rock stars think big

The sheer scale of the Bon Jovi show is mind-bogglingly ludicrous:

[Bugzee, crew leader] leads three separate road crews that leapfrog one another throughout the tour. Each team has 10 massive trucks full of staging. Added to these three teams are two advance teams, who also leapfrog each other - with four trucks each full of weather protection, rigging, power cables, and all the things that must be installed before the stage can even be put up. The screen at the back of the stage alone needs four trucks to haul it around. No one, says Bugzee, gets much sleep.

Don't forget the "130 managers, road staff, chiropractors, cocktail-shakers, lighting designers and flight attendants" and a "fleet of black Mercedes" large enough to transform a hotel's front entrance into "the forecourt of a Mercedes dealership." But smart people seem to enjoy it.

Even in this world, there are opportunities for humbling comedy:

a wedding guest buttonholes a member of Bon Jovi's support band, Nickelback, with: "Hey, aren't you the singer from Nickelodeon?"

Like any big rock star, Jon Bon Jovi wishes to "contribute" something to the world, by building 26 shelters for the homeless, for example. Ted Nugent does, too, but has more judiciary aims:

"I say if somebody robs you, shoot 'em. I'd like all thieves killed. And all rapists. And carjackers. No more graffiti. No more..." - this next phrase is a Spoonerism, rather than some Texan term for gross indecency - "snatch-pursing."

He has more than just grand dreams and is no stranger to small, direct and significant action. While in Fallujah with the USO:

"I visited Saddam Hussein's master war room. It was a glorious moment. It looked like something out of Star Wars. I saw his gold toilet. I shit in his bidet."

And when was the last time Jon Bon Jovi killed his own food, anyway?