Shake that thang!

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A couple of weeks ago on a typically drab winter Saturday, we decided to have some Wholesome Family Fun, so we went to experience SteveSongs. The venue is sort of a community resource/support center for families with very young children called WarmLines. Thus the average age of audience members at this bitchin' concert, not counting parents, was somewhere around two or maybe three, tops. So there I was in another Parenthood Moment, sitting on a blanket on the floor with dozens of noisy tots and the poor man's Raffi holding forth on stage. It was one of those times when the Talking Heads lyric drifted into mind: "Well... how did I get here?" The feeling of unreality intensified as I watched some parents really GROOVIN' on the sounds this dude was layin' down. Note the woman in pink shakin' it in front of the stage with her toddler in a beautiful moment of intergenerational bonding through music, mankind's great common denominator:


Yes, that's an adult dressed as a monkey up there, pumping up the fun along with Steve's backup singers.


Can I just say that this is not my favorite part of being a parent? The assault on the higher brain functions as well as the senses was such that I immediately began having impure thoughts about the monkey, the backup singers (calling to mind the Ray-Lettes, the randy Ray Charles' backup singers, who joked that they were called such because part of the job was that they had to "let Ray"), and visions of screaming toddlers flinging Dora the Explorer panties on stage as they waved blinking rattles and squealed "FREE BIRD!!"

I think a good marketing line for Steve might be something I recently saw in a Viagra spam: "Feel your life with colors of joy!!!"

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