[FIPS Was There...] Park Slope Dad Goes to Taylor Swift Concert

I have a confession to make. I’m an awful dad. My two kids (one of each) will tell you otherwise but I know the truth. I’m awful. I work too much. My attendance at school events is spotty at best. I can never remember their friends’ names or whether and when I may have met their parents (never mind their names). I coach little league sports but a) only for my son and b) my overall win-loss record makes Jets fans feel good about themselves. I let them eat frozen food and drink Gatorade.

It’s bad. It’s just awful.

But I do have one thing going for me. I’m a Park Slope Dad. Now, you may hate on the Park Slope Dad (PSD).  I get it.  I have a complicated relationship with him, too.  He (not me) has a four-story brownstone that he gut renovated. He has a job that pays way better than yours. He walks his kids to school – every day! He stops for a leisurely coffee with the Mommies at Connecticut Muffin and they think he’s just so cute and why can’t you be more like him. He ran the marathon so many times that he stopped doing it because it was no longer a challenge. He does fucking yoga. And he somehow spends an inordinate amount of business hours meandering about the neighborhood, while you’re making a permanent impression on your office chair. Okay, I hate him a little, too.

But let’s face it, sometimes the PSD ain’t half bad. Sometimes he’s kinda awesome. Sometimes he has floor seats for the Taylor Swift concert at Met Life Stadium on the evening before your about-to-turn-nine-year-old-daughter’s birthday and he’s offering you the chance to buy two and accompany him and his daughter (your daughter’s “bestie”) for what will undoubtedly go down in the annals of history as “The Best Birthday Ever.”

Given that, thus far, my efforts to win my daughter’s love have mainly included a) working those extra-long hours and b) spending inordinate amounts of time coaching her brother’s little league teams and c) skipping Family Fridays, that makes d) blatantly buying her love with floor seats to Taylor Swift a totally awesome option!  Witness the unrivaled power of the PSD pal…

3:00pm – Shoo daughter into car for pre-concert prep. We have a lot to do if we’re going to tailgate properly.  Chairs, cooler, Frisbees, wiffle ball and bat deposited in the trunk. First stop, bodega on the corner.  Ice.  Chips.  Beer (for the big boys).  Next up, shoot over to City Sub for tasty sammiches. Damn. The last guy in line (a.k.a the guy in front of me) informs me that after his order’s done, they’re out of bread. Out of bread! City Sub to temporarily change name to City Unassembled Pile of Meat and Cheese. Note to self, should’ve just gone to Bierkraft and killed two birds with one stone. Hightail it over to Bageltique where they sell sammiches complete with bread and everything.

3:30pm – Meet up with my favorite PSD and his daughter. Map out plan for caravanning to Met Life. I get the honor of leading – and promptly proceed to break the cardinal rule of leading a caravan by stranding him at multiple red lights. 

4:30pm – Make up for amateur caravan moves by busting professional move into empty parking lot, grabbing a spot near the exit, ample tailgating space and the cleanest Port-a-Potties on God’s green earth.

5:00pm – What can only be described as Taylor’s army is filling up the lot.  They’re all between 8 and 16. All in red. Many making questionable fashion choices (high-waisted jean shorts, tucked shirts). Most accompanied by Jersey Moms who’ve made equally-questionable fashion choices, compounded by the fact that they should know better. I proudly give them a pass on said choices. They’re from Jersey, after all. They probably all dress like this every day.

5:15pm – Favorite PSD and I proudly toast one another for being mature enough to view scantily-clad teenage girls not as hot little numbers but as misguided youth whose parents shouldn’t let them out of the house like that. We also decide that any single male entering parking lot should be charged an extra $20 for parking, to discourage leering. We have unofficially done the world a service.

6:15pm – The rest of our party joins us and we head into the great unknown. Stop for green bracelets (denoting floor seats). Enjoy the moment as dear daughter shakes with excitement as the scene unfolds. Make particular note of short beer lines (bonus!).

6:25pm – I make my first of what will be many purposeful jokes to security guards and state troopers to let them know that I know I am too old to come to this concert on my own, let alone to enjoy being there. 

6:30pm – The latest Disney (all rights reserved) boy-toy creation takes the stage with four dancers. They sing and dance for about twenty uneventful minutes. I am mildly perturbed by the absence of any band or instruments whatsoever. How is this a band? How does dear daughter know who this boy is, never mind know all the words to these songs? Things have taken a turn for the not so great.

6:45pm - Volunteer to make beer run. Discover they have Goose Island on tap, which its new macro-brewer owner hasn’t ruined yet. Things get slightly better.

7-something pm – Ed Sheeran appears, and the crowd goes wild for the young, ginger-haired, tattooed Scotsman. Wait a second. Ed, your matted Bieber-y ‘do smacks of something we 40-somethings know all too well. You’re covering a nascent bald spot. That, and you seem to be enjoying room service meals a little too much. But between “A-Team” and “Lego House” you’ve got the girls swooning.  And you’re a pretty damn good musician. So, we’ll let the comb-over and the paunch slide. Way to hold your own.

8-something pm – Discover bonus #2 of Taylor Swift concert. Zero line at the men’s room. Less than zero. It’s me and a tumbleweed. I’ve been to a bazillion sporting events and concerts. This. Has. Never. Happened.

9-ish pm – Taylor takes the stage. The girls begin to twitch and bounce up and down as they enter a utopian singing-and-dancing zone where grown-ups exist only to lift them up to see better, take them to the bathroom and buy them cotton candy.  A thousand (literally), painstakingly handmade LED-lit posters light up the stands.  The girls are blissful. This is starting to pay off.

9:30-ish pm – Taylor and her troupe are on what must be their eighth costume change of the evening. The staging and effects are elaborate. The music is album-quality. Somewhere, Cher and Bette are smiling. This girl is no joke. I am intrigued.

10-ish pm – Taylor’s dancers hoist her over their heads and carry her to a mini-stage in the back of the arena where she will perform a handful of songs (with a re-appearance by balding, sweating Ed Sheeran) and get close to the “little people.” Even this second stage rises and rotates. I am getting my money’s worth. But, really, she should come back up front already.

10:30pm – The security staff have been quietly and efficiently roping off a path from the rear stage to the main stage.  A path that passes directly in front of our seats.  A new energy sweeps through our section. It’s like the ghost of Christmas Future. The atomic particles that make up my darling daughter briefly consider re-arranging themselves completely. It may be the impending arrival of Ms. Swift. It may be the cotton candy. Either way, I am starting to enjoy this.

10:35pm – Taylor sings and glides her way through the crowd. My darling daughter, whom I can’t see among the sea of 80,000 shriekers is right up front and The Swift One touches her hand! "She touched my hand, Daddy!"  I am standing on a chair taking as many pictures as possible before my i-Phone runs out of power again. I am also grinning like an idiot. 

11pm – Taylor brings the house down “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Outside the stadium, a million self-involved teenage boy dreams die. Inside, it’s all girl power. Darling daughter is riding high on a wave of thrill and exhaustion (and cotton candy). I am the father of the year. For a day.

12pm – We return, dropping off the crew in the quieter confines of the Slope. It’s officially darling daughter’s birthday now so we offer up one last serenade. And then it’s off to home for the night. 

I am never, ever, ever...doing that again. Like, ever. Until the next tour.  That chick rocks the freakin’ house down.