) I'll be going now" -- and out I flew. Got to my car and fucking gridlock. Well not real capitol beltway gridlock, but GOT TO GET HOME IN 25 MINUTES TO BUY TICKETS BEFORE THEY FUCKING SELL OUT IN TEN MINUTES ...kind of gridlock. So, I drive like far more of an asshole than I ever really am (go on then, I know you want to), and roll into the driveway seven minutes into the sale. I RUN to the door and immediately make it to the keyboard, like a well rehearsed hostile entry through teh door -- no wasted movement -- fastest route possible to the target. And to my amazement I had not actually hosed up my account, and there were tickets still available. And having targeted 9:30 Club first, thinking they would sell out first, I was amazed to be able to get two tickets. Then, thinking I could do more shopping and pick up teh Baltimore tickets, I do teh "continue shopping" bit. And next thing I know, as I'm trying to back out, I have dropped another Pogues ticket into my basket. Fearing that time may run out, because you know all of these things are timed, and if you don't pay up in the prescribed time you have all of you most valuable possessions taken away, I wisely decided to keep three tickets, quickly rationalizing that this would either be me and someone else, and a friend of theirs, or me and a ....well the same thing with a different combination......or with my daughter mixed in there somehow. So having successfully negotiated though that I turned my attention to teh Rams Head Live (relatively small; space very broken up; iron rails all the way around on the ground floor that can be a problem with tight crowd movement; large support beam obstructions; but otherwise an ok establishment that seems to be bringing in more large acts)....and I did it all again for three tickets there, too.
I'm going to be very interested in hearing what some of you ask and say about Baltimore things to do and the inevitable pre-show meet-up planning. I have just spend twenty minutes writing and then deleting sentences likening Baltimore to a woman.... appealingly trashy; ex-girl(boy)friend you still think back to with pleasure and only little regret; ordinary and yet intensely complicated under the surface; and perhaps what I learned to like most about it -- she is unapologetically working class and intelligent and real.
