Last night, Monday Night Football turned 40. Oh, sure, it won't officially happen until the start of football season, but Hank Williams Jr., dancing girls in tight black spandex, and several hundred of his rowdy friends wearing football jerseys of many colors gathered on a steamy night in Nashville for the filming of the show's introductory song. "Are you ready for some football?!"

Yes, yes, god, yes, we all are. It's boiling hot, every sport but baseball is over, and you're sing- ing to a football-crazy city and state. But after a few thousand versions of the same song, we were also ready for some sleep. And air-conditioning, lots of air-conditioning. There's just one problem.

"Where the hell is Hank?" asks a portly woman in a pink Titans jersey standing beside me.

This is Hank Williams Jr.'s 21st consecutive year as the opening act for Monday Night Foot- ball. In 1989, ABC contacted him and asked whether he'd be willing to rework one of his popular songs, "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight," into a Monday Night Foot- ball introductory theme. Williams obliged, and the result was a song that every person in the free world has now heard, "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here On Monday Night."

Now, we're all crowded in a tight semi-circle in the bright lights on the west facade of Nashville's Parthenon. We're all ready for the crowd shots. All we need is Hank.

But first we had to get there, and I'm going to break the night down, numbers-style, as I tend to do for field trips such as these. Those of you who have followed ClayNation field trips be- fore will know the drill, those of you who haven't will misspell the word "your".

Rather than show up alone at the event, I dragged my friend Tardio, Nashville's finest medical malpractice defense attorney, along for the production. Here was our night.

1. I arrive at Tardio's around 9:30. I'm carrying a Titans jersey, jeans and tennis shoes. It's, conservatively, 263 degrees outside. But I need to put on long pants and a football jersey to ensure we'll be allowed to attend the filming.

2. That's because earlier in the morning, a producer for ESPN went on Nashville's 104.5 radio station and informed listeners that they needed as many as 500 extras. But there was one catch, "You have to wear club attire," he said. "That means no flip-flops and no shorts."

Flip-flops and shorts represents, conservatively, 66 percent of my summer outfits. Also, you know they've put a clueless Yankee in charge of bringing in Southern recruits when he eliminates flip-flops and shorts and suggests "club attire." There are no clubs in Nashville. People who don't live on the coasts don't go to clubs. They just drink. In bars. Or, occasionally, in the woods out of large brown jugs with XXX written on the side. Like real people do.

I can't tell you how pissed I was by this directive.

3. I tell Tardio that he has to change out of his flip-flops and shorts. He's apoplectic. "Are they filming in East Berlin?" he asks. "We can't wear what we want?"

4. I slip on my jersey. I thought I'd grabbed my Eddie George jersey, the one my father-in-law gave me for Christmas two weeks before Eddie George's Titans career ended. Instead I've put on my brother-in-law's Christmas gift from three years ago -- a Titans jersey, No. 01, with my name, C. Travis, on the back. Tardio is unimpressed. "Why are you 01?" he asks. "No one is actually 01, they're 1, or they're double zero. No one has ever been 01."

5. Tardio worries because he doesn't have a jersey of his own. And because his roommate, a Miami Dolphins fan, won't loan him a Dan Marino jersey. "The Marino jersey is vintage," his roommate says. Now Tardio's convinced that we'll be separated for the shoot. "They're going to put me with the club attire people and you're going to be with the jerseys." We compromise and I leave my jersey and put on a long-sleeve button down to match my jeans. We step out- side. It's sweltering.

6. We arrive at Nashville's Parthenon, a full-scale replica of the crumbled one in Greece. Built in 1897 to celebrate the centennial of the state, now it stands in august majesty as the centerpiece of Nashville's Centennial Park. Bright lights shine on the west facade of the Parthenon and a chain link fence surrounds the filming area. A few Nashville police officers sit in lawn chairs. Already a crowd of people is standing in front of the stage. Many of them are wearing shorts, a few are shirtless.

"Club attire," Tardio says, kicking a clump of grass in front of him.

7. It's 10:30 and we're herded into a collection of Nashville riffraff. Two men are shirtless, one is homeless and clutching a paper sack filled with liquor, two women are wearing Titans jerseys, one man is pushing a bicycle. The man beside me, wearing a black "Pickens" No. 86 jersey that doesn't cover his ample gut, turns and breathes in my direction.

"There's some good-lookin' tail here," he drawls. 

8. There is not, in fact, any good-looking tail here. I ask him whether he is a fan of Carl Pickens. "Carl Pickens?" he asks. "Who the hell is he? I'm Pickens, Pickens is me."

9. A man who works for ESPN, presumably having given up on the club attire gambit, stands in front of the motley crew. He has the defeated look of a man who expected to be doorman at a Playboy party and instead received the Hee-Haw reunion assignment. "You cannot pass me until I count you," he says. "I will point at you and count. That's when you go. Got it." People nod. The clothing standard has moved from "club attire" to "if you have a pulse."

The rigorous selecting process begins, "1, 2, 3," says the counter, pointing at everyone in his general direction and continuing to count as we all pass.

10. But there's a snafu. "You can't bring your bicycle in," he says to the man with his bicycle. "F**k" says the man with the bicycle. "It's a club shot, people don't have bicycles in clubs," the producer explains. "F**k," says the man with the bicycle again.

11. We're inside! Tardio and I stand near the center of the stage. We're in the back, a large jumble of people are in front of us. A collection of approximately 20 girls clad in black spandex tops and, for lack of a better term, booty shorts, stand on the stage (I'll later learn that they are members of the University of Tennessee dance squad). Occasionally they gyrate. Four 50-foot banners are draped between the Parthenon's columns. From left to right, John Elway, Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith, and Johnny Unitas action shots hang in the night air.

12. Tardio is furiously checking his BlackBerry to see if The Hills' Lauren Conrad has updated her Twitter status. She's in Nashville for a book signing and Tardio is in love with her. Already we've gone to the book signing and looked out over the crowd of teenage girls there to catch a glimpse of LC.

"Her skin is kind of a weird color," Tardio said then, "I guess that's what tans look like in LA."

Now, he's less interested in the MNF football shoot than LC's Twitter updates. "Surely she's going out tonight," he keeps saying.

LC remains enigmatic. "OMG! I just saw my first firefly!! Sooooo cool!" she tweets.

"Bang, at least we know she's outside," Tardio says.

13. A Hank Williams, Jr. stand-in, replete with brown beard and full black outfit, stands in the center of the stage wearing a black hat. Many of the people in the crowd believe this is actually Hank Williams, Jr. "We love you Hank," screams a stringy-haired woman of 50 in front of me. The Hank stand-in shoots a gun, thumb cocked, index finger pointed at her. "Gawwd," the woman gushes.

14. It doesn't take long to realize that the Monday Night Football shoot is an awful lot like the Tennessee State Fair. Or any state fair where you might live. It's a random Tuesday night approaching midnight, at some point you look around and think, like I always do at the state fair, "Where do these people come from?" The old man in seersucker overalls with a beard to his knees and a thick walking cane, the 7-foot tall white guy in a Troy Polamalu jersey who is blocking my view of the girl with the best ass on the dance squad, the people who have brought their infant children to the shoot, all of them raising their hands in tandem when instructed by the production crew. It's like a runaway roller coaster descending straight to hell.

Still, Hank Williams, Jr. is nowhere to be seen.

15. Three men dressed as football players emerge from the Parthenon. Their entire bodies have been painted gold. Two of them, a white golden man and a black golden man, climb onto pedestals. Another man, a white man, chubby, with 'Bama Bangs who looks old enough to be the father of the dancing girls, stands awkwardly with his helmet cradled against his gut. After a few minutes the chubby guy is removed from the stage. The other two golden football players strike poses on their pedestals.

16. It smells like the morning after a frat party -- sweat, beer, unintended pregnancy -- in the crowd ... but now it's time for test shots. Tardio and I are moved to stand near the center, where the camera will swoop down over the top of us. The angle is better for the stage. A voice booms out over the assembled masses, "Excuse me, the two men on the sidewalk in front of the girl in red, you're in the camera's way."

Neither Tardio nor I react.

"They mean you," hisses a girl in red behind us. Her name is Dawn, a former Nashville Predators cheerleader, she is a "face" for the shoot. This means they will use her as one of the close-ups to make it look like the crowd of fans is better looking than it actually is. Coincidentally, we know Dawn. Last year, she dated our friend. "The camera will hit you if you don't watch out," she says.

17. So both of us decide to cheer with only our left hands. The Monday Night Football jangle echoes over the still night. The crowd raises its arms and pretends to dance. The camera swoops by within a foot of us. "Perfect," says the director.

18. After three more test shots, sweat is pouring down my forehead. Tardio checks his BlackBerry. "She's got to be going out, just got to," he says.

At that exact moment, Hank Williams, Jr. makes his appearance.

19. Hank is wearing a black leather vest over a bright yellow shirt. He has on dark black jeans and a brown cowboy hat. Around his neck, on a black string, hangs what appears to be a mastodon tooth. Either that or a large powder horn for a Confederate musket.

20. The crowd explodes. Hank picks out random people in the crowd and points at them, grins. His voice, redolent of whiskey and cold beers, pours out over us. "Boy, it ain't as hot to- night as it was last night," he says.

"I love you Hank," screams a man, rheumy-eyed, in a white wife-beater and blue jean shorts. 

"Amen, brother," Hank growls. 

The crowd roars with laughter, exultant over their proximity to Hank.

21. This is not the first time I've seen Hank. One night during law school, around three in the morning, a limo squealed into Printer's Alley in downtown Nashville. My friend, Amir, stood shivering in the night's chill. The door to the limo opened. Hank Williams, Jr. climbed out. "Good god, boy, you must be freezing," he said, whipping off his full-length leather coat and handing it to my friend. "Put this on."

22. Now, on a much hotter night, Hank is holding a guitar and idly strumming the threads. His fingers are covered in sparkling jewels, catching the bright lights and reflecting with dazzling brilliance. "This time it's for real," says the producer.

23. The crowd, frenzied now, reenacts the cheering, Williams reads off two giant teleprompters behind him as the camera swoops in behind us. Williams has already recorded the song so he's lip-synching now. "For 40 years runnin' it's football's home, we've seen the greatest carve their names in stone ... From Barry to Bo, even Johnny U. played under these lights."

The entire introductory song lasts one minute. We run through it many times. After midnight, Tardio and I finally leave. As we walk across the park, Tardio shakes his head. "I can't believe," he says, "Lauren Conrad isn't going out tonight."

The shots are done. Monday Night Football is still 83 days away, but for one summer's night, at least, we've caught the fever. Literally. My brow is covered in sweat and I can't get the jan- gle out of my head.

"Do you ever think," I ask, "that Hank Williams, Jr. wishes he'd said no back when ABC asked him to use his song?"

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