great and I've never been to a Paul McCartney concert, so, being a lifelong Beatles fan, this was pretty damn exciting. The closest I ever got was a Ringo show at Jones Beach in the early 90s. He did I Saw Her Standing There and rocked the house. The Beatles opened Shea Stadium and now Paul was at the final show. How cool is that?!

Billy played another song and then left again. Still no Piano Man. He looked so red and swaety and tired, I was beginning to think he wouldn't do it. But this was it. This was the last ever performance at Shea and perhaps the last ever of Billy himself at a venue like this...

Finally, He took the stage again, harmonica in mouth and performed his signature song, Piano Man. I've seen Billy play several times before and I know he lets the audience take a chorus at the end, but imagine all of Shea Stadium, 60,000 people, all singing sans music, the chorus of Piano Man. It was transcendent. Wow. It was over and it was thrilling.

Then Paul came back out to perform Let It Be. Are you serious? Yeah man, Paul McCartney closed the show. The Beatles opened Shea and Paul McCartney closed it. And I was there. It was magical and I know that I will, in the future, tell people that "Yeah, I was there. The FINAL SHOW. I was there."

I finally got home around 3:00am, coated in dried sweat and grime and unloaded of tons of cash ($4.25 for a bottle of water???).

3 hours in the hot hot summer night with Billy Joel, Roger Daltrey, Steven Tyler and Paul McCartney and it was the best concert I've ever seen.

Racial Sensitivity and Black People

Let's make one thing perfectly clear. I am not racist. I have nothing against people of another color. It's unimaginable to me that blacks and whites were not allowed to use the same facilities in my parents' lifetime.

I'm all for racial equality. What I'm not OK with is this backlash. Black people have called themselves all kinds of things in the past and the one that seems to be the safest right now is African-American. I refuse to use that term. African-American implies that that person's heritage is rooted in Africa but now lives in America. Nelson Mandela is not African American. He's African. Ziggy Marley is not African-American. The Jamaican custodian who works in my school is not African-American. He's Caribbean-American. I don't want to have to do research. You might argue, "Why refer to their race at all?" Because you know what? Sometimes I might need to. I might refer to the fact that he's black. Or bald. Or tall. Being black is not a secret. Black people know they're black. Why can't I mention it? I'm white. So?

There's a story that just came up that burns my ass. In Dallas, some county commissioner was talking about how traffic tickets were being lost. He mentioned that it was like "a black hole." The two black people in the room got offended. Seriously. They said it was racially insensitive. They compared the term to "Jewing someone down" in terms of inappropriateness. "Jewing" someone down is a term based on a stereotype and can be considered offensive. Calling something a black hole is not because a black hole is called a black hole because light doesn't reflect off of it, so it is...BLACK...that is, devoid of light.

Now there's a whole other issue. I've even seen a kid's book called something like, "Is everything black bad?" I can understand that. Black hats, black hearts...if you're growing up black and keep hearing all these things that are also black being described as bad, you might make a connection.

So, fine, maybe it's time to eliminate the word black to describe Negroes. Maybe it's time to use a more scientific word. Let's see, the scientific word for whites is Caucasian and they seem OK with that...the scientific word for African-Americans is Negro. Or better yet, come up with a new word that hasn't been tainted yet. Like Troont. "We're a mixed marriage. I'm White and she's Troont." Is that offensive? I think not. It's just really weird.

And another thing. I love blues music. I like some reggae. I think Jimi Hendrix was the greatest electric guitar player ever. Richie Havens' performance at Woodstock was incredibly moving. Sharon Jones, Etta James, Jimmy Scott, Miles Davis, Guy Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley and probably more are all on my iPod. But if I say I hate rap music and detest the hip-hop culture, I might be called racist, and in fact, have been.

The sensitivity police are out of control. Can my kid play with a black crayon? My 6 year old describes people as having brown skin or peach skin. I never taught him that. He sees it with his own eyes. I never taught him the right terms: "African-American and white." He calls it likes he sees it. I encourage that. He told me of a girl "with brown skin" at camp who was sad because no one would be friends with her, so he sat down with her. That was incredibly sweet. Is he racist because he saw that she had brown skin? Hardly.

It's getting so I can't use my favorite joke anymore:
"I like my coffee like I like my women..hot and black!"

Now I just say:
"I like my coffee like I like my women...hot and sweet...with a spoon in them."

It still works, but in a different way.

Now this is not directly related, but it goes along with all the knee-jerk reactionary stuff. Obama's goddamn New Yorker cover. if you haven't seen it, the cover of a magazine shows a drawing of Barack Obama in the White House Oval Office, dressed as the Taliban with a flag burning in the fireplace and an Osama bin Laden poster on the wall, fist-bumping his Black Panther wife.
The cartoon was obviously pointing the ludicrous things people believe and are saying about the Obamas. The New Yorker is, in effect, saying sarcastically, "Yeah right, this is what they're like...sure." To say it another way, they were satirizing the people who are calling the Obamas Mulsim and unpatriotic.

But people, being people, got upset. They took it literally. They think that if you show Obama as a Muslim, no matter the context, then you think he's a Mulsim and are trying to tell the world that he is Muslim. If you put a poster of bin Laden on a magazine cover then you are promoting him and pissing on the memories of those who died on 9/11. Rarely have I seen such unanimous misunderstanding. People do not understand subtlety and nuance. People are thick and superficial.

Take the recent rash of "parody movies"...please!
Formula: Take a bunch of right-now-popular-and-current movies and celebrities, string references of them together and throw in some crude slapstick humor and you've got a movie. "Superhero Movie", "Date Movie," "Disaster Movie"... One of these movies (I don't know which) features a scene parodying the movie 300 where the Ancient Romans are battling and then suddenly Britney Spears arrives, shaving her head. Get it? Or another in which Gandalf tells Frodo not to throw away the ring and Frodo turns around and kicks him in the balls. Satire at its finest. This is what I'm saying. People don't do subtle. Show them something titillating so they remember it, and then show it to them again in a different context and they'll jump and clap because they recognized it and that passes for clever.

I mean, I'm a smart guy. Not physicist-smart, or even street-smart, but reasonably intelligent. But I often feel like I'm smarter that most of the country. That can't be true, can it?