legal gatherings (a throwback)

so, all KINDS of good concerts on the horizon in austin, texas…chemical brothers…pink…garbage…jewel…no doubt…bush….p.o.d…..stone temple pilots….crystal method…willie nelson….and you know what they all have in common? ME. (and my wonderful company) at some point, i’ll wander into all of them. these are the times i was SO warned about two years ago when i got my job….

“sean”, our v.p. said (he always calls me sean…guess it’s ’cause that’s my name and all), “when a good show is coming to town, you’re gonna notice something. a trend. an UGLY trend. friends you haven’t heard from in FOREVER are gonna call you. often. talking about, ‘how long it’s been’…’we need to hang out’….’i miss us running around together’….and it’s all BULLSHIT. they don’t miss you. they don’t like you. they know the show at the backyard is sold the fuck out, and there is VERY few ways in, and that you, buddy boy, are one of those ways. they think you can snap your fingers and make that kinda shit happen. maybe you can, maybe you can’t. but as far as THOSE weaselly sons-of-bitches are concerned, you CAN’T. no way. no day. no motherfuckin’ how. when your phone goes off, and you think, “damn…been a while since i talked to them; check your eGuide (the list of shows accessible to us tic folk) and see what’s coming up…think about that person’s taste in music…and ask yourself, ‘why did this person pick NOW, two days before the sold out, tickets going for $150 on eBay, system of a down show to rekindle our ‘friendship’?”

valid fucking point. but he forgot one crucial element that blow’s the whole theory the fuck out of the water and ruins it from ever running it’s course. i have no friends.

(just kidding)

actually, i have REAL friends…the kind that don’t ask that of me, and rarely approach me for tickets..and 99% of the time when they do, the requests fall into two distinct categories:

a. totally no problem

or…

b. you gotta be out your motherfuckin’ mind

an example of ‘a’? kramer asked me to see if he could get a SINGLE ticket to a sold out jerry jeff walker birthday show because jerry had announced his special guest would be mr. margaritaville himself, jimmy buffet. but he also said he would PAY for the ticket, he just wanted to still get one even though the show was TOTALLY sold out. while i am FAR from cool (yeah, right!!!) i have cool friends in good places (and we ran into the right one in the VIP section at the fatboy slim show), and kramer ended up front fucking row with only 24 hours notice to the tune of only about $30. all is well. TOTALLY no problem.

now, flash forward a few weeks. somebody who hasn’t called me in SO long she had to call a mutual friend and get my number, calls out of the blue, and keeps leaving, “hey sweetie, call me…..” messages. THREE IN ONE NIGHT!!! knowing she didn’t have my number, and seeing as how she hadn’t called me in over a YEAR, i called the one person i knew she could have gotten it from (and i had no beef with her getting it, as long as it was just for friendship purposes) turns out that even though she already HAD tickets to a show (acquired for free through other means), she wanted to get backstage, and thought i would be the person who could accomplish this for her. could i? couldn’t i? did i? didn’t i? refer to option b, kids…you gotta be out your motherfuckin’ mind.

there are times it is SO nice to be one of the few men on the planet that DOESN’T think with the smaller head. i used 10ga steel to lobotomize that son of a bitch in july of 1996, and have seen through SO much bullshit ever since…concert etiquette part two to follow later…

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Hey man, can you, like, spot me a Weird Al ticket? Just like old times.. when we started that mosh pit, ya know?.. (sure)