Last Tuesday I went down to the Wildhorse Saloon because I love saloons. And also because I’d been invited to the premier party for Nashville Star as a VIP and the amount of times I’ve ever been a VIP to anything is… well, really just the once, I guess. So call me a “VIP” and I’m there.

The plan for the evening was live music from the Nashville Star band and current contestants til 9 and then the viewing of the first episode of the new season on the big screens from 9 to 10.30. Because I was bringing my roommate, Lil’ Smell, and her definition of “on time” is “an hour late”, we missed the performances. Well, we saw the last few notes of the last one. This didn’t really phase me since the music is really sort of a distraction from the spectacle of Nashville Star.

We headed immediately to the VIP section on the third floor to check out the freebies. We cruised by the food tables without anything catching our eyes. Lil’ Smell zoomed past probably because she had a date later that evening and wanted to avoid some dodgy craft services. I zoomed past because I have a thing against saloon food. We cashed in some drink coupons and wandered around in search of a perch from which to people watch.

We found some empty seats overlooking the dance floor below (way below; hello, vertigo). To get to those seats, we had to saunter past Cowboy Troy, in the flesh. For some reason, the Troy gave the Smell all sorts of shivers. I don’t know if it was simply his rugged masculinity or his dope flow, but she was like a deer in the proverbial headlights. I didn’t understand the problem; just say “excuse me” and walk past him. But she was mesmerized. At least momentarily.

We did get past him and oogled the riff-raff far below us on the main floor. Somehow they seemed to be enjoying themselves far more than we VIPs. But that’s econ 101 for you: when you have to pay for something, you’ll value it more. I killed my free beer and we went back to the bar to refill and chuckle at the other VIPs.

It was semi-decent freak show: sequins, mohawks, sunglasses, silicon, collagen, hair gel and plenty of good ole fashioned T&A. (Well, not “plenty” but enough.) I don’t know if these folks were “industry” or what “industry” that might have been, but they were certainly silly-looking. We left before 10.

I may see if I can get into a taping of the show because that’s where the really interesting stuff happens. You gotta work to put a tv show together. And it’s the work of show-biz that’s always more entertaining to me than the people who show up at the parties.