Here’s a fake concert review I wrote for our local alt paper in Indianapolis about a Neil Diamond concert.
The audience was packed in like an Angolan slave ship. They are slaves to this crooner. Even in what most, and by “the most” I mean the jejune observers who forge their worldly opinions on the status quo, but what most call his “Twilight Years” this Neil Diamond packs them in. Jewish Elvis, Black Moses. His shirt twinkled; his sequenced sparkled like the Philosopher’s Stone. And his chest hair surged through the low-V like a forest of bygone masculinity.
The sample of salt and pepper hirsute ignited the frenzy. The air was thick with the humidity of sickly sweet homemaker sex. It rolled in mighty vortices across Conceco Fieldhouse, nearly lifting me off my feet when a wave came my way. You could feel it rise from the seats, produced like a pheromone factory between the legs of 10,000 strong degrading into carnal, lust-savage beasts with every Diamond hip swivel during “Love on the Rocks.”
Maybe it’s spending so many years lost in the glitz of the Vegas world. Maybe it’s the burning halogen beams, day in – day out, for decades and decades that leave the man blind to the simmering mob nearing riot in his nightly audience. But Neil Diamond swoons with reckless oblivion; Neil Diamond sings like Nero while I fear for my life.
With an eruption of “Cracklin’ Rosie” the mass is set into motion. There is much swaying, clapping and gnashing of teeth. It’s been a while since these store-bought women made anyone sing like a guitar hummin’ and they knew it. They sang along with vengeance. Once set into motion there was no hope for escape. My hand emerged from the crowd in a hope for salvation – but there is no God tonight, only Neil Diamond.
Then the sadistic conductor immediately pushes into “Cherry, Cherry” giving no respite to the poor souls struggling for survival in this quagmire of middle-aged female frenzy. The trampling amplifies as the once dormant primal energies of these women are ignited even further. Groping becomes the tearing of clothes. Struggling only makes them stronger, more determined. I steal breaths when I’m not pinned between two women snarling at each other for mating rights. No one hears you scream when you’re buried in the bosom of a mother of five.
Suddenly, the music dies down. Neil takes a seat on a stool, slowing it down a bit. “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” crashes the audience back into their reality. The yolk of life is placed back on their shoulders as they are reminded of their own passions nearly if not already extinguished. Where there is no sobbing, there is anger. Member of the audience begin hurling keys, glasses cases, and garage door openers. This concert is an escape. Once a year these women need to leave their dinner-by-five lives and throw down in a way that would shame frat boys. Speaking of escape, in this distraction I finally try to make my way up the steep Fieldhouse steps and out the door to freedom.
Sensing the crowd turning on him, Neil tries winning them back with his ultimate mega-hit “Sweet Caroline”. The crowd reanimates and returns to form. A few feet away from the door my path is blocked by a gang of women licking their lips at the sight of my panic. I tried to turn away. When a corn-fed homemaker wraps her meaty fingers around your throat and says, “I want to be forever in your blue jeans.” All negotiations are off.
Getting laid at the Neil Diamond concert is like getting your leg bitten off in a shark tank. Clean, simple, efficient – like a mathematical proof. These stories are common but seldom heard. No doubt shame and depression fill most victims after this experience, but if you survive, you’ll be all the stronger for it. Everyone left the show with wide smiles of complete satisfaction. Neil Diamond delivered!
