'Cause I Can't Stand to See You This Way

You may have read that BD and I had the pleasure of going to see Elvis Costello in concert last night at the New Daisy on Beale Street. BD is the big EC fan in our house, although I like him well enough. I don't have much to add to what he said about the music, except that strangely, my hearing is fine today in spite of spending two hours in front of a giant stack of giant speakers, and that although I involuntarily know every word to at least a hundred Costello songs, I knew maybe four he played last night. Oh, and we were, like, 20 feet from the stage, off at an angle so that even my short self could see perfectly the whole time, and I only almost had to take down one really testy trollish woman who was terrified that we would try to take "her" spot. At which point SAM was quick to assure me that she does not have my back in a bar fight. Like that's news.

So, see that up there, where the venue was called The New Daisy? Doesn't that sound all fresh and spring-like? It doesn't sound like a place where one would enter the bathroom and thank the goddess of tile that she had on a short-ish skirt instead of jeans because this stroke of wardrobe genius has spared her from dipping the bottoms of her jeans in a puddle of suspicious-looking "water." And yet, that is exactly what kind of place it is. It's the kind of place with general admission and no seating except in the balcony, and a high ceiling with black acoustic tiles missing. Back in the day, we would go to friends' small shows there (when "Jim" was "Tippi" and the band was Judge Crater) and, I kid you not, I would dance barefoot in front of the stage. Ditto the Antenna. That was then. Last night, I stood in my spot and danced an appropriate amount, in place, and my back ached a little and I wondered if there was a way to calculate how much sooner in my life I would go deaf as a result of this one concert. I'm old, my friends. O.L.D.

Although, although! I also realized as we stood out front killing a little time before the show and observing the people milling about in front of the Daisy and on the street, that I should really get out more because it is great for my self esteem. People, they do not look like they do on TV and in movies! It may be possible that I am not in as bad a shape as I think I am. Of course, it may also be possible that this particular crowd was exceptionally dorky and old, but we don't have to look at it that way. Well, when I think about that big group of old guys herking and jerking in front of the stage and looking like night of the living dead, I may be forced to look at it that way. And the one guy with his arm stabilized to his body with a big brace and his other arm up in the air making the rock and roll finger sign while he thrashed about, reminding me of Joan Cusack's unfortunate character in Sixteen Candles. Now that I think about it, the crowd was not only graying and bookish in a not-so-sexy kind of way, it was predominately male. There were women, sure, but there were a lot of guys there with no women. Of course, two girls who were way cuter than moi had to spoil the illusion by standing in my sightline near the end of the show, but their day will come. Won't it? Tell me it will!