Old Shawnee Days '08

Remember Foghat? Slow Ride, Fool For the City, etc.? They were already on the classic rock station when I started listening to FM radio, back when the plains were black with buffalo.





Tonight, they're headlining Old Shawnee Days. Right up there with the time back in eighth grade that I caught Steppenwolf...playing World's of Fun. I've never seen such a called-in performance in my life: John Kay was chewing gum. They tried to play their 'new material' of their 'new album' they were all 'excited about.' But the audience, a pitiful collection of middle-school aged kids peppered with a few aged hippies who came to the park specifically to catch this legendary band, wasn't having it.



Born to Be Wild. I'll bet it was old for the band about 4,000 repetitions prior to my hearing them perform it live. Magic Carpet Ride, The Pusher, Sookie Sookie, these were not really great songs to begin with. They have their moments, I suppose. I listened to Steppenwolf Live in fairly heavy rotation when my record collection consisted of that, KISS Alive II, Kansas' Leftoverture, and the K-Tel compilation 'Southern Fried Rock.' I think I may have had the soundtrack to Grease as well, but I didn't listen to it: I only owned it because Peaches was selling cutouts of the incredibly overprinted thing for less than a pack of Hubba Bubba.





Oh, and I had Frampton Comes Alive, but I think that came with the house. All suburban houses in the 1970s had a copy of that. It was what functioned as a garage sale permit at the time. If you didn't have a copy on offer for a quarter, the police would rough you up and confiscate your so-called merchandise.





So we gave the show tonight a miss, but we went to the festival. I'm a total sucker for a carnival with my kids. I doubt I'd go on my own, but with honyocks in tow, they are irresistible. They can be expensive, but they're one of the few things that still does not take credit cards, so I can control the damage by only carrying as much cash as I feel I can spend. Guaranteed, if I have fifty bucks, they'll get fifty bucks off me. If I have twenty, that's all they'll get. If I carried a thousand dollars into a carnival, I'll bet they'd find a way to leave me without gas money to get home on.





This year, Old Shawnee Days cut the price of tickets in half. 50¢ instead of a buck a ticket. But then they took all their four ticket rides into eight ticket rides, so it was a wash. They may even have figured a way to hike prices in the process, making a three ticket ride go to eight instead of six. Nobody was fooled, of course.





The Johnson County Fair sells unlimited ride passes. Pricey, but we always ride enough rides to get our money's worth out of it. I think it was about $50 last year, for the three of us to ride until we were sick of it.





lI spent almost that much at Old Shawnee Days and we didn't ride half the rides we would have.


Old Shawnee Days from Chixulub on Vimeo.

Still, we rode plenty. Me and Mo went on the Ring of Fire, which is like a roller coaster with only a loop. And it works up to going around the loop, hanging you upside down in the process. I was glad I had an empty stomach.



Em and Mo rode the Scrambler, then we all got on the Ali Baba, which is the same ride as the Avalanche that comes to the county fair, with a different paint job and different heavy metal soundtrack blaring form its needless sound system.





This is a pet peeve of mine with the carnival circuit: being flung to a near death experience on a rickety machine maintained by carnies is thrilling; adding a Quiet Riot tune as soundtrack does not make it scarier.



I did catch a period re-enactor on a cell phone. Last I heard, this'd be a firing offense at a place like Ren Fest.



The girls did great, though. Em even had fun, atoning in some small part for her bitch-fest performance at last year's Old Shawnee Days.



And we got a pic by Foxzilla, which seemed appropriate with the Foghat thing and all that.



A great start to the year, though. This is the first wallet-eating festival we regularly hit. Coming up will be the JoCo Fair, Santa-Cali-Gon Days, and so on.