Red Hornet (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} redhornet) wrote,@ 2006-06-25 20:32:00 |
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RedHornet’s 23 Days of Bliss: Day 21
-saw Radiohead with the Cougar
The evening started out ordinarily enough. We decided to take a car to the show because I wasn’t sure that Sadie could make it from the BART to The Greek. I’ve eyeballed it now, and know differently. This becomes important later.
The Cougar was in an incredibly good mood. This is no different than most days, except that today he was chatty, extremely chatty. He’d had a stressful week and vented all the way to Berkeley, which wasn’t funny but I found it amusing because in five years I’ve never heard him complain about anything, and I am usually the one kvetching. But I listened, and made sure that we didn’t miss the exits.
His cell phone rang just as we were turning on to University Avenue. It was the Ex, the one I talked about in a previous entry, the one who wants him back, so says the rumor. She wanted to meet up with us when we got there, her and New Boyfriend. Interesting. Maybe the rumor was not true. He asked me if this was okay and I said of course. I like watching drama unfold, especially when I am only indirectly involved in it.
We crept our way towards campus in the Explorer. I pointed to my disabled parking hang tag as we passed the parking attendants, indicating that we were going to get as close to the main gate as we could with the car, but we were met with blank stares. Strange. Usually, concert parking attendants are more than helpful. I’d been to the Greek twice before tonight, and this time we are directed into a lot that I’d not been in before. I ask the attendant if he is sure this lot is the closest one to the gate. He says yes, just follow the wheelchair path to the front of the theatre. We park in the last disabled space in the lot.
The Cougar unloads my wheelchair and grabs his phone. This is when I realize that I left mine in the apartment. The opening act was just starting. Good, we thought, this means we still have an hour before Radiohead goes on and will have time to grab a beer, especially since our seats are the only reserved ones for the show. We start down the wheelchair path, which is pretty steep. I’ll interject, here, that The Cougar is a big guy and quite strong, more than capable of handling me in the wheelchair, but he has bum knees and really needs surgery but keeps putting it off. The bottom of the path is a dead end, leading into a locked dorm. We go back up the hill and down a different wheelchair path on the other side of the hill. Another dead end. I tell him I feel like Spinal Tap stuck behind the stage and he sings Big Bottom, which makes me laugh. He pushes me up the hill a second time, back to where we started. The Ex calls again, wondering where we are. Over the course of the hour she calls him five more times. Maybe the rumor is true.
We park the wheelchair and he goes for help. I watch him dart up a hill, and across the lawn, down a hill. The opening act is on their last song. I am getting a bit nervous, and worried about the Cougar’s knees. Ten minutes later, he returns.
“I talked to three people and they said they’d help carry you to the back of the lawn but that’s it. People are not being helpful.”
No. No way. There is no way we could see anything from the lawn and if we were going to do this, we might as well stay here in the parking lot with the rest of the ticketless unluckies.
“They said we had to get back in the car and I could drop you off and park again. I said that I wasn’t leaving you just to sit there and wait, but they didn’t seem to give a shit.”
He boosts me back into the Explorer. “I sense an assertive letter coming,” he said.
“I’m going to do it, too.” I said.
“I know you will,” he said.
“I’m sorry about this.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m glad to be here.”
“Welcome to my life,” I said, resting my hand on his shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “Actually, I probably don’t know.”
This relaxed me, for a moment
We drive and talk to the college-kid attendant who directed us to the non-accessible pathways in the first place. He admits that he’s never actually been to scope it out and gets on his radio. He confirms that The Cougar has to drop me off, leave me, and come back and park, but that he can blockade our parking spot.
“Dude, I’m not leaving her,” Cougar said.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“You don’t have your phone.”
“We have to go, we’re going to miss it.”
I’ve been to almost 100 shows, he’s been to almost 300. Missing the first song is tragedy, especially for a show like this one. It’s just not done.
Cougar concedes and drives around to a lot nearest the front gate. Seven police officers stand here and tell us we cannot park in this lot, even though there is a disabled parking space open right in front of us, this lot is for emergency vehicles only.
“Don’t get mad, we’re here, it’s okay,” Cougar says to me.
I hadn’t said anything yet but I’d forgotten how well he knows me. I must have clenched my fists. Right before I’m about to blow a gasket in Staff Meeting, I clench my fists.
Cougar moves the car two more times before the seven unhelpful officers let him help me into the wheelchair once again. They stand and stare and do not help us as I slide on the gravel. Cougar catches me in time, and I glare at the officers.
“Do people always look at you like you’re critically ill?” Cougar says.
“Pretty much,” I say.
The Ex calls again and says we’d better hurry the fuck up, the show is going to start in less than ten minutes. Cougar says that this is not helpful and for a second, they sound like exes. He asks her to send New Boyfriend to meet us at the gate. New Boyfriend is too drunk to meet us.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
“No, I’m getting a glimpse of the bullshit you go through every day, and it’s ridiculous.”
This relaxes me, for a moment.
We get to the gate and Cougar relays how unhelpful the concert staff have been. This leads to a guard plowing us through the sea of bodies, and I do mean plowing through a sea, I have never seen The Greek like this. We get to our spot, which is, of course, caved in with people.
The guard yells, and I do mean yells. “Okay. You are all standing in the ADA section. This is a reserved section and you are not supposed to be standing here. They reserved this spot. I don’t care who moves, but somebody has to, and you have to move now.”
No one moves.
“I mean it. MOVE NOW!”
The crowd parts. Cougar pushes me to the front of the section, then puts his hand on my shoulder and says he’ll be back as soon as he can deal with the car, try to save him a spot.
The crowd tries to cave in around me as soon as Cougar leaves. “He’s coming back!” I yell, equally as loud as had the guard. I kick out my wheelchair footrests and stick out my arms, which causes a woman to spill her beer on my head but does create an effective “Do Not Touch The Hornet” bubble. I wasn’t going to be squished for two hours, and The Cougar was getting his spot back.
Five minutes pass. The band comes out. The first song, Karma Police. No Cougar. Shit.
The second song, no Cougar. By the beginning of the third song, I feel a familiar hand rest on my back. I am relaxed for the rest of the evening. In between songs, Cougar tells me what I missed. First, they weren’t going to let him back in the gates after parking the car because his ticket was already scanned.
“Dude, I just talked with you,” he’d said.
“I don’t remember you,” the guard had said.
“I was just here.”
“Wait, is your wife in a wheelchair?”
“Yes.”
This got him through. Then, he heard The Ex screaming his name. He waved to her. He then thought about getting us a beer but looked at the tent above the stage on the lawn and thought there’s no fucking way I’m walking up another hill. Then, he got back to our section and tall men protective of their short girlfriends’ sight lines would not let him through.
“Dude, my wife’s up there,” he’d said, repeatedly. The crowd parted.
I smiled. From not using friendship language, to married. Very nice.
The show was a fantastic and a nice blend of old and new selections but the set felt short compared to the two three-hour Springsteen marathons I’d just experienced, and everything that led to entering The Greek. But everything was completely worth it. The Cougar thought so, too. We waited for the crowd to disperse and had a few cigarettes. This is when our fortune began to turn. This is when we met Ken and Amber.
Ken and Amber were an extremely cool heavy duty concert going couple from the city who had been standing in our section and offered to help us back to the car. Ken is a fellow upper-midwesterner and Amber and I have been to a lot of the same shows over the years. They agree to wait with me while Cougar got the car and in exchange Cougar offers them a ride home. They are grateful, especially since they are coming right back to The Greek tomorrow for Radiohead #2. Cougar left for the lot, and Amber gave me another cigarette.
“So your man, he really barreled through those other guys to get back to you,” she said. “That was pretty hot.”
That was pretty sexy, I admit.
We drop off Ken and Amber in the Haight and say that we hope to run into them again at another show. “How’d we get so lucky to meet people as cool as that?” Cougar said. Then, we pulled up to my apartment. “Got a beer up there?” he said.
Indeed I did, and we clinked and drank. “Sorry about all the crap,” I said.
“We’re not talking about that anymore,” he said. “I thought about that on the way back to the car tonight, I thought, I bitched all the way to the show and you just let me vent, and then you went through all that bullshit, and I just feel really lucky to have been there.”
I was deeply touched, I felt like the lucky one, and with this, I began to feel more like myself than I have in months, more comfortable than I have in months, and instead of talking about the crap we talked about sex, drugs, music, family, politics and faith, with much laughter interspersed, for three hours. Until he said he had to let me go to bed.
And he left. We started the evening, yes I will use the word now, as friends, and we parted as closer friends. And this did not feel uncomfortable, or impossible, or dangerous or weird or demon-laden for me. It felt natural. Finally.
-saw Radiohead with the Cougar
The evening started out ordinarily enough. We decided to take a car to the show because I wasn’t sure that Sadie could make it from the BART to The Greek. I’ve eyeballed it now, and know differently. This becomes important later.
The Cougar was in an incredibly good mood. This is no different than most days, except that today he was chatty, extremely chatty. He’d had a stressful week and vented all the way to Berkeley, which wasn’t funny but I found it amusing because in five years I’ve never heard him complain about anything, and I am usually the one kvetching. But I listened, and made sure that we didn’t miss the exits.
His cell phone rang just as we were turning on to University Avenue. It was the Ex, the one I talked about in a previous entry, the one who wants him back, so says the rumor. She wanted to meet up with us when we got there, her and New Boyfriend. Interesting. Maybe the rumor was not true. He asked me if this was okay and I said of course. I like watching drama unfold, especially when I am only indirectly involved in it.
We crept our way towards campus in the Explorer. I pointed to my disabled parking hang tag as we passed the parking attendants, indicating that we were going to get as close to the main gate as we could with the car, but we were met with blank stares. Strange. Usually, concert parking attendants are more than helpful. I’d been to the Greek twice before tonight, and this time we are directed into a lot that I’d not been in before. I ask the attendant if he is sure this lot is the closest one to the gate. He says yes, just follow the wheelchair path to the front of the theatre. We park in the last disabled space in the lot.
The Cougar unloads my wheelchair and grabs his phone. This is when I realize that I left mine in the apartment. The opening act was just starting. Good, we thought, this means we still have an hour before Radiohead goes on and will have time to grab a beer, especially since our seats are the only reserved ones for the show. We start down the wheelchair path, which is pretty steep. I’ll interject, here, that The Cougar is a big guy and quite strong, more than capable of handling me in the wheelchair, but he has bum knees and really needs surgery but keeps putting it off. The bottom of the path is a dead end, leading into a locked dorm. We go back up the hill and down a different wheelchair path on the other side of the hill. Another dead end. I tell him I feel like Spinal Tap stuck behind the stage and he sings Big Bottom, which makes me laugh. He pushes me up the hill a second time, back to where we started. The Ex calls again, wondering where we are. Over the course of the hour she calls him five more times. Maybe the rumor is true.
We park the wheelchair and he goes for help. I watch him dart up a hill, and across the lawn, down a hill. The opening act is on their last song. I am getting a bit nervous, and worried about the Cougar’s knees. Ten minutes later, he returns.
“I talked to three people and they said they’d help carry you to the back of the lawn but that’s it. People are not being helpful.”
No. No way. There is no way we could see anything from the lawn and if we were going to do this, we might as well stay here in the parking lot with the rest of the ticketless unluckies.
“They said we had to get back in the car and I could drop you off and park again. I said that I wasn’t leaving you just to sit there and wait, but they didn’t seem to give a shit.”
He boosts me back into the Explorer. “I sense an assertive letter coming,” he said.
“I’m going to do it, too.” I said.
“I know you will,” he said.
“I’m sorry about this.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m glad to be here.”
“Welcome to my life,” I said, resting my hand on his shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “Actually, I probably don’t know.”
This relaxed me, for a moment
We drive and talk to the college-kid attendant who directed us to the non-accessible pathways in the first place. He admits that he’s never actually been to scope it out and gets on his radio. He confirms that The Cougar has to drop me off, leave me, and come back and park, but that he can blockade our parking spot.
“Dude, I’m not leaving her,” Cougar said.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“You don’t have your phone.”
“We have to go, we’re going to miss it.”
I’ve been to almost 100 shows, he’s been to almost 300. Missing the first song is tragedy, especially for a show like this one. It’s just not done.
Cougar concedes and drives around to a lot nearest the front gate. Seven police officers stand here and tell us we cannot park in this lot, even though there is a disabled parking space open right in front of us, this lot is for emergency vehicles only.
“Don’t get mad, we’re here, it’s okay,” Cougar says to me.
I hadn’t said anything yet but I’d forgotten how well he knows me. I must have clenched my fists. Right before I’m about to blow a gasket in Staff Meeting, I clench my fists.
Cougar moves the car two more times before the seven unhelpful officers let him help me into the wheelchair once again. They stand and stare and do not help us as I slide on the gravel. Cougar catches me in time, and I glare at the officers.
“Do people always look at you like you’re critically ill?” Cougar says.
“Pretty much,” I say.
The Ex calls again and says we’d better hurry the fuck up, the show is going to start in less than ten minutes. Cougar says that this is not helpful and for a second, they sound like exes. He asks her to send New Boyfriend to meet us at the gate. New Boyfriend is too drunk to meet us.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
“No, I’m getting a glimpse of the bullshit you go through every day, and it’s ridiculous.”
This relaxes me, for a moment.
We get to the gate and Cougar relays how unhelpful the concert staff have been. This leads to a guard plowing us through the sea of bodies, and I do mean plowing through a sea, I have never seen The Greek like this. We get to our spot, which is, of course, caved in with people.
The guard yells, and I do mean yells. “Okay. You are all standing in the ADA section. This is a reserved section and you are not supposed to be standing here. They reserved this spot. I don’t care who moves, but somebody has to, and you have to move now.”
No one moves.
“I mean it. MOVE NOW!”
The crowd parts. Cougar pushes me to the front of the section, then puts his hand on my shoulder and says he’ll be back as soon as he can deal with the car, try to save him a spot.
The crowd tries to cave in around me as soon as Cougar leaves. “He’s coming back!” I yell, equally as loud as had the guard. I kick out my wheelchair footrests and stick out my arms, which causes a woman to spill her beer on my head but does create an effective “Do Not Touch The Hornet” bubble. I wasn’t going to be squished for two hours, and The Cougar was getting his spot back.
Five minutes pass. The band comes out. The first song, Karma Police. No Cougar. Shit.
The second song, no Cougar. By the beginning of the third song, I feel a familiar hand rest on my back. I am relaxed for the rest of the evening. In between songs, Cougar tells me what I missed. First, they weren’t going to let him back in the gates after parking the car because his ticket was already scanned.
“Dude, I just talked with you,” he’d said.
“I don’t remember you,” the guard had said.
“I was just here.”
“Wait, is your wife in a wheelchair?”
“Yes.”
This got him through. Then, he heard The Ex screaming his name. He waved to her. He then thought about getting us a beer but looked at the tent above the stage on the lawn and thought there’s no fucking way I’m walking up another hill. Then, he got back to our section and tall men protective of their short girlfriends’ sight lines would not let him through.
“Dude, my wife’s up there,” he’d said, repeatedly. The crowd parted.
I smiled. From not using friendship language, to married. Very nice.
The show was a fantastic and a nice blend of old and new selections but the set felt short compared to the two three-hour Springsteen marathons I’d just experienced, and everything that led to entering The Greek. But everything was completely worth it. The Cougar thought so, too. We waited for the crowd to disperse and had a few cigarettes. This is when our fortune began to turn. This is when we met Ken and Amber.
Ken and Amber were an extremely cool heavy duty concert going couple from the city who had been standing in our section and offered to help us back to the car. Ken is a fellow upper-midwesterner and Amber and I have been to a lot of the same shows over the years. They agree to wait with me while Cougar got the car and in exchange Cougar offers them a ride home. They are grateful, especially since they are coming right back to The Greek tomorrow for Radiohead #2. Cougar left for the lot, and Amber gave me another cigarette.
“So your man, he really barreled through those other guys to get back to you,” she said. “That was pretty hot.”
That was pretty sexy, I admit.
We drop off Ken and Amber in the Haight and say that we hope to run into them again at another show. “How’d we get so lucky to meet people as cool as that?” Cougar said. Then, we pulled up to my apartment. “Got a beer up there?” he said.
Indeed I did, and we clinked and drank. “Sorry about all the crap,” I said.
“We’re not talking about that anymore,” he said. “I thought about that on the way back to the car tonight, I thought, I bitched all the way to the show and you just let me vent, and then you went through all that bullshit, and I just feel really lucky to have been there.”
I was deeply touched, I felt like the lucky one, and with this, I began to feel more like myself than I have in months, more comfortable than I have in months, and instead of talking about the crap we talked about sex, drugs, music, family, politics and faith, with much laughter interspersed, for three hours. Until he said he had to let me go to bed.
And he left. We started the evening, yes I will use the word now, as friends, and we parted as closer friends. And this did not feel uncomfortable, or impossible, or dangerous or weird or demon-laden for me. It felt natural. Finally.
