Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

Well, random thoughts took me to a Prince concert recently. The whole experience was amazing, and I’d like to tell you all about it. Let me go back a little first. The concert came up in conversation with Drinking Buddy a few weeks prior. I told him I had thought about going, but I would have to be at work early the next day. He didn’t think that was a good excuse. I thought it over for a few days, and realized he was right. I’m already too good at letting life pass me by. Too much Dante and not enough Randall, too much T.S. and not enough Brodie, too much Holden and not enough Alyssa, too much Felix and not enough Oscar, too much Spock and not enough McCoy. You get the idea. More thoughts on this later, but if you knew me you’d probably have a good idea of what I’ll be saying.
So I got my one ticket. The seat was good, but you know what? I took notes while I was there. I’ll just put them in for you.
12:15. 7 hours, 15 minutes away. Things are settled for a few minutes here at work, and I have time to write a little. Wolfie (by the way, I have a huge crush on her; more on that later) suggested I wear a Prince shirt from the concert to work tomorrow. Drinking Buddy agreed, but at least he was willing to draw the line at mascara, which Wolfie suggested as well. I informed them neither was very likely. It doesn’t seem like a concert shirt is appropriate workplace attire, at least in our workplace.
6:20 pm. On line. Not at the computer, but at the concert. My ticket says 7:30; who knows when the doors open. This is a pretty good line. Everyone is friendly, without actually talking to me (I can never hold up my end of a conversation anyway; more on that later). Of course waiting on line involves two types of people: the people actually in line, and the people that seem to always be wandering up and down next to the line. Maybe three or four concert hotties passing by, but lots of good looking average girls (remind me to tell you more about them later, and sexy souls, remind me to tell you about them, too). There’s a pretty little park across the street. Nice, pleasant, peaceful. Beautiful lawn. At the opposite corner from the concert hall is a really nice looking building. 425 W. Santa Clara St. Colliers International, it says. I seem to remember Collier’s Magazine, but these couldn’t be the same people, could they? This building may be brand new, but it looks like an older building. Lots of nice detailing on the exterior, really nice. If you happen to drive by, park your car, sit on a bench in the park, and take some time to appreciate this building. There’s so much beauty in life. I seem to appreciate it now more than ever (maybe I’ll tell you more about that sometime). Oh! Here’s a man with a Jesus Hates Sin sign. He seems to be protesting the concert. Very negative though. Jesus Hates Sin. Not a very uplifting or positive motivator. I mean he should have had a sign saying Jesus Loves You. After all, don’t they say hate the sin but love the sinner?
6:35. Moving now. In the door. I heard they were giving free copies of the new CD to everyone at the concert, but I couldn’t quite picture some guy with a stack of boxes filled with CD’s. Sure enough, there was a guy with a stack of boxes filled with CD’s. Not in a jewel case, but just a cardboard sleeve shrink wrapped in plastic. I got in pretty quickly, so the hallways were fairly obstacle free. Slow people in front of you can be so annoying, even when you’re not in traffic. Lots more concert hotties in here. What, was I in the Uglo-American line outside? Where do they come form?
Buying a shirt is usually a problem for me. I can be rather finicky, which means it’s hard to find a shirt I like. On the other hand, I would feel like an ass if I left a concert without a shirt. It’s just a given that I’ll get one. It’s part of the ritual of the concert experience. Luckily, this time I did find one I liked ok. XL is the biggest they have of this shirt. Need to get skinnier I guess. Then again, I don’t think I’ve worn a single concert shirt I’ve ever bought. This is probably because I spent too much time in my youth collecting comics. I also have a really difficult time throwing things away. Maybe I can go into that another time. BB tells me it’s related to why I hate to go to bed. Ask me later. So maybe I don’t want the shirts to wear out? Could be. Now that I think of it, I almost never wear shirts with picture or logos or whatever on them.
Section 107, Row 8, Seat 14.This concert hall is in other times the home of a professional hockey team. I was pleasantly surprised by the setup. Many bands I’ve seen in indoor arenas set up stage at one of the short ends (at one end of a basketball court, for example), with the available seats forming a sort of capital “U”. Not so for Prince. His stage is right at center ice. Since my seat is 8 rows up behind the goal, I’m in pretty good shape. Don’t be too jealous though, there were still 23 rows of floor seats between me and the stage.
Dang. I just looked over my notes and saw I’m only a little over a third of the way through them. The problem with random thoughts is that new ones are always coming along to distract me. Well I’m trying to be less of a quitter, so I’ll keep going. I often think of concerts as being for young people. I often think of lots of things as being for young people. Problem is, I’m getting older, and I don’t necessarily want to give up all of those younger people things. At the other end of the spectrum, the older people I know seem to be getting younger. Or perhaps I should say that ten years ago, I might have said someone over 50 is old, but now you have to be pushing 70 to be old in my eyes. I’m just going by years to keep things simple; I realize that some people age more gracefully than others.
Anyway, there were lots of older people there. Now the older men are generally ok, but a surprising number, or perhaps I should say a disturbing number, of the older women seem to think they’re still 18 and have a shot at being selected in a groupie sweep. They don’t seem to be aware of the ick factor in overage trampiness. I’m not saying anything against trampiness, I’m all for it when it’s done by someone who can pull it off. These women can’t. They have problems, age related or otherwise, that make them unqualified for the tramp look. A little tip ladies, and I’m not just talking to the waitresses: if you attempt trampiness and you can’t pull it off, you end up looking like a skank. And not the good skank either; you’re bad skank.
7:19 - quick estimate. Seats 10% full. And this thing starts at 7:30?
The restrooms are really nice here. Everything is shiny and polished looking, and nobody’s pulling a Van Halen. I see I devoted four pages of my mini-notebook to a diatribe on the subject of stairways in stadiums. I’ll spare you the details. Saw a guy dressed like Prince. Looked a lot like him. Also with him, a guy wearing an orange fuzzy Henry Blake hat. Now I don’t mean fuzzy like it’s made of felt. This thing looks like Einstein dyed his hair orange, shaved it, and glued it to this guys hat. He also has a tambourine. Ok he just wandered closer and I see his shirt is the same sort of orange fuzzy too. This thing looks like Robin Williams and Albert Brooks dyed their back hair orange, shaved it, and glued it to this guys shirt. And if either of you read this, please know I only refer to you in the spirit of colorful metaphor. I worship Albert Brooks, truly. And Robin Williams is ok too.
I didn’t mean just to pick on the girls earlier. These older guys have their problems too. Unless you’re a member of Warrant or Poison, do you really need the long hair? I haven’t seen this many ponytails since I ran last place at the Kentucky Derby.
7:57 - maybe half full now. Ok I guess I should say now that outside of the Purple Rain CD, I only know maybe 5 or 6 songs by Prince. I only mention this because I had thought about trying to keep track of what songs he played. Probably not going to happen.
This place has folding seats that pop up when no one is sitting in them. Some people just sit, slowly, letting the weight of their hiney regions push the seat down under them. Some people like to push the seat down with their hands, then do a sort of turn and squat maneuver into the seat. Some of the people in this second group are women. Some of these women happen to wear very low cut spaghetti strap style tops. Some of these women happen to be facing directions that are rather fortunate for people looking in the right direction. One of these women happened to be facing in my direction. Whoever you are, bless you.
Can women really complain about guys looking at them? I’ll say it. Women are great to look at. Everyone knows it. Just ask the Mona Lisa. How many millions of people have come by to look at your kid’s art, proudly displayed with magnets, in what I like to call the “Refrigerator” wing of the family museum? You’ve been to concerts. You know the women I’m talking about. Can there be any other reason a woman would dress this way, in a climate controlled environment? This sort of woman marches in her spiked heels to the beat of the heart of our society: advertising. You think a company like Ford spends millions on advertising in the hope that no one will want to “test drive” the car? Now I’m not advocating a return to some sort of Golden-Agey Ed Sullivanian attire of three piece suits for men and ankle length dresses for women. And trust me, I was never voted best dressed in my high school. I don’t even know if I would be voted best dressed in my own house. The cat’s been looking pretty sharp lately. Oh look! Two hotties next to me. Amy and Shannon. So sweet. With the blonde and the cute and the smiles their little round faces, you know what I mean. I would learn later that Amy and Shannon smoke pot, and never learned to share. I talk big. Yeah, as if I’d know what to do if they did offer. Probably pee my pants. And of course I couldn’t tell on them. I’m a guy. When we see a pretty woman, our brains revert to Grand Master Albert mode. Like Billy Batson yelling “SHAZAM!”, a pretty woman allows us to channel Einstein’s IQ through the mind of a chess Grand Master, scanning all the future timelines that end up with the woman sleeping with us. Unfortunately our brains slavishly devote themselves to this end, and everything else ends up controlled by Rain Man’s slower cousin. This is why guys crash their cars while looking at a woman walking on the sidewalk.
8:19 - Upper deck 90% full, lower level 75% full, floor seats 50% full. Ha Ha. There’s this guy I saw from behind far away and I thought he looked like Rod Stewart with short hair. He just walked by a little closer. Looks more like Sid Vicious now.
One more thing real fast. In my mind, I always pictured Los Gatos as a rinky dink type town. Small townish. Looking at the ads in here, I see that Los Gatos has a Hummer dealership. Hummer. I can’t get over it. Oh the muses really smiled on the bastard that got that name going. I mean naming a phallic symbol with a code word for a b.j., man that takes real balls.
And then the music started.
Later, Special K and I learned through mutual friends that we were both at the same concert.