[Originally posted Wednesday, November 21, 2007. Scroll down for update.]
So last night was the Van Halen concert at Staples Center. Patrick picked me up at work, and we drove down to the Wilmington Blue Line Station. It took us about 30 minutes (maybe less), but soon we were downtown, across the street from Staples. Cost us $2.50.
Neither one of us has been to Staples, so we walked around a bit. The opening band (some spawn of Bob Marley... Damian Marley?) went on at 7:30; that seemed like a great time to buy a couple of overpriced hot dogs and a couple of beers. We stood around and ate our dinner, people watched (the crowd was younger but not as hip as the people we saw at the Police show), and after the opening band cleared out, we went and found our seats. These are the seats Patrick "accidentally" spent twice as much as he intended. They were pretty good seats, and we had a clear view of the stage. The band wasn't tiny, and the screen behind them gave us a good view of the facial expressions. Seeing the camaraderie between Wolfie and Eddie was fun, and they looked and sounded awesome.
I realized that Van Halen with Sammy Hagar is easily avoided - and in fact, it's advisable to stay clear - but Van Halen with David Lee Roth is something else, entirely. I wasn't prepared for just how good Eddie Van Halen looked last night. He came out in camouflage pants, shirtless, with clean short hair, and he looked like a million bucks. David Lee Roth was a bit too metrosexual for me - throughout the night he switched jackets (beaded, shiny jackets), and I wondered when he adopted this highly obvious look. He sounded incredible, though, and musically, he did not disappoint.
So, after the concert, we headed back to the Metro station, accompanied by way more people than I expected. I think most of them were heading in the opposite direction, though, because aside from a band of Mexican kids, there was no one else in our car from the show. The trip was uneventful until the stop before we had to get off.
A young person (I thought it was a kid, a boy, but Patrick says it was a girl) got on, with her bike. A heavyset black kid stood in the doorway, before the doors closed, and was talking to her. When the doors closed, the black kid reached out and grabbed the rear tire of her bike. They were going back and forth, talking shit - at first it was just annoying, but I wasn't afraid. The driver got on the loudspeaker and told the kid to back away, but the kid didn't.
And that's when things got scary.
Patrick and I were standing in the area by the doors; I was behind him, close to the doors on the other side - the ones that didn't open. I never looked at the kid with the bike; I moved away when the the other kid started pulling on the bike tire. Patrick stayed where he was. This went on for a while - the driver again told the kid to get off, and now the other people in our car started telling the kid to get off. One person, a black lady sitting across from me, kept telling the kid not to be a fool. Then, this woman from the rear of the train came stomping up the aisle, and, I kid you not, she had, in her hand, her high heeled shoe. I'm not sure where she got it from - she had sneakers on her feet. Anyway, she got in the kid's face, and she had a shoe. Then, this quiet Hispanic guy who had been standing right behind Patrick the whole time - apparently he did something, because both the kids got off the train.
Now, I don't know exactly what happened. I didn't see anything. I was scared because altercations on the train in a sketchy part of town at 11:30 at night are scary. People were yelling, the kid seemed a little unpredictable, and there were no cops or authority figures other than the other people on the train. Patrick says that at this point (he was facing me) my face was all eyeballs. I was pretty freaked out. As we pulled out of the station, the kid slammed the doors and the windows of the train. Then the woman across from me said to a man sitting behind her, "Hey, if you're gonna show it, you should use it." I had no idea at first what she meant, until the man say, "Yeah, this is the wild west." And then she said, "No, I didn't mean it [probably seeing my freaked out face]. We don't need no more shooting around here."
I looked at Patrick, who was right in front of the man who apparently had pulled a gun on a couple of stupid kids, and I thought to myself, I am never riding this fucking train again.
Once we got to our stop, and got off, I walked us as fast as I could to the car, where it took me awhile to calm down. Patrick, a child of Venice, was laughing it off, but it took me longer to get over it. I was a little angry at him for not moving away with me, but he rationalized it by saying that everyone who scattered caused more panic. I don't know. Maybe.
...
The following is an excerpt from an email to my friend. I was describing to her the concert and the aftermath, we kind of got off on a tangent. I love tangents. I love people who make me feel funny. I do not care if you agree.
Patrick and I found out later we both had the same idea about what the newspaper article would say if the scene had erupted into something really serious: BLOOD BATH ON METRORAIL. COUNTY WORKERS KILLED IN GUNFIGHT INVOLVING MISCREANT YOUTH. Or, COUNTY WORKERS KILLED AFTER ROCK CONCERT. Or, MAN SPOTTED WITH GUN ON METRO. NO ONE HURT. WOMAN PANICS. FILM AT 11.
(No, they wouldn't print that last part in the paper, would they.)
As scary as it was, I wouldn't give up the image of that woman charging down the aisle with her high-heeled shoe in her hand for anything. It was almost worth dying for. And it was a white shoe, no less - and this, after Labor Day! The rules just do not apply to some people. I wish I had noticed if she also removed her earrings. Next time!
Tickets to the coolest reunion rock concert of 2007: $149, each
Amount saved by having the "good sense" not to overpay for public parking: $25
Cost of two beers and two hot dogs at the venue: $28
Cost of two tickets on Metro Rail: $5, roundtrip
Seeing a real-life cliché in full-on color: Priceless
I should send this in to American Express or whoever does those commercials, no? When they start hiring actors for the reenactment, would you like to play the part of the woman with the shoe? No, you're too tall and model-like (she was short and squat and couldn't look less like you if she tried). I know, you can play the part of the chick who said, about the man with the gun, "If you're gonna show it, might as well use it!" She was pretty cool: in all black, wearing black patent leather boots and a jaunty beret. Why I notice details like that is beyond me. Patrick thought she was at the concert. Could be. Demi Moore is already on tap to play me. She'll have to get a tan and gain about 50 pounds, but still -
...
Later she replied and told me that she promised to bring to the character of "Woman On Train in Beret" a bit of the wise-ass and fiesty attitude similar to that of "Willona Woods" from TV's "Good Times." Now I think I might seriously try to write this up. I see Oscar nominations in our future.
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