For six hours I weathered the storm inside Newark’s Prudential Center aka ‘The Rock’. Six hours of mixed emotion, laughter, and fear. Before arriving at The Rock, I met my mom and 40 of her friends. Mostly old high school friends of hers and their assorted families. It was completely out of control. There was so much East Coast Jew floating through the air that I still smell like lox after two showers. They were fantastic women, every one of them. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed by the attention and affection heaped on me from all angles. I ate seafood paella and answered questions about my life between bites.

It’s hard to stay excited about meeting family friends when the common question is, “so what are you going to do out here?” and the only response is either “slowly fail?” or “good question.” We did have a great time, though. By the end of all the intense talking and picture taking (seriously, like probably 100 group pictures) other guests at the restaurant started to wonder aloud if I was a famous. Alas, buying a website rarely makes one famous.

We take our seats fairly close to the stage and get comfortable. It takes about 8 minutes for the first crazy person to spot my mom and get teary on her. The next family is kind of neat, though: two little Jewish girls and their father who had flown from Israel to see Adam. Damn. It is at this point that I notice Mom begins to generate her own gravity and dozens of fans embark on a sort of exuberant-but-slow zombie shuffle in our direction. Taking this as my cue to get the hell out of the area lest they consume me with toothy grins and misplaced praise, I duck under an arm and quickly scan the room for a familiar face. I see a family of 3 that we ate dinner with and desperately try to play it cool about 50 feet from ground zero. Mom has, by this point, become a small black hole.

I hatch a new plan 5 minutes later when someone manages to recognize me. I try to ask her to be subtle and just pretend that we’re old friends but it simply doesn’t work. I’ve been found out. I snap a few pictures, mostly with kids because they can excuse their behavior by virtue of their age. Luckily, the lights begin to dim (and not because they can not longer escape Mom’s gravitational pull) and I am able to escape back to my seat in the darkness.

“AMERICAN. IDOLS. LIVE.” Wow. They really take this thing seriously, hmm?

“NUMBER TEN. MICHAEL. SARVER.”

It’s at this point that I realize heavy drinking is a must. Apparently there’s a bar somewhere above us that is selling Coors Light in plastic bottles. I’m not surprised that they don’t trust us.

Sidling up to the bar, I ask the couple in front of me how the cocktails are. The largest man in the world shrugs his shoulders like I asked him how it feels to be beaten with phonebooks. His wife and I exchange platitudes and impotent rage at The Man until I kindly ask if she might shift to the side so I can summon a bartender.

“I will. But only if you’re an Adam fan.”

I’m torn. Either I tell her how I can’t stand him to watch the sparks fly, or I tell her I’ve been a fan of his for 20 years to watch the sparks fly. I choose the latter.

“I’m his brother. Of course I’m a fan.”

“Bullshit.”

“You know what? Thank you. You’re the first skeptic I’ve met. Now I don’t feel like as big of a tool for namedropping.

“This… no. WHAT? Bullshit. Prove it.”

“Well, that’s my ID on the bar.”

“This… This is the best night EVER! Honey, buy him his drink.”

The largest man in the world snaps his attention from the Yankee game to protest but she shoots him a sidelong glance to which he complies.

“You don’t have to do that. Now I do feel like a tool. I can buy my own fourteen dollar cocktail.”

“No. I insist. Let me buy you a drink. I’m a big fan too.”

Wow. Normal people! They just like him! No crying, gushing, or defecating. Just smiles. We exchange names and go through the whole twenty questions about what it’s like to to live in someone’s shadow. I reply that I’m happy he’s finally gotten out from under mine. It’s been too long. The large one offers me his business card.

“Look, you just moved here. If you ever want a true New Yorker to show you around Manhattan, I can take you to every cool bar in the city.”

His card reads “Stan Muller – Scientist”. I chortle and ask him what exactly it is that he works on for his company (a very well-known producer of health care products). He leans in real close and checks to make sure the coast is clear.

“You uhh…. familiar with KY?”

“Holy shit this is the best night EVER!”

“I’m the co-inventor.”

“On behalf of myself and I imagine Adam as well, thank you for your hard work and dedication.”

In the fervor of our exchange, I fail to notice an altogether too drunk girl and her weak-willed boyfriend getting too close. She starts loudly asking the obvious questions and ruins everything. Now people want pictures again. I wince an apology at my new friends and they silently nod forgiveness as I duck out of the bar and back into the darkness. All in all, I drank for free and managed to completely avoid NUMBER TEN. MICHAEL. SARVER. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

The rest of the evening proceeds as you would expect. I finally surrender to the small clang of emotion rattling around my gut when the crowd goes wild for Adam. It’s fun and I’m proud. I like Muse. Adam sings Muse. All is well. I momentarily forget I’m limited to a four song set and suddenly it’s over. The Top 5 were mostly pretty great. I’m impressed by Matt’s ability to rock the hell out of the piano. Allison is the real deal and I think Kris is pretty cool, too.

And then it’s over. We’re swiftly escorted to safety by security while throngs of people shout at us about how much he means to the world. They’re cover songs, people. Hang in there. I leave the concert with Mom and her best friend from childhood. We stay up until 3am drinking wine and laughing with her two daughters and have a grand old time. All in all it was a pretty fantastic experience. It was great meeting a bunch of wonderful people and hearing stories of Mom’s sordid past. I’m pretty sure I can eat a month’s worth of dinner for free based on all the hospitality the New Jersey women have offered.

I slept on a cot and dreamt of nothing. It was the best sleep in weeks. 3 hours later, Nancy is urging me into waking so that I can go meet the new group of kids I’ll be teaching. The girl who hangs on me is back. She hasn’t learned to respect my bubble over the weekend. The rest of them seem alright. Two more weeks until unemployment!