The Summer Festival

On Sunday evening, I wandered over to the Taste of Dallas festival to see The Fixx play for free. I only stayed for three songs because the festival, not The Fixx, was unbearable.

It reminded me of David Cross' "Light Up Atlanta" bit where he bags on the people who came up with a dumb idea for a festival in Georgia. "Let's get a bunch of hot sweaty rednecks, feed them beer all day and give them some shitty music to listen to like The Little River Band."

You'd imagine that The Taste of Dallas would feature a sampling of the local culinary restaurant fare of the city. So I guess Dallas is now famous for it's turkey legs and funnel cakes.

So after walking around and seeing the same lame vendors that are at every Dallas festival --- like the dude playing f'ing "My Heart Will Go On" on a pan flute, selling his cd's of the same --- The Fixx finally came out. They looked and sounded good for a 20-year-old band. But I could only take standing on the boiling hot asphalt parking lot for so long before I had to leave.

Why do cities insist on holding festivals in the summer? It's arguably the shittiest time of the year to do this. The heat makes people angry. It makes them pass out. Yeah, you can sell them a lot of beer, but then you have to call the cops when the drunk festival goers start assaulting the corn dog vendors.

So my message for the City of Dallas tourism bureau is this: For the love of Pete, stop perpetuating the myth that summer festivals are fun. They're miserable. Wise up and hold your next event during the 3-and-half months of jacket weather we have in this town.