--{ on missing modest mouse }------
So I missed Modest Mouse tonight, due to my own personal lack of planning. I'd been meaning to get tickets, see, over the phone through credit card or something. But I was lame and preoccupied with all this apartment business. So by the time I dropped by the Black Cat in DC, it was sold out. And the ticket dude's words were: "Don't give me that look. I don't pity you. Tickets have been on sale for two months."
But I figured I'd drop by the place the night of the concert (seeing that it's just around the corner from the apartment where I'm staying anyways), just to give it a chance. Oh. My. God.
It was the worst ticket scene I'd ever seen. Never, never had I seen as low a chance of getting tickets as this night. Sixty people, at least, were roaming up and down 14th Street, looking for tickets. It was almost a matter of racial profiling -- marauding groups of ticketless fans would harass any skinny white guy with glasses they'd see, yelling "Got any extra tickets?" The response would inevitably be "No, do you?"
At first we were all organized, we marauding ticketless vagrants we. We were nicely aligned along the wall of the club, sitting against the wall. Some groups were groaning about how they didn't know this would sell out. Other groups were talking Nietzsche. Will to power. Getting tickets. You know, stuff that goes together.
Me, I was lone single girl, just bopping around the corner in the hopes of snagging a ticket. My expectations weren't high. I figured I'd already used up my good karma by managing to get an apartment. Surely no supreme being would favor me yet again. I was just there for the ride.
And the ride was long, but fun. As I said, different bands of geeky skinny white kids with glasses would come by, and we (the ticketless vagrants) would harass them for tickets. But none of them did. As one ticketless kid said, "There's no way this'll work. The people who like Modest Mouse, they're loners and have no friends. They're not the types of people who'd buy a bunch of extra tickets."
Yeah.
We wandered up and down 14th Street, staring at each other with mean, suspicious eyes. Every ticketless person was a competitor for the few spare tickets there were around. People were nervously friendly, but there was a layer of antagonism beneath it all. "Those tickets are mine," our squints warned.
Eventually, various ticketless gangs coalesced. There was the largest group, of course, that clustered around the Black Cat right at 14th and S. They huddled around the entrance, hoping for a magical feline mascot to emerge from the club, spreading peace and extra tickets to all. They were rebuffed by the mean bouncers who would periodically scream, "It's sold out! No more tickets!"
There were the groups up at 14th and U, or even 13th and U, asking all those who emerged from the U Street/Cardozo station if they had tickets and if they would please sell them. And there were smaller groups (amongst these groups, the group I joined) all along 14th between U and S. Together, all of us formed a veritable gauntlet of "Tickets please?" from the subway station all the way up to the club.
The clubgoers, the shiny happy ticket owners, they laughed at us and our pitiful requests. "I'd sell my soul for these tickets!" one of them yelled. Some of us would've too, but no longer had the chance, apparently. We were sad; "we" meaning the little group I was part of -- me, these three George Washington University college kids (the Nietzsche followers), a GW college couple, and a junior high school teacher and his brother.
Eventually, it turned out that the couple had only one ticket between them. And oh-so-sweetly they'd decided that if they couldn't score another ticket, they would sell the single one they had and leave. No concert would split them apart. Of the remaining people, only two had the will to power. (I was not one of the two; like I said, I felt like I had my share of good karma of the day. Plus I figure it's a long life, there'll be other chances to see Modest Mouse again. Sometimes it sucks being so nicey nice.) The two were the brother of the junior high school teacher and one of the Nietzsche-loving college kids.
We decided how to award the ticket. The ticket wanters were to duel. To participate in a meaningful duel of strength and skill. Thumb war. It was a thing of beauty. Never have I seen thumb wrestling taken so seriously, done so masterfully. The opponents circled each other during their match, and the match lasted well over the minute it usually takes thumb war opponents.
Simon, the brother of the junior high school teacher, won. But he actually wanted to see the Shins, who was opening for Modest Mouse. And by the time he would have gotten in (the line was slow, slow, slow) he feared he would miss the Shins. So he gave his spoils to the college kid, who seemed very happy.
Eventually, the college couple and Simon, Mike (the junior high school teacher) and I took off in different directions. (The Nietzsche trio had already broken up, leaving the single Nietzsche kid to battle in thumb wars alone.) The Nietzsche kid was suitably grateful to Simon for the ticket. And Simon and Mike, who were living around Mt. Pleasant, they wanted to know a good place for a beer around here.
I suggested Saloon, my favorite bar in the neighborhood. The same place I'd hung out in law school -- all mellow and relaxed but with weird fancy elements, like a large Belgian beer selection. I had gone there enough that I knew the bartender/owner, Abe. (I would do the accent mark over the e, but I can't, so fuckit, I'll call him Abie, pronounced Ah-bee, to make it more clear.)
It was a good hanging out session. I like hanging out with indie music fans, even though I feel like I have to be ashamed of my evil lawyergirl background. We drank beer, talked about random things (concerts, Simon and Mike's times in Sicily, Mike and my time in different cities in Japan, teaching, kids, etc). They told me about the fun hangouts in Baltimore (Mike had just moved from Baltimore) and I got to see Abie again, one of the people in DC I'd actually missed. For a night of missing Modest Mouse, it was remarkably good.
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