Characterized by weather conditions that are - in terms of heat and humidity - roughly the equivalent to the nethermost regions of Jabba the Hut's belly button, we here in Indiana cherish our summers more than Michael Jackson cherishes the "innocent until proven guilty" motto of our judicial system.
Why? Well, the easiest answer is that it's not Indiana winter. Apart from that, Indiana summers also provide us the rare opportunity of being able to donate tiny increments of our blood to mosquitoes in exchange for a mere week of incessant scratching and the possibility of contracting exotic and fatal diseases.
Actually, there are a lot of great things about Indiana summers. And when I say a lot, I mean three: the state fair hits Indianapolis, all of the cool animals are back on display at the Indianapolis Zoo and concert season begins at Verizon Wireless Music Center.
However, for all the glory that the state fair has to offer in the way it attracts rednecks to pack up the RV and wheel into town for a week's worth of deep-fried Twinkies and Travis Tritt live, it is unfortunately still weeks away.
And as for the Zoo? Well, once you've seen a monkey throw its Daily Double at the girl standing ten feet away from you, bothering to make a return visit would most certainly reek of anti-climax.
But concert season at Verizon Wireless? Now there's entertainment!
Formerly known as Deer Creek Music Center, the concert venue was forced to change its name when it became apparent that thousands upon thousands of people were attending large musical events without deliberating the cost-benefit ratio of switching to a more reliable cellular phone network. Fortunately, Verizon has now solved this problem and is currently only a few short years away from producing a phone that is actually capable of maintaining a signal at Verizon Wireless Music Center.
The problem I have with Verizon Wireless Music Center, however, isn't with its name, although I have always felt that naming a concert venue after a cellular device encourages the practice of people waving open cell-phone screens as makeshift lighter-substitutes during power-ballad guitar solos - a habit that I recognize as moderate-to-high on my scale of annoyingness.
My problem is more with the Verizon customer friends of mine. Namely, the ones who insist on calling me during musical events to try to let me know how great of a time they're having amid the background noise of approximately 15,000 cheering concert-goers and a veritable wall of million-watt amplifiers set to full blast.
I try to explain that, even if you had a good signal, it still doesn't matter if you hold the speaker on the cell-phone toward the stage or not, I know it's the "ee-ee" part of that Jack Johnson song and you want me to hear it, but all I can ever really hear is a mountain of static broken between bouts of someone shouting "woo-hoo."
I try to explain, but they aren't listening. They've got no signal. Even if they did, they're surrounded by noise ... and even if they weren't, they aren't even holding the cell-phone to their ear. They're holding it toward the stage - for me - so that the receiver can be a foot-and-half closer to the loudest speakers in the Tri-State area.
I hang up the phone with a wistful smile ... downtrodden that I'm currently missing out on the ever-so catchy "ee-ee" part but comforted by a sound that I know they are currently unable to hear: the high-pitched hum of a mosquito.
Enjoy the show, donors.
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