Wreckoner 5/8/08

(I would recommend reading my previous blog "It Wasn't Pablo's Honey" before this one, if you haven't already. Makes more sense that way.)

I went out last week, and I ran into this guy that asked me out a while ago. I did want to hang out with him, but not yet. Just wanted to be by myself for a bit, but I thought he was pretty cool. When I saw him this time, I told him I nearly didn't make it out because I was hawking eBay for some Radiohead tickets. He responded with a very flamboyant, dismissive "Oh please", as if I had just asked him to down a limburger shake.

(Buzzer sound) Thanks for playing; we do however have some nice parting gifts for you, mainly this middle finger.
You don't get me if you don't even try to GET me, ya got me? I can handle if you don't dig exactly what I dig musically, but you don't have to act like I just peed in your salad when I mention one of my favorite bands EVER. WTF?

The next day I scored on eBay (I think that's the only place I will ever score). Two pavilion tickets, center, "buy it now" $44.00. Discover card, cash back at the end of the year, do-able. I offered up one ticket on myspace, but NO ONE wanted to go. You're all fired! Nahhh, some of you already had tickets, that's fine. I put it up for $40 on Craigslist and sold it in minutes to some rugged looking English dude (I half imagined him showing up in a cricket uniform, but he disguised himself as a surfer instead).

So yeah, I paid a whopping $4, which ironically, is the most I've paid to see Radiohead. The previous 4 times, I merely had to shell out for my own transport, though this was also the furthest away I've ever had to sit too. Not nosebleed, but certainly nose pick. Actually, nose DRIP as the most horrendous head cold jumped me Sunday and as I write this, I'm still breathing out of my mouth like some Napoleon Dynamite Neanderthal.

If you read my last blog, you might be wondering if maybe I have some weird karmic connection with snot and Radiohead because it's becoming thematic. First, I get a goob hacked into my head, now I am drowning in goob. At least it's my goob, and I had tickets this time. Whatever, I didn't care if my skin was melting off into goob with maggots clinging to it, I was going!

It kind of sucked being a walking sneeze-fest in a situation where the guys outnumbered the girls about 15 to 1, and most of the other chicks there were with their boyfriends. It was me in a sea of males who all liked Radiohead enough to forgo a paycheck to get tickets, and there I was with a redwood's worth of Kleenex, looking like someone took a cheese grater to the skin between my upper lip and nose. Charming.

I would venture to guess that I was the only one who was sober in my section, so that in itself was entertaining. I was pretty hopped up on cold medicine and Captain Crunch, but I still felt like a zombie. Maybe I got a contact high from the forest fire ablaze behind me, ah…memories.

I, of course, brought binoculars and some assface was all "what do you need those for? You can see them on the giant screens." Yes assface, you can see them on the giant screens, but you can't tell what kind of amp they're plugged into or if they're playing a Strat, a Telly, or a Rick, ASSFACE! This shit matters, one must see the holy tools that transmute the precious sounds from fingers to ears! Assface! (One too many? Seems like you can never overdo "assface", maybe it's just me.)

Regardless, every word, every note…I'm hard pressed for a description of the performance I witnessed because the words don't carry the strength needed for such a feat. The breeze that rippled across a couple thousand people in love with the same song would be easier to pen.

"You had to be there" isn't an overused expression for nothing. To say it was "INSPIRING" seems diminutive and stale compared to the reality of something that moving. Even though I felt like a physical disaster, I never wanted it to end.
After 24 magnificient pieces, it did end, and I figured I'd wait a while, write a few lines as everyone else floated away (you don't walk away from Radiohead, it's in their rider - you either float or glide, your choice). Plus I was parked in Lot Buttfuck, and I really didn't want to be doing the bumper to bumper whilst driving a stick.

I struck up a chat with another straggler in my section, but we were both so WOWED that words seemed like they were in the way of any real conversation.

We were glowing. =)