Old Before My Time

Some people, like my father-in-law, stay young no matter how old they get. He will probably remain oddly hip for his entire life. Then, on the other side of the map, there are people like me who get old young and just stay old. Tandy, Tom and I went to the Dylan concert last night in Portland. Following the advice of Tom's Dylan-fanatic-friend we went down to the floor and found a spot on the right side facing the stage. It was crowded during the great warmup by The Raconteurs, which I enjoyed tremendously. I am less of a White Stripes fan than I am a fan of Brendan Benson. I first heard his music on the excellent podcast The Sounds in My Head.

Anyhow, during the thirty or fourty-five minutes it took for crew to break down The Raconteur's set and setup Dylan's set people really jammed into the floor area. We were being sandwhiched between the people in front of the stage and the people trying to wedge by us to get there. The crowd was generally well behaved, but the beer was flowing strong during that long delay. Dylan came on with some good tunes and the crowd started to push in even more. I was already getting a little fed up with being smashed in, having beer spilled on my and, honestly, my prematurely old man ears were starting to hurt a little bit. It is hard getting old...

Just before Dylan's third song two idiot weight-room jocks litterally slammed me out of the way. This got them not to the stage, but litterally right in front of me. My spot was really not all that great! Thankfully, there were so many people to my left that I did not actually fall down. Then the stupid jock's drunk, stoned, idiot girlfriend starting grabbing people nearby rubbing herself all over them and saying, over and over again "Hey! It's Bob!" Apparently, she cannot read the ticket stub, which would have revealed to her this startling piece of information. I pretty much don't like people manhandling me, but as a Geek(tm) I also don't particularly like random women groping me.

It wasn't long before drunk jock-girlfriend zeroed in on the person she was making most unhappy, me, and came over to reveal to me the secret name of the headliner act. Crushed right up against me, attempting to dance, so fricking close I could smell the beer on her breath she kept saying, "Hey man, it's Bob." I tried to give her a look that said, "Unhand me you drunk idiot." but the message was lost in translation. When her pursuation gave turned to repetitions of "You have to feel the music it." and "This isn't TV." I lost it. "Look lady, you are my problem here. How about you move along?" Needless to say, she was dumbfounded, stood there and then moved along to other people. Tandy later found out her name was "Judy," which must be Mainer for "I'm a total dumbass".

It was too late for me to have any fun at all. At this point, everything that happened just amplified my pissed-off-ness. My ears hurt the two jock-jerks and their dumb girlfriends where knocking into people in their attempt to dance. I mean, who on earth dances elbows-out in the crowd on the floor of a concert? I was so irritated I could not feel the music at all. I figured if I stayed, my "I'm unhappy vibe" would just ruin things for Tandy and Tom, so I bailed. I walked down to Deweys for an Otter Creak Copper Ale, and then walked home over the bridge .