When I woke up on Saturday, I had no idea that Chubby Checker would dominate my day. My day started out like any other day. I had gotten a phone call from Joejung at 2 a.m., and when I picked up the phone, the following conversation took place.
Me: "I'm trapped at the Tommy Lee meet and greet!"
Joejung: "What are you doing tomorrow night?"
Me: "Nothing, why?"
Joejung: "Do you want to go see Blondie?"
Me: "Yes! I'm totally in! Call me tomorrow!"
Not only was Blondie in town, they were in town for free. Woo-hoo! They were playing the outdoor grease-fest known as A Taste Of Minnesota, where booth after overpriced booth offers up something deep fried, or something way too sweet, or both. There is also a ferris wheel and booths with tacky souvenirs. Your typical summer festival kind of thing. But the music is free, and usually pretty good. Um. Okay, it's usually not horrific. Blondie is probably the best name they've had come through since Joejung and I saw Cheap Trick several years ago, so we were super excited.
But we really didn't anticipate how the evening would go. My day had been going along at the usual Saturday pace, gossip with Local Cool Guy, hang around on the porch of the Pirate Ship, and I think I went to a record store somewhere in there too. Normal! Nothing Chubby Checker related, as any normal day should be able to claim. But then I went to the Blondie show.
I was supposed to meet Joejung at the show, and of course I was running late. He called me during the second song, but I was already within hearing distance of the stage, so really, I only missed one song, and it was not one he could identify, so that was cool. They were either playing an awful lot of new stuff, or a bunch of obscure tracks from Eat To The Beat and Plastic Letters, because I didn't know a lot of the tunes.
But that's okay, Debbie Harry sounded great, and she still wears those Debbie Harry outfits! Fantastic! And she still has the short sassy hairdo. Not everyone who is fifty-eight can wear that look, but she can. And her voice is still great! After thirty years of singing, she still has it. But when did Chris Stein turn into Charlie Watts? I mean, he looked like that on their Behind The Music, but it was kind of freaking me out in person. He looks like someone's grandfather!
But that's okay too. I was having an excellent time, even though the songs were baffling me, and then Debbie Harry said she was going to bring out an old friend. Naturally, I assumed it would be some sort of Twin Cities individual, being in the Twin Cities and all, so I was hoping for Bob Mould or Grant Hart. Mostly because both of them had played A Taste Of Minnesota earlier in the week, so I thought maybe she would have found them hanging around. So I was hoping for a local favorite. Instead we got, "Ladies and Gentleman, Chubby Checker!"
What?!
Me: "What is Chubby Checker doing here?"
Joejung: "I...don't...know."
Me: "It's just so random!"
The New Guy: "I go to every concert just in case Chubby Checker shows up!"
So, they did The Twist for a minute, which was downright obscene. I did not need to see Chubby Checker grinding up against Debbie Harry, not for one minute. Ever. And after about one verse, they were done, and Chubby wandered off. Which still made us wonder, why was Chubby Checker there? Had he been in town playing a casino or something? When I saw Carmine Appice at Tommy Lee, it made sense. Carmine had been in town with Vanilla Fudge (at the Taste Of Minnesota, no less) so he went to the Tommy Lee show.
But me and Joejung and The New Guy racked our brains, and came up with no reason for Chubby Checker to be in town. It was a total mystery. And then the Blondie show ended, and we still couldn't fathom why Chubby Checker had been there. The Blondie show, by the way, ended rather abruptly. Debbie Harry said they had one more song, and The New Guy said, "I didn't hear The Tide Is High." "They didn't play Rapture, either," said I. Then Joejung chimed in with, "I didn't hear Heart Of Glass."
Joejung won the non-existent betting pool. They finished up with Heart Of Glass. So, for musical content, I give the show a C, just based on the fact that I didn't know so many of the tunes. Performance and entertainment value is a B+. I don't think I can issue a grade for the Chubby Checker portion. It scarred me, possibly for life. But I will never recover from what happened next. We went wandering the food booths after the show, looking for a snack. Gyros? No. Tacos? No. Oh.....no......what about Chubby Checker Steaks?
What?!
That's right. We wandered right past a booth that featured Chubby Checker steaks. The man himself was working the booth, and some horrible, carnival barking type guy was standing a few feet away hollering about how you could meet Chubby Checker and get some steak. Oh, no. This is what original rock and rollers sink to? Can this be blamed on Dick Clark somehow? What is happening?
So, Joejung and the New Guy get in line. I couldn't do it. I thought it would be disrespectful to Mr. Checker. The original American Bandstand star, purveyor of both The Twist and The Limbo Rock, reduced to selling meat at an outdoor festival in the Midwest? No. But the boys decided they needed to buy a meat stick from Chubby Checker. (If you got the meat boat, yeah, I don't know what that is either, you got a free 8 x 10 glossy of Chubby Checker. Yikes.) Thankfully, somewhere in line, they decided it was a bad idea, and passed on buying meat products from Chubby Checker.
We had our explanation, but it didn't make us feel any better, so we decided to leave the event. It was raining, and had been since the middle of the Blondie show, so we decided to go to my favorite watering hole to dry off and review the evening. I got there first and ran into CEB. I plopped myself down and announced I had just come from the Blondie show. His response? "What was Chubby Checker doing there?" Fortunately, I knew. "He was selling steaks." "What?" Exactly.
CEB also declared that he had not been happy with Blondie's song selection. He mentioned two other smash hits that they chose not to play, and then went on to talk about how not thrilled he was because he had to see Chubby Checker and Debbie Harry twisting way too closely. I think that's all anyone is going to remember about the Blondie show.
To make the day complete, CEB went off down the hall for a minute, and when he came back he had this to report: he had passed a guy in the hallway who was talking on the phone, and the only part of the conversation he overheard was, "Yeah, I got to meet Chubby Checker tonight." What? I had no idea that Chubby Checker was still such a buzz worthy fellow. I must be out of the loop, but now you don't have to be. When the next cheesy outdoor festival comes to your town, don't be ill-prepared like me, and be ready to buy a meat boat from Chubby Checker.