Last night me and 20,000 gay men saw George Michael live at Phillips Arena downtown.  Two highlights:  1) He entered the stage through a sliding door surrounded by three life-size red holograms of his face.  2) When he sang Careless Whisper.

How many times did I hear that song on the easy listening station as a middle-schooler before I went to bed and wish that Zach Johnson would ask me to go steady with him? Hundreds.  Careless Whisper and Lady in Red were written for me as far as I was concerned.  

The only black mark on the evening was a motarded straight man shitfaced beyond belief trying to heckle my brother. When my brother continued to ignore this man with a patience I never thought him capable of,  the man made the biggest mistake any man could make around my brother— he touched my brother’s fiancee.  It was just a momentary touch, an attempt to grab her shoulder in order to start heckling her as well.  Instantly, I envisioned this drunk man’s face squashed like a tomato into the brick wall in front of me.  And this is likely what would have happened in the old days. 

Except my brother is a changed man, and instead he turned to the drunken douche-bag and very calmly said, “Please don’t touch her.”  He said please.  It’s not that I am some patchouli-smelling, non-violent hippie but I was so proud of him at that moment, and it hit me just how much he has matured over the past few years.

Would one side of me have felt immense satfiscation to see that ass-clown’s face pulverized into tiny bits?  Oh, yes. But I know it wasn’t worth it. Plus, the man was already stupid and ugly.  A random blow to the head would not have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. 

 So after all of this rambling, what I really wanted to say in this post was thanks to Team McUmi for forcing me to go out and have a good time last night when I all I wanted to do was stay in the fetal position under my covers for 48 hours with a box of pizza and a pack of cigarettes to keep me company.