stick and move

regina spektor sounds better live than anyone you have ever heard in your life.
i am not lying.
i though you all should know...
you may have seen better shows, you may have had a more fun and exciting concert experience, but you will never, ever, ever hear anyone sound better than she does.
goofy perfect.
so go see her if you get the chance.

my fellow concert go-ers reminded me that i am not quite as christ-like as i thought, because they really bugged the shit out of me (not, however, enough to ruin my good time...see i have grown a bit)...because the spice is here for you, let me give you some rules of the concert going road so you won't be a jerk...

know the audience (and they are not your audience). if you are at an arctic monkeys show, noone will probably care or notice if you talk to the person next to you or if you get up for a beer or a piss every five minutes...at a show where folks are expecting to sit and listen? if you do either, during a song...you are a horribly selfish, scumbag of a human being and you should be willing to give every last person within earshot of your idiocy their money back...folks paid to see someone sing and play not listen to your yap. how pathetic is it that tiny beautiful big singing fabulous ms. spektor had to shush people in the front row cause they were bugging her...sick freaks.
ALSO, you ought to realize that noone came to see or hear you. enjoy yourself, move your ass in your seat, humm, hell sing along (quietly and to yourself preferably)...BUT do not shout, do not holler, do not scream anything let alone the lyrics of a song (particularly a ballad), unless you have been encouraged to sing your lungs out by the performer.

know the artist.
i almost felt bad for the poor middle aged women in front of us who brought their husbands only to have them pout indignantly as soon as they hear the word 'fuck' come out of ms. spektors mouth. they had every right to come, be offended and leave early (all of which they did) but don't point fingers gawk and whisper loudly about every dude who walks by with a tatoo or 16 year-old girl with a nose ring...noone cares about your opinion and no one paid for it, so shut the hell up.

unless asked, do not EVER request a song...
no one really believes that you expect to hear that song, we all know that you think you are advertising how big a fan you are by shouting the name of some 'obscure' record that no one but you really knows. here is the deal, unless a performer asks, they aren't gonna play your stupid ass request anyway. we all came to hear them sing/talk/entertain and hear their set list, noone (other than maybe you) came to hear you shout stupid shit.

if everyone else is sitting? sit the fuck down.
now, there are obvious exceptions to this rule.
IF it were the case that you were at the monsters of rock show, in an arena, in 1987 and everyone was sitting while you were dead set on banging the hell out of your mullet to warrant?:?? Then stand on up brother and get the hell down everyone else is an asshole for sitting. BUT if you are the only person in the place standing up during a ballad? then you are the asshole. if you are ver in doubt as to what you should be doing? go with the flow, and the flow is the reast of the people who paid as much if not more than you did to see the damned show.

Sooo, here is how you oughta approach attending a show: you are one among many who paid money to see someone perform for you. that said, you ought to respect the hell out of the person who has the guts and skills to get up in front of a bunch of people and offer up something really fucking scary and beautiful and cool. You also ought to respect the people around you who are just like you and came to be wowed by the person doing the scary beautiful thing that y'all paid that person to do. Last, and perhaps least, respect yourself. Trust me, if you are making a spectacle of yourself in any way, if you are distracting from someone elses enjoyment...then you are really just a big baffoon and noone likes you, even you.

if for some reason you can not follow the above rules, there is only one solution: just go home and never ever venture out in public again...find a job you can tele-commute to, order in, get reallycomfortable with 'e-commerce', find a chat room you like and some good on-line porn and never, ever, ever subject the rest of us to your selfish scumbag idiocy again.

politico spring training is well under way...
time to start checking it out.

smooch