Wednesday marked several firsts for me: First time at the Puyallup Fair, first deep-fried Twinkie (contrary to what y'all think, that isn't standard fare in Texas), and also the first time I got to meet the Flaming Lips (and, bonus: give them food recommendations.)

First: the menu at Totally Fried (which conveniently also describes the kids working behind the counter).



Deep-fried bubble gum. Huh. Do you eat the breading and then chew the gum?

"Deep-fried fried butter." Meh.



After a few minutes of standing around gawking at this chamber of culinary horrors, I turned around to see an equally vexed Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne:



I recommended keeping it simple: Poppers, Twinkies, and doughnuts (not on this menu, but available, and obviously also fried). He went with the doughnuts, and ended up giving most of them away to a fan.

It's hard to believe they've been around for nearly three decades. Remember this? The funny thing is, you can see a lot of the same motifs in their current stage show (including the original video of the girl in the bathtub), with approximately a thousand times larger budget.



I'll fast forward here through three hours of rides, more fried food, the Puyallup Fair Museum, and a bunch of sheep I mistook for cows, to the show, held in what Coyne self-deprecatingly referred to as "this beautiful ... half stadium."

If you've never been to a Lips show, I'll just say that if you don't leave feeling like a wide-eyed little kid, you're missing the point: Giant balloons, confetti, streamers, a cheering squad, upbeat banter, a massive semicircular strobe-lit screen, megaphones that turned into smoke bombs, a disco-ball-laser show, and a "space bubble"---a big, inflatable plastic sphere that Coyne used to propel himself out onto the audience, yelling, "I'm probably the first motherfucker to ever come out of in a space bubble at the Puyallup Fair!"

I want to know where they buy their toys.



Lasers!



Maybe Coyne just knows he has a blessed life---he's prone to statements like "This is the best night of the entire summer" and "I love you! I love you!"---but I always leave Flaming Lips shows feeling better than when I arrived, tired feet and smoky hair and long drive home and all. Stating the obvious, I told a friend, "They're so positive ." His response: "Yeah, in a few years, they're gonna be unbearable." I doubt he's right, but I'll definitely be back to find out.