Total Embarassment
It was a typical boring day at the office with nothing to do, and Farhan and I were passing time talking on the phone. Farhan had just had a good friend of his come over from Pakistan to Purdue, and he wanted to make sure the friend was ok. And really, that’s what friends do for friends. They look out for and take care of them. I’d known Farhan for about 8 year now – we were first roommates at Purdue, and that was standard issue for him.
Anyway, so Farhan and I are talking about it for a bit, and he asks me if I can keep him company on the ride to West Lafayette. My schedule was booked on all weekends with numerous commitments, and the only day free I had was August 6th, a Sunday.
“So what are you doing on Saturday?” he asks me.
“I have an event I have to attend,” I responded uncertainly.
“What event?”
Damn it! This is exactly what I didn’t want to have to bring up. It was embarassing as anything ever could be.
“Farhan, the event is so embarassing, I don’t even want to mention it. I feel very embarassed that I’m going there, but I’m going, and I’ve committed to it.”
“Damn it, tell me what it is! What the hell could embarass you? I don’t know anything that could embarass you except that time you were bleeding from your butt.”
He meant the pilondis cyst I had contracted on my tailbone which hurt, stank, bled, and made my every waking moment miserable. I must have done something really wrong to get that kind of treatment.
“Are you having another kid?”
“NO! Why would I even be embarassed about that if it was happening?”
“Are you getting married again?”
“NO, and I’m not saying what it is!”
Farhan could be pretty persistent and convincing, and I had my guard up. To be honest, it was very embarassing.
A week or so earlier, I received an e-mail from the chicago-net mailing list for an event. A concert. A Sami Yusuf / Native Deen concert. And the idea struck me so quickly, I really didn’t give it much thought by the time I had bought the ticket: go in there, see what the environment was like, and tell it like it is bluntly, no matter what.
Now, why would I care to do that? If you look at some of my older posts, there was some comparison and contrast between what was said by Sami Yusuf and Yvonne Ridley regarding these concerts. I wanted first hand info that could be shared and distributed, and the only way for me to do that would be to actually go there, take note of every detail of importance (or annoyance, to some), and then share it.
It sounded like a good idea, but there was one problem. Besides not wanting to attend the event because music is haraam, I wouldn’t want to be seen there because I’d feel absolutely stupid going to a concert. Embarassed. Lowered. Stripped of dignity. Argh! The last concert I ever attended was to chaperone my friend’s little sister and her friend to an N’Sync concert in Milwaukee back when I didn’t know better. I felt stupid being there, with so many teeny boppers screaming for this pretty metrosexual boy and that one. And the guys who were there at that concert were just plain gay. And, I reasoned, with the type of fans Sami Yusuf has, it’ll probably be the same thing (with the women at least).
So I wouldn’t share the event details with my best friend, and I really didn’t want anyone else to know about it either, but I was determined to go and expose the descending of popmania upon Chicago while remaining incognito.
A plan began to form…
