Monster Jam Naptime

The potential excitement dulled by the laziness of the production was like going to Disneyland when all the rides are shut down

In 1995, in a backroom venue in Edinburgh, Scotland, I sat drinking a Scotch watching a man painted from head-to-toe in green body paint with his larger than average penis painted bright yellow dance to Harry Belafonte. The same stage also included a hugely obese woman who took Barbie Dolls, stuffed them up her ass and popped the heads off all up in there.

I've been to a four-hour long celebration of Gregorian chant, endured a Pentecostal revival in Western Samoa, pretended to eat an undercooked hog in front of the last remaining King of Tonga, and sat through three hours of lesbian breakup poetry.

A six-hour Mariachi festival where the one constant was repeated covers of La Bamba. An all day reggae festival that sounded like the same song on repeat for hours. An event honoring the next edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.

Suffice it to say, I've been to and seen some odd performances in my day. When, at my job with the Wichita radio stations, the promotion was to enter to win tickets to the Monster Jam, I got excited. I've never been to a Monster Jam. A unique experience on the horizon, I noticed a few tickets reserved for staff so I claimed them. I watched a few videos of the event and it looked amazing. I invited my family to come along but only my mom was interested. She'd never been to a Monster Jam and the prospect of giant trucks jumping things and flipping in the air in an arena seemed like professional wrestling with trucks. We both were jazzed.

She told her friends that we were going. I told mine. Everyone thought it sounded awesome and were borderline jealous. On the day, we went to breakfast and were both buzzing with anticipation. We dropped my dad off after the meal and headed to my new place (three blocks from the arena). On the elevator going back down, we mentioned to a couple of people where were going and they gushed about it. "You're gonna love it," they told us.

We went through security, scanned our tickets, and were blown away by the sound of massive engines and the smell of exhaust. It was so loud out in the wings, mom decided to drop some cash on two pair of official Monster Jam ear protection guards. We went to our seats and settled into a capacity crowd.

And it was a snooze.

Imagine buying five firecrackers. You light one. It goes off. Then a woman comes out and talks for ten minutes about the firecracker going off. She does everything she can to get the crowd to 'make some noise' but even the kids in the arena are restless. They came for the firecrackers. For those with smartphones, they could rate the firecracker. Then another firecracker is lit and goes off. It isn't much different from the last one but the kids rate that one as if there was a point to that. The woman talks about that firecracker.

That was Monster Jam. A monster truck is announced. Three minutes of hype about the truck ('make some noise') and the truck slowly position itself for something. It goes up the pitiful mound of dirt in the center and then topples over. Like a turtle on its back. We wait another ten minutes as the crew pulls out a tractor, hook the truck up, pull it upright, and the driver slowly parks it on the side. On a 1 to 10 scale, the crowd rates this performance as a 6. A 6? For rolling over on its back? WTF?

Mom and I get the giggles but we can't hear each other because of our protective earmuffs. We’re both relieved the other finds this so ridiculous.

Of the eight trucks that go through this routine, only two actually do anything worth noting. Another one turns over and yet another seizes up on the track and putters its way back to the parking area.

Then it's halftime so that parents can buy their kids ridiculously priced hot dogs and nachos and die-cast facsimiles of the trucks for a whopping $40 a pop.

Now we have motorcycles doing the least dangerous looking stunts—stuff so tame and lazy that a bunch of kids in a motocross park would put them to shame all while the poor woman keeps trying to get the crowd to cheer. I actually felt bad for her as her sole job was to hype the lackluster show and continue to try to get the less than enthused crowd to get excited. Talk about the Sisyphean boulder.

I fall asleep at one point because the nonstop yammering about the motorcyclists and monster trucks is just a monotonous drone until I'm awakened by a forced stadium cam dance to a thirty-five year old white rap song. The camera on the Jumbotron seeks out anyone dancing but mostly catches people sitting, eating, and looking bored. And I note that no one in this crowd can dance to rap.

I'm ready to bolt but mom wants to see if they'll anything more interesting. The monster trucks do a one by one donut competition. Each doing exactly the same thing others do. Ten minutes of commentary and attempts to hype up the audience then another truck doing the donut trick again. For the uninitiated a donut trick is spinning around in a circle for a minute or so. If my mom ran around the stadium and I tried to run her down with my Prius it would be more interesting (she does pilates and can move pretty fast). Mom's had enough, I'm taking a nap, so we split.

"That was the worst thing I've ever seen," mom exclaims. "That was as bad as the guy in Branson who did a bad impersonation of Hank Williams, Jr. followed by a worse impression of Hank Williams. At least he closed the show with a lousy rendition of Elvis."

Monster Jam was just lazy. There was no sense of stake because no one really gave a shit if the trucks won or lost. The stunts weren't exciting because they weren't dangerous or thrilling. The pace was ponderous. The trucks looked beat to shit and even the crew moved slow like the clean up crew at a bus depot. It was like (gasp) the only reason for the show was to sell the toys.

Lesbian breakup poetry was more exciting than this and they served free wine.