One Degree of Separation

I was on an airplane this week and had some time to peck out a blog. I could call this one REO-Benatar or better yet, “One Degree of Separation”. I actually like the latter better.

One of my favorite things to do is to attend concerts at an outdoor amphitheatre in Atlanta. It is called Chastain Park. Chastain Park in located in a residential neighborhood in an old established part of North Atlanta. If you did not know it was there you would never find this place. I am not kidding. The amphitheatre is located inside a City of Atlanta Park. It was built in the 1930’s in what was a natural sloping valley between two hillsides. The stage is centered at the low point of the valley and the seating is aligned so that each seat perfectly faces the stage. The seating is bench style and the rows of seating gradually gets wider as you move farther away from the stage and move up the hillside. The seats are mounted on stacked stairs of thick granite slabs that are arranged along the two hillsides. The granite was quarried nearby and has now aged to look like something you might see in Ancient Rome. The oak trees that were planted around the perimeter of the seating are now fully matured and create a natural sound barrier. To say the least, this is a very cool place to see and hear a concert.

If that is not enough, the venue gets even better. It gets way better. Chastain Park has an exemption from the City of Atlanta that allows concert patrons to bring coolers to the concerts. Any cooler, picnic basket, lunchbox, knapsack or backpack is acceptable. You can bring it in. Nobody cares. No one looks inside. They do not care what you bring. You can carry in bottles, cans, canteens, casks, flasks, and even ewers. In other words you can bring anything you want in your cooler. Big or small. If you can carry it, bring it. You can bring beer, wine, liquor, iced tea, and even lemonade. You can bring food in your cooler. And people do bring food. They bring everything from chicken wings to catered gourmet meals. I have seen people eating corn dogs on a stick and people eating caviar on a cracker. I have seen people suck cheese out a can and people eating imported cheese on a silver platter. Whatever the palate desires, bring it.

I have seen no less than 100 concerts over the last 20 years at Chastain. Below are just a few of the more notable acts that I have seen. They are in no particular order, so do not try to over think the list. I could go on buy you get the idea.

- Yanni
- The Doobie Brothers
- Chicago
- The Gypsy Kings
- Heart
- Barry Manilow
- Phil Collins
- Diana Krall
- Harry Connick. Jr.
- REO Speedwagon
- Pat Benatar
- The Four Tops
- Ray Charles
- Faith Hill
- Journey
- Kansas
- Tony Bennett
- Steely Dan
- Wynonna Judd
- Allison Krauss
- The Beach Boys
- The Temptations

Last week I attended a concert at Chastain Park. It was the long awaited REO Speedwagon-Pat Benatar Show. I had purchased the tickets in late April. It was a perfect day for the concert, Thursday July 1st, 2010. In the weeks leading up to the concert I decided that I might need to take next day off (Friday) in advance of the long 4th of July weekend. In hindsight it turned out to be a good idea. So there it was, a four day weekend beginning with REO-Benatar.

The show started at 7:00pm. Being a Chastain veteran, I know the drill. I know when to leave, how to get there and avoid the traffic, and exactly where to park. The plan was to leave around 6:00pm, in plenty of time for an easy trip. I starting packing my cooler around 4 pm. I loaded some beer for me and a few friends and some wine for Lovie. I know to bring some extra beer for my friends. More on that later. Earlier in the day I seared some Ahi tuna on the grill. The tuna was now chilled and ready to be thinly sliced. It was the perfect topping for the asian fusion spinach salad that Lovie was preparing for dinner. The beer was packed and getting cold. The salad was complete. The cheese, crackers, asian fusion salad, fruit kabobs, and brownies were in the picnic basket. I was ready. It was 6:00pm.

The trip to Chastain was flawless. The show was more crowded than even I expected. We arrived in plenty of time but had to settle for what I would call an average parking spot. An average parking spot means a nice walk up a steep hill. It did not matter. The hill was steep, and being the gentleman that I am, I helped a lady and her friends carry their cooler up the hill. I did not know them.

Lovie and I settled in for the evening. The warm up act was some hippie looking guy playing an acoustic guitar. He was accompanied by this young girl that looked like Pocohantas. She played the drums and other percussion instruments while he strummed and sang. It was not that bad but not good enough for me to remember their name.

In a shocking turn of events REO Speedwagon was to open for Pat Benatar. I thought it should be the other way around. Just as REO was about to begin my seat mates arrived. My seat mates, to my right, were a group of three guys and three girls. The three guys met at Georgia Southern University and two of the three guys met their wives there. The third guy was single and on his first date with a friend of one of the girls. They were young. Young and not prepared for the concert. They had to buy beer.

I immediately bonded with the single guy on his first date. I am not sure why. You see we had nothing in common. He was 27, I am 46. He was 6 feet – 6 inches tall, I am 5 feet 8 inches tall. He was on his first date, and I have been married 26 years. He drank Budweiser from a can, and I drink import beer from a bottle. We had nothing in common until I slipped him one of the free beers from my cooler. To him I was a God and we bonded. For a 26 year old, he knew all the songs. He knew the lyrics, the guitar licks, and the drum solos. He learned them all on Guitar Hero. I tried to get him to make out with his date. He failed. According to him she had “values”. I fed him another beer.

I am a humble guy, I really am. People tell me all the time that people know me. I tell them that I somehow know a lot people. It could be that I have lived in the same area most of my life, or that I have worked in the same industry for 20 years, or that I have a knack for remembering people’s names and things about them. Whatever it is, I know a lot of people. So, I decided to test my known list of people on my new friend, Patrick. 6 foot – 6 inch Patrick. He had attended Georgia Southern University. I asked him if he remembered any of his business school Professors? He could not remember any of them. I asked him if he had any “hot” female professors? He thought for a moment and then lit up like a roman candle.

He remembered one. I asked him if he had a certain professor that I know? I knew if he had her he would have remembered. Men never forget a pretty face. He had her for some business class. He fondly remembered my friend. She was a friend of Lovie’s in high school. We had double dated when Lovie and I first met. She was at my wedding. He was in awe. She is my facebook friend. I proved it on my Droid. I was a god to him.

So here I am randomly seated next to some guy at a concert. I know somebody that knows him. “One degree of separation” as they say. “Hit me with your best shot”, I may know somebody that knows you.