Bongos, Hands and Concerts...OH MY!

December the 10^th… damn. 17 days until vacation!!

I had a fairly busy weekend.

Dinner with friends at Don Pablo’s on Friday night and still didn’t have any alcohol, even though a margarita didn’t sound like a bad idea.

Saturday I shopped, after sleeping in.

It was half price day at the Goodwill, and I certainly can’t pass that up!!

The weather was warm here in the Ohtucky yet cool enough for a hat and boots, but no coat was required.

The new hat and new boots.

After the Goodwill, I headed to Old Navy.

I may not have said this before, but I hate parking lots.  There are a couple of reasons. 

One, I can seldom ever find my car.  I know that’s not the parking lot’s fault, per say, but the design makes it difficult.  Thankfully some lots have the areas numbered.  I promptly take photos of these numbers (thanks for the suggestion KR!).  I think they should all have cuter monikers, “Shopaholic 1”, “Cheapskate 4”, “RudeAss 7”, “CloseShopper 9”, “Haggard Shopkeeper 3”, “Raincheck 11”…I could go on and on.

Two, the way some dumbasses insist on parking.  Below is a case in point.

This jerk was parked within 10 spaces of the store.  So… he (I’m assuming) is an asshole AND lazy (I was assuming that the driver is a dude, not that he’s an asshole and lazy, that’s evident).  If you have a vehicle that you’re terrified of getting dinged, wouldn’t it be prudent to park farther out in the parking lot?  There were plenty of unoccupied spots in the far reaches of the lot.  But people who park like this always have an undeserved sense of entitlement…  I truly wanted to key the shit out of this truck, based on principle alone.

As I stood in the parking lot taking a photo of this idiot’s truck, a couple walked by, smiled and nodded at me.  They knew what I was going to do; social media can be a beautiful thing.  I put the pic on my Facebook page with the caption “This is how assholes park”.  This disappointing thing about this particular ass is that he’s a Free Mason, as is evidenced by the square and compass sticker on the back window.  Mason’s are supposed to be GOOD members of society; this jerk-face needs to be booted if you asked me… which no one did.

Three, the holes.  There are always divots in parking lots that are protected by some force field that makes them impossible to see until you’ve fallen in one. 

So, as I was walking out of the Old Navy, I tripped in one.  Thankfully I didn’t do a face plant, but it has to be an amusing site if you were walking near me.  As soon as it happened, I looked up to make sure that the non-parking asshole wasn’t there and watching me, he wasn’t.  Even though he was unaware of what I said about him, I didn’t want him to get ANY amusement from my plight.

Interestingly, when I looked back, I still didn’t see that fucking hole, the force field quickly recovered.

Once, a few years ago, I was leaving my office. Our parking lot, at the time, had several holes, divots, low spots, ravines and a couple of hollers.  So, I was booking it out of the office one warm summer afternoon, late for an event.  I was dressed pretty cute with Capri pants and a darling pair of wedge heels.

For me this was a dangerous combination… fast walking + cute wedge heels + parking lot ravines = parking lot face plant.

I was no more than 15 steps out of the door when…

BLAM

Face first on the black top.  Not even enough time to throw out a hand to try and catch myself.

So what does one do when such a thing happens in a public place?

Jump straight up and try and act like nothing happened.

I hobbled to my car as nonchalantly as possible.  When I got in I examine the damage.  My left knee looked like it had spent some time in a meat grinder, blood was dripping down on my cute, mother fucking wedge heels, the skin was scraped off both elbows and there was a hole in the Capri pants.  My knee hurt so bad that I just sat there and cried.  There was a lady who was walking near me when I fell, I didn’t see her, because I had tunnel vision, with my only goal being to get safely in my car.

She walked up to my window, knocked on it and asked if I was ok.  I recognized from a nearby office.

“I’m fine” I lied through a forced smile.

So that evening I limped around at the entire event. GO ME.

My third stop of the shopping trip was Pier One, where I found a hand to add to the hand collection!!

Angus looks like he doesn't trust the hand.

Then I hit Guitar Center, where I FINALLY got a set of bongos! Now I have a tambourine, maracas, a cow bell and now BONGOS, oh yea!!

By the way, I did buy a gift in there; I wasn’t shopping STRICTLY for myself.

Saturday night was the Seven Mary Three concert at the Madison Theater (http://www.madisontheateronline.com/index.php).  I USUALLY love the Madison, I’ve seen some really good shows there, and generally love the vibe.

This was far from the truth on Saturday night.

I have several complaints, which could totally have been rectified by the theater.

#1 Huge crowd. 

Now big crowds, in general, I don’t have a problem with. I’ve been to other shows there in the past that had crowds that were ridiculously small, which I blamed on poor marketing.

However, the Madison has a sweet balcony, which was not opened Saturday night.  I don’t know if they have to sell a certain number of seats before they open the balcony or not, but it was so packed that it would have made the show a lot more enjoyable had they opened it.

#2 Lack of crowd control.

I swear, the way this crowd was acting, one would have thought that they were giving away free PBR.

However, they were not.

I’m not a concert virgin, I’ve seen some rowdy crowds before, and I’m ok with that. Everyone buys a ticket and is entitled to their good time.

But for fuck’s sake, throwing drinks over the crowd and at one point someone threw a drink on stage.  Which prompted a band member to throw a drink out into the audience.

Fuck that noise.

Usually there are security guys everywhere, this night I only spotted 2.

#3 Sound sucked.

Their sound was AWFUL.  Whoever was running sound had no fucking idea what they were doing.  If you were on the floor you couldn’t hear anything but bass.

People all around me were grumbling about it.

At one point some guy behind me was screaming “Your sound guy sucks” not just once but over and over, getting progressively louder.  He was basically screaming right in my ear.  He wasn't lying.

I finally turned around to say “DUDE, SHUT UP” only to find I was yelling at a man that was about 6’3” and a good 300#.  I said my peace and turned back around, cringing a little bit.

He did listen to the 5’3” girl with red hair, and he shut up. I must be intimidating… yea that’s right.  And he OBVIOUSLY wasn’t yelling in my ear, since there was at least a 12” height difference, but it sure sounded like it.

At that point, we moved from the floor, but the crowd was just as miserable up there.  Finally, I said “FUCK IT”  I decided I’d catch them at a motorcycle rally someplace, where crowd are more civilized and maybe the venue will have their shit together.

I usually recommend the Madison, highly.  It’s always been a great place to see a show.  Kenny Wayne Shepherd blew the doors off that place a couple of years ago, The Heartless Bastards were phenomenal, and that was an enormous, super cool crowd. Interestingly, the balcony wasn’t open that night either, and I would have thought the crowd would have warranted it.

Anyway, I’ll have to see another GOOD show there before I’ll recommend it any more.  I won’t say that I’ll never go again; I mean if Taddy Porter comes back, my ass will definitely be there!

That was only the second time I've left a show before the headliner.  The last time wasn't my choice, I was escorted out by 2 very nice State Policemen.  A story for another time.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, more Christmas shopping, napping, cleaning, the usual weekend stuff…

I did observe again this weekend that tattoos seem to make me more approachable.  This weekend I had several people (men) ask where I got my “art”, specifically asking about the dragonfly and complimenting me on it.  But they were all respectful enough that they did not touch me.

One guy seemed to be flirting, the other was an employee in a store I was shopping in, he also showed me his tattoos and whipped out his cell to show me his wife’s newest tattoo.  We talked shops a little bit, I, however, didn’t pull up my sleeves to show my other tattoos.

I don’t deserve the compliments, really.  All that I did was choose the artist and the images.  My artists deserve all the props!! 

Kevin Byers, Truth and Triumph Tattoo (http://www.tattooedtv.com/kevinbyers.html)

Dustin Zion, Asylum Tattoo (www.facebook.com/dustin.zion)

Robyn Roth, Mother’s Tattoo (http://motherstattoo.com/gallery/index.html)

GO forth my friends and have a great Monday!  So far mine isn’t too horrible, I just hope to survive it!!