Crowding the tape. We do it. The cops put up caution tape, the parade functionaries put up sawhorses, the museum directors put up velvet ropes, and we belly up to them as though they’re going to stop the stray bullets, out-of-control floats, and idealism-maddened zealots. And we get sprayed with whatever detritus there is flinging itself past the mostly-imaginary boundaries set up by our social gatekeepers if not by actual physical limitations. Pow.
Witness the ‘innocent by-standers’ on the outermostside of a curve in a Dakar race. Pow.
Those in the first row of a Gallagher concert. Pow.
Those who crowd the line at the bank teller’s window when the sketchy guy who seems to make the teller nervous keeps waving the ragged slip of paper and gesturing to the back of the room with a pistol.
So, don’t ‘crowd the tape’ when watching races that end in man-made swamplands. You’re just gonna get your underpants covered in mud. Even when they’re neatly covered by every other piece of outerwear you’re also wearing.
Mud wrestlin’ time!!
Are you ready to mumble!?!?!?!
as they all try to avoid the really big guy coming down next.
Hey, who IS this under me?
Sorry. Didn’t mean to get in your way.
uhm… whomever shouted “look out” was a bit late on the up-tick, yeah?
or is that a warning that guess what, there’s another lil streak of flaming red paint-n-melted plastic wheels heading their way?
~i won’t be a bit surprised if somebody simply answers “yes”.
thus marking the mark of confusion as being markedly still there.~
I’m pretty sure the yeller is Lowell belatedly letting the crowd know his wagon is coming through, but it could apply to both scenarios.
If you’re at a Gallagher concert, you deserve what you get.
Incoming bird!
BIRD BIRD BIRD … BIRD IS THE WORD!!
Remember going to see Gallagher almost twenty-five years ago at the long-demolished South Hall in Memphis. Okay show but the best part was seeing the first ten rows covered in plastic sheeting. Made me wonder if the tickets warned that anyone sitting in those seats were going to get watermelon all over them.
I love the Gallagher reference. It’s not a slicer, it’s not a dicer. It’s not a chopper in a hopper…It’s a sledge-o-matic. No plastic protective sheets would help here.
Bold of you to assume I’m wearing underpants.