Apartheidal Pool Toys for Tottinghammer Time
Me and Maian enjoying Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Mezzanine.
We didn't know the CYHSY/National show was sold out when we got there, but optimism triumphed as we stood in line for a couple hours at the prospect of extra tickets being available. Some dude with a headset walked out and counted out a certain number of people in line and waved us all forward. Suddenly, stories of $40 craiglist tickets and looks of pity from the will-call line meant nothing. We got in for a cover price of $15. The dude who sold me my ticket wouldn't stop talking about how gorgeous my eyes were. My eyes tend to glow when I'm euphoric like that.
The venue is located in a seedy alleyway, so you knew something hardcore was gonna go down while we were waiting outside. Behind the line of metrosexual hipster Gen-Xers sipping on their paper-bagged Sparks, a car stopped, windows down, and lots of yelling ensued. A small asian dude came up to the car's passenger window and started yelling at a guy for spitting on his friend. A massive guy stepped out from the other side of the car, threw his jacket in the backseat, yelled something about messin with his brother, rounded the car, and started swinging. The token girlfriend started screaming as her boy was being tossed around like a ragged doll, jumping in harm's way to protect him. Guys know not to hit a girl, so he got back in the car and they sped off, yelling shit about gettin fucked up. I'd seen enough of the same from my bouncer days, but all these harmless hipsters looked like they had just seen a ghost. They clanked their paper-bagged Sparks in honor of the moment.
The show was great. Not enough cute girls, though. The National managed to surprised me. Much more guitar action than I had originally given them credit for.
I also went and saw Mono, Interpol, and M83 in the time since.
charlatantric is up to 150 members. Good music wins!
Jerome in South Korea??
That's the plan! I'm busy looking for the next adventure in my life. Teaching English abroad is that current ambition. Of course, I'm very fickle, so don't hold me to it. Ideally, the program would last a year and bring me one year's experience closer to a future academic profession. Why South Korea, of all places? I don't know, just cuz. I want to experience a whole new culture with a whole different language, but I already took a year of Japanese (plus it's overrated) and my friends all already went to China. Plus the South Korean program pays the most.
Classes start early next month. We'll see what happens....