All is fair in fair and war

Falling out of love with Collective Soul, Live, and the San Diego County Fair

It costs $20 to park at the San Diego County Fair, $25 if you go on the weekends. There’s a free lot seven miles away at an affluent high school that has deigned to let commoners park there, and a fleet of school buses that shuttle to and fro from the fairgrounds.

That’s why we’re on a school bus.

Our driver is listening to Sunny 98.1 at full volume. It’s a wonder there are even DJs on this station since it plays the same 10 bands. Just a repeating cycle of Prince, Bon Jovi, Bananarama, Toto, Huey Lewis and the like. Feel-good music for a feel-good city.

The station breaks for commercial and an ad of US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem aka ICE Barbie comes on, telling undocumented immigrants to “Leave now. If you don't, we will find you and we will deport you.”

The bus driver, a tough-looking Latina woman with tattooed eyebrows, makes no motion to turn it down or change the channel. Good chance that she’s not even paying attention, seems stressed about something that’s going on over the walkie-talkie. So all of us—me, my wife Jessica, and about 10 other passengers—just sit there, stewing in Lady Goebbels’ propaganda.

In hindsight, this should’ve been an omen. Foreshadowing, at least. Something about the sinister elements that lurk under the veneer of good times.

I’ve also been sick with a hacking cough since school let out—a goodbye present from one of my students, no doubt. But by god, I will get to the fair. Encroaching fascism and a collapsed immune system cannot keep me away.

I love the county fair. I think? The blinking lights, the shit food, the art, the carnies, the trashiness, the kitsch. It's a mix of everything that’s cool and untouched by the creeping technocracy that has soiled every other aspect of our daily lives.

Tonight is also opening night, which is exciting enough, but we’re in for an extra special treat: performances from Collective Soul and Live. How the fair managed to score two of the most mediocre titans of post-grunge alternative radio is beyond me, but I’m here for it. I owned at least two CDs by both bands, which is way more than anyone with discernible taste should own. Some people move on from the dumb shit they liked in the past. Not me. The best kind of nostalgia comes with a little bit of self-flagellation.

Or, maybe I just fucking love Collective Soul and Live? Maybe I just mask my enthusiasm with an air of irony? Maybe I just love spending money on dumb things? Who knows. It’s summer, and I don’t have to go back to work until August, so introspection is minimal.

I’ve been tracking the ticket prices ever since the concert was announced. The hitch with these fair concerts is that they’re [makes the “lots of money” gesture with thumb and forefinger]. You’re looking to spend at least $80 general admission. Who in this day and age are paying that much for Collective Soul and Live? Nonetheless, I’ve set an alert just in case ticket prices drop. I’ve set a threshold of $40 which still feels too much to pay, but looking into the abyss has never been cheap.

On the day of, the price falls to $31, and I buy tickets so fast that I salivate.

Our bus pulls into the fairgrounds, and even though it added an extra 45 minutes, I can’t help but feel smug about passing all the suckers who have paid the park. No matter how much money the fair pulls out of me, you can’t put a price on moral superiority.

The moment we get through security, I chew an edible, which helps me forget about my sickness, as well as numbs me against the fleecing that’s bound to take place. Also have you ever had a jumbo corn dog while you’re, like, high? It’s akin to what God must’ve felt like when He invented jumbo corn dogs.

Our first stop is a “tiki speakeasy” that’s “hidden” but also very well-advertised throughout the fairgrounds. After an unnecessarily complicated system of getting a wristband and then saying a magic phrase, we’re on a rooftop that’s decorated like an under-the-sea-themed prom. I order a “tiki old-fashioned” that costs $25 and try not to think of how many hours of minimum wage someone would have to work to buy one. Despite their lure of “handcrafted cocktails” it tastes like someone just mixed a lot of bourbon and a little bit of juice together. Not that I’m complaining. It tastes like cough syrup and has the same medical effect, and for that I’m ever so thankful.

After spending $50 on two drinks, we make our way to the concert, which is just a big stage set up on the horse racing track. Our seats are on the third level, normally used by the cheapest gambling degenerates hoping for a lucky break, and honestly, there really isn’t too much difference between them and us. There’s something absolutely deflating about seeing a stage set up on a horse track. And when Collective Soul comes out, they play like they are playing on a horse track.

It’s at that moment that I realize maybe I actually don’t like the fair.

They play the hits, and they play well, but seeing old men go through the motions doesn’t inspire much, not even trainwreck curiosity. I struggle to find nostalgic satisfaction. If they were excellent, that would be one thing, or if they were truly awful, that would be even better. But to see them perform adequately in broad sunlight on top of what’s essentially a horse graveyard is just sad. The singer wears a sparkling suit, looking like this gig is just a pit stop on their way to an Indian Casino residency.

When they play their hit “Shine”, only a measly few people in the audience sing “yeah”. More like dun nu nu-nu nu nu-nu nu-nu nu nu nope, amirite?

Halfway through, they do a little medley of Aerosmith’s “Living on the edge.” What are we even doing here, I think. Not just the fair but in life. Months ago, I had seen the band Refused bust out a Slayer medley in the middle of a song and it fucking ruled, and this is just the opposite of that in every way.

At this point, I buy two more beers and happily tip on the $40 total. The weed gummies must be kicking in. We leave before Collective Soul ends to scour our food options I find my jumbo corn dog. Only $13. Compared to everything else, it feels like a deal. There are hardly any vegan options at the fair, so she buys a potato taco that’s just lettuce and unseasoned potatoes O’Brien stuffed in a dripping fried taco shell. It’s like if aliens landed on earth and were tasked with making a potato taco, going off knowledge of “potatoes” and “tacos” they’ve seen in textbooks.

She doesn’t have to tell me that it’s the saddest thing she’s ever eaten; I can just tell.

A 16-year-old girl—employee or volunteer, I don’t know—yells at us for accidentally taking our beers outside of the beer zone. We spend $20 on a brick of curly fries and make it through about half before feeling slightly ill. Bad vibes all around.

We head back to the stage just in time to see Live start their set. At least the sun has gone down, which makes it a little less pathetic, but my coughing has become ragged and nasty, and all I want is to go home. Plus, singer Ed Kowalczyk no longer has his gross braided rat-tail (as made famous in the “I Alone” video), and that was part of the draw for me, and because the edible is still going strong, I spend a lot of Live’s set imagining a grotesque scenario where he could instantly grow a new one via a painful process of shitting it out of the back of his skull.

I take a video of the band playing “Lakini’s Juice” off their album Secret Samadhi (which was one of their albums I owned, and I knew even at 13 that it was an incredibly dumb album). I post the video and a friend responds “We don’t need Tool, we have Tool at home.”

We leave before the band “Lightning Crashes,” so I don’t get to hear the lyric “her placenta falls to the floor,” but sometimes you gotta cut your losses. On the way out, we see a guy in a trucker hat that says “Shaved Head, No Shirt, Rat Tail” which might be better than seeing Live play their most famous song.

The total price tag of our little fair visit comes out to over $200. I don’t even have kids. How do families afford to go to the fair? How can families afford to see washed-up bands as a lark? Is that why no one’s happy anymore—because even gags are unaffordable? Or does the fair just suck?

The bus ride back to the car is quiet. Thankfully, there are no more Kristi Noem ads, but I remember her words—“If you leave now, you may have an opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American Dream”—I can’t help but feel the SD County Fair is emblematic or even a microcosm of this American Dream she speaks of, and all the dumb and bad things that hide beneath it.

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