Let’s all go back to 2017. You probably already know that the most important event of that year was Kesha (né Ke$ha) finally releasing new music.
BUT before the album dropped, when she was still off the radar, (Like so far off my brother actually would ask me for updates on her. “Tedd, how is Kesha? Have you heard anything?”) I found out she was playing this small show at an amphitheater in Aurora, Illinois and obviously, I bought presale tickets.
My friend Elizabeth agreed to go with me because, there is really nothing better than seeing Kesha in a suburb, so we made plans to meet up and voyage out to Aurora.
Now, if you’re not from Chicago, you have to understand that getting on the Metra to travel to the suburbs can essentially be the same thing as getting in a truck and heading to the middle of Oklahoma. We’re only separated by a few miles of highway, but some of the suburbs resemble small towns that you would find in some rural, Midwestern parts of the U.S. For instance, you wouldn’t expect to find a double-wide trailer that serves as a bar in the city of Chicago, like the one that exists in my hometown. But in Aurora! Just wait to see what you can find!
So Elizabeth and I go to the concert, which is promptly rained out. Like a giant black thunderhead said “No Kesha for anyone tonight.” So a bunch of suburban homosexuals, Elizabeth, and myself ran screaming from the amphitheater as hail and heavy rain started to fall. Most of the homo crowd fled to the bar/casino right by the venue, but Elizabeth and I opted to find something a little less crowded.
We arrive in an inauspicious Mexican restaurant and take a seat. The waitress comes over and hands us menus.
“Hello.”
“Hi.” Elizabeth had spotted this weird buffet station when we entered. It was weird because it had no food on it, just like 15 different buckets of salsa. “What’s that?” she asked pointing to it.
The waitress turns, looks at the salsa, then turns back to the table. Rather than saying something, she merely points to the station and smiles.
“Yeah, what is that?” Elizabeth asks again.
The woman blushes, turns to the station and then shrugs.
At this point it was very clear that she didn’t speak English, but we had also arrived at the awkward point where you don’t want to acknowledge the fact that the person doesn’t speak English, or make a big deal of it, so you start yelling words louder because that makes English easier to understand.
“SALSA? THAT’S SALSA? WHY?”
The woman tied together “Salsa” – sorry, “SALSA”- and the indications toward the buffet and frantically nods her head.
“Yes.”
“WHY? WHY SO MANY?”
“Yes.”
“IT’S… SALSA…” Elizabeth said defeatedly.
“Yes.”
So the woman realizes that she’s not really answered the question, so she puts up her finger up to indicate “one moment” and runs away from the table.
As she scurries off, this group of, what can only be described as good-old boys and their sons, enter the restaurant. They are loudly guffawing and harrumphing as heterosexual males do, when they go straight to the salsa buffet/station/place?
“Well, let’s get that salsa!”
The two younger boys start just grabbing small soup containers and filling them to the brim with salsa. They go after all 15 vats, like just dumping salsa into the containers and filling up this paper bag. While the boys are on salsa duty one of the dads goes over and picks up take out.
When all is said and done, they dudes have probably ladled enough salsa into these containers to never have to buy salsa again in this decade. They harrumph and guffaw out of the store.
“So… it’s like all you can eat?” I say looking at Elizabeth.
“But it still doesn’t make sense to me. Why does anyone need that much salsa?”
So our waitress sends over this guy, who comes to our table and knows slightly more English.
“Yes. It’s salsa,” he says.
We just nod and order because – what is even happening? How much salsa can people eat in this town?
While we’re waiting for the food, two girls enter and sit in a booth. They are clearly Kesha family because they are wearing cat ears and are covered in glitter.
We finish our meals and then casually walk over to them because – I don’t know… sisterly solidarity?
“You guys come for Kesha?” I asked.
“Ohemgee – yus!” One of the girls says. “I like luhv Kesha!”
“We grew up listening to Kesha,” the other one says.
GREW UP?
“How old are you guys?” Elizabeth asks cautiously.
“I like jyust turnt 17,”one of them says (also worth noting she ordered a salad at a Mexican restaurant – not a Mexican/taco salad… but like iceberg with a tomato).
I quickly did the math and realized that – yes – if you are a salad-eating fetus, you could have grown up listening to Kesha.
“I just didn’t think I’d get to hear her in my lifetime,” the other say taking a spoonful of air.
[At this point, an editorial comment: I sometimes hyperbolize in blog posts. I KNOW. I would say the events range from 80-95% true (okay, 40%-80%) but I think it’s very important to note that those words were actually said by a seventeen-year-old girl: “I didn’t think I’d get to hear Kesha in my lifetime.”]
Elizabeth and I are totally done with this conversation at this point. We just wanted to pick up our walkers and head out.
Once outside the restaurant we decided that it was a shame to let the night go to waste. We both had planned to get home at 11 and the rain had stopped – so, why not grab a drink?
We end up walking another block to end up at this bar. From the outside it looked kind of divey – in the best way: a little dusty, everyone knows each other’s name, drinks are cheap af. Kesha would definitely hang out at this place.
Upon entering, we are promptly sighted and categorized as “outsiders.”
“Y’all from the city?” one guy asks.
The bartender travels down the entire length of bar and gets everyone’s order but us. Then circles back and begrudgingly gives us a $10 pitcher of Bud Light.
They were setting up for trivia this night and a man swirls up to me. Yes, he swirled. As I mentioned, Aurora mostly has a small-town vibe, so I was very surprised to see someone in a bright red polo swirling around the bar.
“You’re very good looking!” he said. “Are you playing trivia?”
I have no idea what this guy’s deal is. There are a couple of different possibilities: he is a straight guy in a straight town, so saying another dude is good-looking is as safe as commenting on the weather; alternatively, he could be the town/bar’s homosexual in resident and him commenting on handsome outsiders is like his “charm.”
Either way, I was like, “Eh. Maybe?”
Elizabeth returned from the bathroom and I told her about the encounter. We started conjecturing about his sexuality, which was only clouded further by him dancing flamboyantly – with a woman.
Things had gotten uncomfortable enough between swirl man and the staring locals for us to decide to check out the “beer garden.”
How to describe the beer garden?
Grandma’s Garden on Steroids?
Kitschy Lawn Furniture Vomit Site?
Neon-Target Lawn Clearance Nightmare?
It’s hard to say.
Let’s just say that there was a cacophonous collection of weird lawn furniture, garlands of Christmas lights, stone dwarves, a gazing ball, and other things mixed into the chaos.
We climbed/walked up to the second level – a wrought-iron white table on a pile of mulch. Needless to say we are nearly crying with laughter. It felt like a joke? Was this a stage? How does one even make the design decision to throw every lawn ornament ever made into a beer garden? It was obvious at this point that swirl man was not gay, because he would have prevented this from happening.
As we laughed and poured more Bud Light, a woman passed a bird bath and climbed up the mulch pile.
“Hello,” she said. “Nice night!”
“Yeah,” we said.
The woman nods and looks just behind us. I wasn’t sure what was back there (read: I assumed some sort of pile of the dead covered in a squirrel statue and mosaic tiles) because there was a couple of bushes blocking the … area?
“I just wanted to ask you something…,” she begins, “you see I want to tell my dead friend that I’m engaged.”
(Editorial comment 2: SHE ACTUALLY SAID THAT. THIS WAS SOMETHING SAID ON PLANET EARTH IN REAL LIFE TO ME AND ELIZABETH SITTING ON SOGGY LAWN FURNITURE.)
“Oooohhhhhh,” I said. “Okkkaaayyyyy.”
“Her ashes are part of the wall behind you and I want to tell her about it.”
Elizabeth and I at this point WERE SURE that someone from Candid Camera was going to jump out of a bush. Ashton Kutcher brought Punk’d back just for us (seventeen-year-old girl, if you’re reading this, Candid Camera and Punk’d are reality shows from before your time).
The woman sees our confusion and flashes her ring at us – because clearly, that is the part of the story we are taking issue with.
“Yeah…” Elizabeth says slowly. “Go ahead…”
“Thank you.”
The woman climbs past us, into the bushes (for the record my original guess that there was a dead body in this beer garden was proven 100% true). She then stares at the concrete wall and begins muttering and evidently telling the ashes about her engagement night.
Elizabeth and I sit in silence.. mostly too shocked to say anything. How do you even… address what happened? We wait until she has finished telling her dead friend the story, then slowly leave the beer garden and go back inside the bar.
By this time, we felt there were really no safe spaces – judgment and trivia inside, or a weird lawn gnome seance in the back.
We finish our pitcher and agree that we have done and seen everything possible that night. An uber is called and the night ended. The entire ride back to Elizabeth’s place we talked about the events:
“But like what was that guy’s deal? Was he hitting on me?”
“They couldn’t have hated us more at that bar.”
“Couldn’t she have said something more reasonable about talking to the dead? Like, ‘My best friend owned this bar and is actually interned behind you’… Nope, you know what? There is no better way to say that.”
I can safely say it was top 3 weirdest nights of entire my life. Weird tends to happen to me and Elizabeth, though. We tried to run a race a few months later and ended up dancing to Milli Vanilli and chugging mimosas in the rain. So… it can always get weird. If nothing else, we know Kesha would be proud. Thank god we’ll get to see her perform in our lifetimes.