Invitation from a Billionaire

Newsletter 2023-09-10

When a billionaire invites you over to his place, you go. Especially if it’s just you and him—plus 20,000 of his closest friends. Colts owner Jim Irsay threw a free concert at Lucas Oil Stadium Friday night. I knew it was happening because of the two minutes of local news I watch on some mornings. Thanks to my rich and fulfilling lifestyle of driving my kids to all places all the time, the only chance I have to get to the gym some mornings is right when it opens at 5 a.m. The leg curl machine faces the TV, which is muted and has the closed captions turned off. That’s how I remain a well-informed member of society. I can’t read lips, so I generally have no idea what’s going on, but one morning I saw a segment that had the chyron “free concert” at the bottom, followed by a website. “Free” is within my budget, if only barely, so I pulled out my phone and snagged four tickets. They came through the dreaded ticket app that, the last time I used it, nearly ate my money and required me to spend hours on the phone with customer service, but this time it worked okay. That company really only wants to mess with you once they have your money. If you don’t pay anything, they leave you alone. There’s no use toying with deadbeats.

Lola wasn’t as excited about the concert as I was. She wanted to know who was playing. She must have missed the word “free.” At that price point, I’d show up to listen to literal silence. In fact, I might prefer that. That’s a luxury I never get to experience at home. I also roped in our friends, Peter and Lila. There’s nothing quite like showing off to another couple by flashing around non-exclusive tickets readily available to all. That was only true for a certain time period. Eventually, the free ticket well ran dry. The event proudly proclaimed that it was sold out in all its promotions, which raises important questions about why they were still promoting it at all since all the tickets were already gone. I guess they just wanted to rub it in the faces of all the non-ticket holders that they were missing out.

The night of the concert, I once again used my highly exclusive free downtown parking spot. The fact that I have it remains the only interesting and useful thing about me. When I die, I’ll bequeath the space to my children and grandchildren. Some people leave behind trust funds. I’ll leave a rectangle of pavement the size of a prison cell that can save one person up to nine dollars per day. No wonder my kids fight over who’s my favorite. The spot even comes with bonus exercise. It’s close to everything, but not that close. You’re guaranteed a six-block walk in any direction to reach anything worthwhile. If it were any farther away, it would make more sense to park at home and walk from there. I’m blessed to have so many options.

Lola and I left our kids at home, as is our custom. My oldest reaching babysitting age was the single greatest event in the history of the world. The girls are used to being lovingly abandoned. In fact, they had already spent that entire day at home. In the age of e-learning, snow days might be a thing of the past, but my kids got to experience a surprise vacation all the same. We received an emergency alert a few minutes before I left for work Friday morning that students would be remote learning due to a suburb-wide power outage. I was confused because I traversed the length of our town that morning on my drive to the gym and back and the street lights were on everywhere. The breakdown had somehow affected a thin slice of territory that encompassed the high school, middle school, and one of the elementary schools while leaving the majority of the residential areas, including our house, completely untouched. I strongly suspect that someone pulled off the best senior prank ever. The most memorable jokes come dangerously close to domestic terrorism. The school initially tried to implement remote learning before giving up and canceling school entirely just like in the olden days. The kids will have to make up that day in February. The unexpected break was completely unprecedented in my children’s lives. Naturally, Lola tried to offset their joy by assigning them chores. Moms remain undefeated.

While my kids basked in sudden freedom Friday, I headed to my day job. Lola doesn’t work anywhere close to me, and neither do Lila and Peter. After closing time, I had to drive back to the suburbs, feed my kids dinner, and then turn around and drive the adults back to the exact parking spot I was in two hours before. The inefficiency didn’t bother me. I was used to it from my kids’ activities, which are located like they’re part of a math problem designed to waste the most time covering the shortest distance possible. Once we arrived back at my parking spot, we enjoyed a brisk six-block walk in the cool fall air, which a week ago was scorching summer air and a week down the road will probably be frigid winter air. The Midwest never knows what season it’s supposed to be, but usually it’s whichever one you didn’t dress for.

We arrived at the stadium fifteen minutes before things were set to kick off, even if they didn’t involve an actual kickoff. The Colts’ season opener wasn’t until Sunday. The concert Friday was partially designed to get fans excited about the season and partially an exercise in extreme narcissism. I’ll explain the latter shortly. At the entrance to the stadium, I had to scan all four of my electronic tickets like they had some sort of actual value. The only requirements to attend this event were to accidentally watch a few minutes of the news with no sound on and then visit a website. I felt pretty special. When we got inside, it became apparent that “sold out” means different things to different people. Either the organizers only planned to use half the stadium or they offered 65,000 tickets and a bunch of people claimed them but didn’t show up. The problem with free concerts is there’s no sunk cost to being a flake. I’d estimate that there were 20,000 people based on my Rain Man-like ability to count individuals in large groups and also the fact that the stadium was roughly a third full. Our tickets were for section G, which I soon learned meant “sit wherever you want.” That made me feel even more special. I had the run of the place. Naturally, I picked the worst seats in the house.

I led us to a row not far from the end zone closest to the entrance. As soon as we sat down, I realized the stage was all the way at the other end zone. It was basically in another zip code. Without a telescope, it would be impossible to verify if there were performers on stage. We could, however, watch them on the giant screens scattered throughout the stadium, which would be the same as viewing them on TV at home, but with the added inconvenience of driving downtown and walking across half the city. Still, it was cool to be inside the stadium. I had only been there once before. That time was as a guest at a football game with someone who had tickets. To date, I’ve paid zero dollars to support this sports franchise in-person. No wonder they haven’t won a Super Bowl in a while. Their failures are on me.

I continued my trend of mooching Friday. Not only did I get the tickets pro bono, but they also came with a ten-dollar concession stand voucher. That was, by far, the part of the night I was the most excited about. Then I saw the prices and realized ten dollars would cover one light beer plus tax. If you opted for a craft beer, you’d have to whip out a credit card to cover the tax yourself. Don’t take any of this as ingratitude. I’d truly have to be a monster to complain about a free beer. I’ve been on the opposite side of that equation too many times with my children, who are underwhelmed no matter how far I drive them or how much money I spend. Family vacations are just the expensive exercise of disappointing my kids in a new location. Imagine if a friend invited you over to their place, tossed you a beer, and played their new CD for you and your only thought was, “What kind of cheapskate only tosses me one beer?” Then again, that analogy doesn’t quite work. CDs are old enough that no one can say for sure if they ever existed, at least according to my children, and the stadium isn’t really Irsay’s house. I looked it up. The Colts paid $100 million to build it, and the city covered the other $620 million with municipal bonds. If anything, this was like a billionaire throwing a concert at my house and then offering me a beer for the trouble. I’d still take that deal. I just really like beer.

Our poorly located seats turn out to be less sub-optimal than I initially thought. We were right next to a giant circular stage with an A in the middle of it. That stood for Angel, as in Criss. He performed a stunt where he escaped from a straight jacket while suspended a hundred feet above the ground. Irsay promised to donate a bunch of money to various cancer foundations if the street magician could wiggle out of the restraints in less than a minute. I can’t imagine there was much actually at stake. It’s not like the city’s richest man, at an event designed to build goodwill and make people like him and his team, would refuse to help kids with cancer because a hired entertainer performed his act a few seconds too slowly. “Sorry kids, you’re going to die, and also magic isn’t real.” Also, it’s perfectly legal for a billionaire to give money to charity at any time for any reason. You don’t need to make somebody do a life or death stunt first. It’s a much more fun way to do it, though. How rich do I have to be before I can start making people risk their lives for my altruism? The next time somebody shows up at my door collecting money for a good cause, I’m going to demand that they first escape from a safe at the bottom of a lake.

After the stunt was over, the music started. It turned out it was Irsay and his band. The whole thing was just a grift to get us to listen to him sing. I respect his hustle. He lured 20,000 people to his (but actually our) stadium with free tickets and beer just to get us to listen to him and his buddies jam out. Good for him. There are way lamer things to do with obscene wealth, like buying a social media platform and ruining it for everyone. Not that that’s ever happened or anything. We were there more for the experience than the music, so when the singing started, we got up to explore. I quickly learned a stadium is just a collection of concession stands disguised as a sports venue. We stuck around for a few more songs by Irsay’s famous musician friends, then left early to beat traffic. Honestly, it was a pretty great night that only cost me gas money. I’ll show up anytime my new billionaire BFF needs me to drink exactly one free beer and half-listen to his music as I wander around. We both get what we need from this relationship.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James