Milwaukee's Summerfest, Day One

It's always nice when you get to your hotel room and find that your view consists of a brick wall and . . . another brick wall through the other window. At least I've got ESPN.

People were running through the fountain on the Summerfest grounds. I did not. I wasn't here long enough to get warm. Tomorrow I will run through the fountain. In fact, I'll sit on the water spray and make it look as if the fountain is erupting from my pants. I refuse to take my shoes off, though. As crappy as they are, someone might still steal one of them for fun.

And really, how am I supposed to pick up babes wearing only one shoe? I've never seen a guy with only one shoe on walking with hot babes. Except in the Tom Hanks movie "The Man With One Red Shoe".

And yes, I was using the word "babes" just to irk you.

Don't worry, though. The stupid Summerfest crew put a stop to the fountain fun right away. They turned it off. It was 96 degrees, and they turned off the freaking fountain. I'm telling you, democracy just doesn't work.

Here's the rundown on bands: The Gufs, a local Milwaukee band, were stellar. See them if they ever come to where you are. INXS, on the other hand, I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. The gigantic 80s-style video screen behind them gave me the first hint that something was wrong. An alarm went off inside me when I saw that ridiculously out-of-date video screen. It's as if a soft, soothing customer service voice suddenly popped up and said, "Hello, Paul. We have a gigantic 80s video screen. You're not wanted here. The screen is not for you. It is for old people."

Plus, the song "New Sensation" sounds even worse in person than it does on "lite" radio stations. A video screen . . . Christ. With that and a fat lead singer who looks like trailer trash, their original lead singer must be rolling over in his freaking grave.

Let's move on to the Indigo Girls. I apologize to the reader who complained about my earlier idea to mock them, but I can't help it. They're just f***ing terrible. They sound as if they're giving birth throughout every song. High-pitched, annoying and long drawn-out girl power screams. God, I think a woman giving birth nearby would have made less noise. I started to learn how bad it really was when I saw a bunch of guys vomiting against a wall, and realized that they hadn't even been drinking.

There are two types of girls who were at the Indigo Girls performance: girls with those little Lisa Loeb glasses and girls who were 4'9" and weighed 225 pounds. So, to put it another way, there were two types of girls at the Indigo Girls performance: girls I can't stand, and girls I can't stand. On the plus side, the "Tattoo from Paradise Island" body shape everyone there seemed to be sporting allowed everyone in the back to see the stage (unless you happened to be 4'8").

On the minus side, you could see the stage, and it was a hideous sight. At least it reassured me that it was, in fact, the Indigo Girls up there, and not some woman plopping out a kid near a taco stand. Things like that tend to happen at Summerfest from time to time.

There was a militant-style girl who was looking at me rather impatiently as I sat there drinking my beer. This was probably because I was making vomiting noises and asking random people walking by to kill me.

I don't know why she was so biased against me. I support her community all the time. Why, just the other day, I purchased a video about lesbians. In fact, this video was chock-full of lesbians. I thought the plot of the film left something to be desired, but I didn't hold that against her, did I? Of course not. I kept watching it, because I wanted to learn more about the fascinating world of lesbians. And now I know quite a bit, thank you very much.

After all the research I did, I'm rather offended that she didn't come up and talk to me. I'll bet hypocrites like her don't even own any lesbian videos. Stupid posers.

After The Gufs were done, I went back to my hotel in the downtown area, stopping by a convenience store first. The man working the counter spoke very little english. When two young girls in tight clothing bought something, he hit on them in jittered english. It was rather funny.

"You . . . how old you? Seven . . . teen? You look . . . twenty. Very . . . mature. You turn around for me now? (He stares at her ass as she's turning around) Yes . . . you . . . very nice. You come back again . . . yes?"

I can't really talk crap about the foreign guy, though . . . I was staring at her ass as she turned around, too.

Note: my apologies for this column being so late. It'll be more on time tomorrow, when I find a better internet solution. Tomorrow: More bands, more women, a picture of the view outside my hotel window, and everything else that George Will is too much of a sissy to put in his column.