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I have a low tolerance for bullshit (an even lower one for dogshit, but horseshit is ok by me - interesting how Microsoft allows "horse" and "bull" to be connected to "shit" with no static, but "dogshit" brings up a red squiggle).
I'm the person that will call someone out on taking CUTS, and I'm definitely THAT snippy snip who tells you to shut the fuck up if you're yapping next to me at the movies (if your cell rings during a flick, I'll destroy it without blinking).
It's gotten my ass kicked a few times, no question, but I can't seem to help myself.
Once, I was driving with a friend to Orlando and between there and Tampa the exits are a bit creepy (a la "Deliverance"). We stopped at some gas station called "Skeeters" or some such name that most assuredly had "Bob's" as the suffix (Jim-Bob's, Joe-Bob's, or Bob-Bob's), and I went in to pay alone.
I got in line behind 3 little girls, who were next to buy candy behind some non-descript woman. Just as said woman was finishing her transaction, this gi-normous trucker came in and blatantly inserted himself right in front of the girls like they were invisible.
Out of reflex, I playfully blurted "Hey, no CUTS Cowboy!"
He turned around, looked at the girls, then me and smugly replied "I don't see nobody." (Let me note for visual and political purposes that the kids were black, I was about half way through my "Goth" phase at the time, and the trucker looked like someone that ceremonially licks confederate flags when whacking off.)
My 5'2 stature doesn't even intimidate a feral cat, let alone a 6'4, redneck racist, but somehow my mouth missed that judgment call, and I completely unleashed on that ass hole. Nothing gets my hackles up like racism, except sexism, but they usually go hand in hand (most racists are sexist and homophobes to boot, it's a package deal…check for details at your local Wal Mart).
I didn't want to make it about race in front of those kids, so instead, I called him a "dickless piece of shit that only feels like a man when demeaning females" hoping to give it a sexist angle. Not that sexism is any better than racism; no one likes to feel "less than" in any capacity, but at least if it was sexist, it didn't paint the girls as the sole targets of his sick rudeness.
"Dickless" seemed unfettered by my barbs, at least I thought so till he made for the door and casually slammed me down into a rack of genetically modified goods along his way. The force knocked me pretty hard, and when tailbone meets cement floor, it's so not a party. It's more akin to that funny bone pain (x 10) one gets that completely stuns you, momentarily seizing your breath. Being on the receiving end of a "back punch" has similar results. Anyone with siblings can attest to that.
I walked away with a bruised tailbone, some cuts, scrapes, heaps of disappointment, and a buttload of shock. I usually got away with shooting my mouth off. Not this time. You'd think being batted around a bit would deter me in future, but the Chihuahua in me that's unaware of size differences, is in full belief that verbally expelling at any injustice is standard protocol, despite the consequences.
Last week at the Radiohead concert (yeah I'm never gonna shut up about them, ever) the seats to my left were no-shows, till these drunken behemoths filled them half way through "15 Step". I was standing, happily glued to my binoculars when the WIDE one slammed into me, imposing himself right into my line of vision. I didn't even pull the binoculars from my eyes as I swiftly shoved him out of the way. A knee jerk reaction, and a mighty pissy one at that, but it was my seat, my band, and NOTHING was gonna knock me around without threats of a possible skull fracture that evening.
Luckily, he wasn't a total tool and he apologized for his clumsiness, of course, not till after I Satanically coughed and sneezed all over him (should be filling his script for Cipro about now, sinus infections apparently are contagious-oops).
I suggested that since he was bigger, he should get situated behind me as the rows were quite wide. Then he could flail around all he wanted. We switched places, and rainbows shot out of both of our asses in tandem. All was right with the world once again, sans bloodshed.
Odd how initially getting physical worked out better than the verbal. I guess next time someone takes CUTS, I'll punch them in the throat.
(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. =)
One week from tomorrow (May 6), Radiohead will be gracing Tampa with a concert, and I don't have a ticket. =( I guess I got an attack of the "schmucks" when they went on sale, thinking like I was back in NYC where the formal buying of such commodities was next to impossible. Even if you camped out and were 3rd in line with your cell phone speed dialing Ticketmaster, in Manhattan, this means nothing.
"Sold Out" only sounds good when it's your gig; otherwise it's a car door slamming on an already cold hand.
When I first moved to New York, Radiohead was touring, but raising John Lennon from the dead for a square dance would have been more feasible than getting tickets to see them. I even went to ask Satan in Newark (if there is a Devil, he for sure lives in Newark, New Jersey) for a possible selling of the soul, but he was all "Sorry bitch, even if you had one of them soul thingy's, ain't NOBODY gettin' no Radiohead tickets up in here". (This evening, the voice of Satan is brought to you by Ru Paul, the only girl I'd kiss with tongue, and even then…)
I went down to the venue the night of the show anyways, in hopes that someone maybe got jilted, stuck with extras, or maybe I'd just kill a scalper and take what he had on him. Alas, there was nothing.
I felt so dejected, I usually am pretty resourceful and I really love Radiohead, but maybe I was never going to get to see them LIVE? My head sunk right down to my belly button and just rested there on my belt buckle as I reluctantly drowned in Lake Give Up. It's in Midtown on the West Side, if you're ever in the neighborhood.
I can't recall who all was with me, but I remember leading the pack when we finally decided to bail. I walk fast, and on this night I was doing that bitchy, impatient, "everyone get the fuck out of my way" stomp one does when disappointment so nonchalantly pisses on them.
On approaching the crosswalk, there was a cluster of people facing away from the street. Traffic was light so I stepped off the curb early to get around them. At the precise moment my boot heel kissed pavement, one guy from the cluster quickly did a 180 counterclockwise, completely unaware that I was directly behind him in the street preceding this act.
I wish I could tell you that our eyes met and that we now breed Andalusian horses together in Spain, or that a bus hit me and from the waist down I am now bionic and can leap over mid-sized SUVs while eating cheese fries. But no, that's not what happened.
Look to the right of this page and you'll see my avatar photo where I'm brushing my hair back with my hand. I was doing that exact thing when this clusterfuck turned around and hacked a goob right into my freshly revealed ear!
I screamed so loud, my future self in 20 years felt it. The chill in the air compounded the feeling of warm, wet, foreign goob (as if "friendly" goob would've been any better) leaking down onto my neck as I fell to my knees like I had been shot. One's hand wants to immediately clutch where the assault has taken place, but my fantastic aversion to snot/phlegm provided a small force field so instead, I probably looked like I was doing "jazz hands" with one hand while the other was pointing at the HE that took me down.
I don't remember his hollow apology or how long I convulsed over it, but the thought of it gives me the skeeves to this day, man. ICK! All my poor ear wanted that evening was to hear "Fake Plastic Trees" live, which it did do eventually (three times), and hopefully will again.
My trip to New Mexico next month totally came together today so maybe fate will keep smiling my way and send me a great seat (not lawn-bugs yuck) next week in front of one of the only bands that can totally generate the WOW for me. =)
