God Bless America

This is part two of my 4th of July weekend. For the night of the 4th I went to the Blues Festival. To get an idea of the atmosphere, think state fair except for everybody is drunk. And dancing. Lots of overly tanned and overly exposed wrinkly skin. 90+ degrees. Warm potato salad. Flies. Actually, there were no flies, but if felt like there could have been. This picture should help further illustrate. Here's a picture of a shirtless man leading his shirtless grandson? through the crowd. What you can't see is all the mardi gras beads around his neck. The grandson looks so sad. I imagine that he's visiting his grandpa for the summer and seriously wishing he were back home in Des Moines. Or St. Louis.

Of all the performers I saw that night, Candye Kane was definitely the most charismatic. Meet Candye Kane:

The getup is to promote her new album Superhero. You can hear her sing it if you go here. This lady has a voice the size of the grand canyon. And a chest to match. You can't really tell how big it is in the picture I took, but you can certainly get a fairly good idea by going here. I think they give her magical powers. The woman fought off pancreatic cancer. Her website says her show is "part humor, revival meeting and sexuality celebration". Yes, yes, and yes. She also had these fine ladies backing her up on their saxophones:

The highlight of the evening though, was when my friend CH said, "Um, that's a doll." I turned to look and this is what I saw:

Some lady thought it would be a good idea to come to the Blues Fest with a toddler doll. Dressed in a denim jumper. On her shoulders. She also thought it would be a good idea to wear spurs on her boots. Perhaps the most bizarre moment though, was when I was laying down on our blanket to rest after rocking out to Candye Kane. This lady was trying to get by, and apparently I was in the way. She then did what any woman with a toddler doll would do when someone is in the way. She spanked me.