Baseball is kind of a big deal in my office. My bosses are absolute freaks for the stuff. One of the nice perks of their obsession is that we have season tickets to the Washington Nationals in their swanky new park. Another is that Major League Baseball's opening day is an official office holiday, when tradition dictates that we all down tools and head out to the ballpark to bond.
So it was more than a little disappointing when the marketing geniuses at MLB decided to commemorate this historic occasion by supplanting the lovely, languid tradition of opening day with a frigid, late, TV-friendly opening night. Gone was our day off, replaced by an all-but-mandatory evening outing with 40,000 of our closest friends, the Secret Service and the President of the United States. Par-tay.
By way of background, I am not what you'd call a baseball fan. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that I'd like it more if there was more violent contact, more action, shoulder pads, and about a 10th as many games...that is to say, if it were more like football.
I'm also not a big fan of crowds. It's not that I'm agoraphobic, per se. It's just that being among that many of my fellow passengers to the grave reminds me of how much our little human garden could use a good weeding.
And yesterday was cold. Not Minnesota cold, but certainly colder than is ideal for an extended outdoor sit.
So it was with some reluctance that I left my warm apartment to brave the fun and excitement of opening day. I took some pictures to document the occasion.
Here's me getting off the metro. You know what this escalator needs? More people.
Metal detectors and Secret Service at every entrance. Thanks to W for this, his final (we hope) insult.
What? Doesn't everybody read novels of English manners and listen to M.I.A. before baseball games?
When Hotrod informed me that Iron Maiden were coming to town, I felt a great surge of satisfaction. Here was my opportunity to fill one of the great gaps in my concert-going experience by seeing my first-ever favorite band live. When I read that they would performing material exclusively from their first seven (!) albums, and modeling their stage set on the Egyptian-themed "Powerslave" tour (think zombie mummies and laser-beam pyramids), I felt like Christmas had come early this year.
I don't listen to a lot of Iron Maiden these days, but when I was 12, I thought they were the best, most brilliant band ever to walk the face of the earth. While other bands sang about yucky girls, pointless dancing and stupid emotions, Iron Maiden performed songs about important stuff, like the novel Dune, ancient calvary battles, the flight of Icarus and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
While other bands pranced around like dandies in their linen suits and ponce-y feathered hair, Iron Maiden wore leather and spikes and grew their ratty, greasy tresses down to their asses (one of my great complaints in junior high stemmed from my inability to grow my hair long - stupid afro). And most importantly, Iron Maiden were always accompanied in concert by an 8 foot tall animatronic zombie named "Eddie." In a word, Iron Maiden were cool...to a geeky 12 year old science-fiction enthusiast who had yet to kiss a girl.
More than 20 years later, I still feel a little defensive of my first musical love, being as they are the butt of many, many jokes. In his book defending such artistic giants as Poison and Cinderella, Chuck Klosterman makes sure to potshot both Iron Maiden and their fans as hopeless dorks. "This is Spinal Tap" is essentially a 2-hour satire of Maiden (see the above video if you don't believe me). Sadly, the band has even lost its ability to convey a sense of menace to outsiders. While playing Guitar Hero, my girlfriend remarked that the "Number of the Beast" sounded "awfully jaunty, kind of like a musical."
It's lonely out there for an Iron Maiden fan, especially if you live somewhere other than a trailer park. But to all you goddamn hipsters who think you're better than me, I say you can fuck right off. I'll back Iron Maiden against whatever lousy sissified crap you were listening to when you were 12. When I throw the devil horns and bang my head this June, you can be assured that it will be without a trace of irony.
To whom it may concern,
So you've decided to come to Washington DC for your vacation. Congratulations. In addition to being uniquely rich in history and cultural tradition, Washington is a cosmopolitan city that offers some of the best in dining, shopping and nightlife. Although we're certain you'll have a rich and rewarding experience, we'd like to kindly remind you that Washington DC -- unlike say, Colonial Williamsburg or Harpers Ferry -- is a "working" city.
You need not trouble yourself with what that work entails (we suspect it may be a bit beyond you), but what is important is that you realize that when you come here, you will be surrounded by busy people, who may move and speak at a pace to which you are unaccustomed. We'd like to humbly offer some tips to make your visit as comfortable, harmonious and personally rewarding as possible.
In this, our first installment, we shall address transportation.
Metrorail is one of the cleanest, most accessible public transit systems in the country. Metrorail offers ready access to the Capitol, the White House, the museums of the Smithsonian, hot spots like Dupont Circle and a wide range of other local attractions. Maps of the Metrorail system are available in most hotels and at every metro station. A friendly station manager will be happy to help you with fare and destination information. But there are some things that you should keep in mind:
- Between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., and 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. commuters use the Metrorail system to get to and from work. You are not welcome during this time. Most of the attractions you're here to visit don't even open until after 10:00, so we don't know why you'd even want to force yourself onto a crowded train where you'll be distinctly unwelcome, but it bears mentioning. You're on vacation. We suggest sleeping in and taking advantage of your hotel's continental breakfast.
- If you do find yourself on the train with a large number of people in suits and business attire, you've probably inadvertently violated the above-stated principle. To minimize your gaffe, we recommend that you, and especially your brood of children (we'll never understand where you find the time) stand, rather than take up seats needed for tired locals on their way to or from the jobs that keep your country functioning.
- You may have noticed how clean the Metrorail system is. That's because we don't allow eating or drinking. That includes coffee, gum and anything else you may choose to put in your mouth. If your passion for consumption is so constant that you feel compelled to eat while moving from one place to another, we hear New York is nice.
- You may also have noticed how quiet the rail cars are. Most locals view their commute as a time for sober reflection, reading or in some cases, getting a little extra work done. There will be plenty of time for discussing Dale Jr.'s latest exploits on the oval track once you arrive at you destination. If you must speak, consider using your "inside voice," and limiting yourself to only essential communications (telling one of your children to swallow his or her gum, for instance).
- Our escalators are like your roads, in that they have "lanes." The left "lane" is for busy people who don't view the escalator as a ride, but rather a conveyance that helps them get more quickly to their destination. People walk in the left lane as if they were going up a regular flight of stairs. If you feel the need to stand idly on the escalator, keep to the right.
That's all for now. We're sure you'll have a tremendous time. Enjoy the Mall...it's there to keep you out of our collective hair.
Sincerely,
The People of the Washington Metropolitan Area
Here are a few facts:
- The Pogues are one of my all-time favorite bands.
- The Pogues were in town tonight performing the second of two sold-out shows at my favorite local concert venue.
- I have a ticket to the show, for which I paid $55.
- I'm as fit as a fiddle.
- I had no conflicting plans.
- My musical hero, Joe Strummer, once said, while fighting off a bad flu at a Pogues show: "stay at home, when the Pogues are in town? That's the stupid thing to do."
- The show is going on right now.
- I am not there.
I got back from an extremely mellow vacation in the Bahamas on Saturday, and since then I'd been feeling decidedly ambivalent about going to see this show. For starters, it's on a Monday, which is the worst of all days to schedule a rock show. Second, the Pogues haven't put out an album of new material since the lamentable "Pogue Mahone" in 1996, and they haven't put out a good album since the 1988 masterpiece "If I Should Fall From Grace With God." Third, the Pogues haven't exactly been on heavy rotation on WDabysaninHammerSmithPalais ("The Quiet Storm") lately. I was probably in college the last time I listened to a Pogues record in its entirety.
The problem with these perfectly rational reasons is that they all suck.
I like The Pogues' music. I know from first-hand experience that they put on a wicked-good live show. They were in town, and I had a ticket. So why didn't I go?
What it really comes down to is the type of people who go to a Pogues show. The last time I went to a Pogues show (last year around this time) I was shocked when I walked into the venue. Years of going to more wussified indie rock concerts had conditioned me to feel like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. At 6-0, 185, I'm no giant, but I'm more than capable of elbowing your average New Pornographers fan out of the way to get a better vantage point. I walked into the Pogues show and stared up at a wall of backs. From my nonscientific sample, the average Pogues concert attendee is 6-9, weighs 300 pounds and is on speaking terms with ancestors who only recently came down from the trees. It's all dudes. All. Dudes. Drunk dudes. Big, drunk, ornery Irish dudes. And the few girls who do claw their way in are not the sorts you'd like to meet in a back alley. At their last show here, I very nearly got in a fight (thankfully with one of the few non-simian attendees, but still).
The thing is, there was a time when I really liked that sort of thing. When I saw them in college, the crowd was -- if anything -- just as big, younger and more dangerous, but there I was, down in the pit, pogo dancing with skinheads and loving every violent second of it. I even got a little thrill from it last year. But today, the concept of battling for oxygen with that gang of drunken ogres made me a little queasy. I'm looking forward to when The Destroyers come to town.
One annoying side effect of my anxiety about air travel is that it kills my creativity right before trips. That's my excuse, anyway, and I'm sticking to it. In another year, I may have let this week pass blog-less, and come back to my little corner of the voxosphere refreshed after a much deserved vacation, but not in 2008. The faithless naysayers issued a challenge, we at Dabysan in Hammersmith Palais intend to see them eating their words in 2009, while we, in turn, dine on the Blackberry Pie of Triumph.
Tomorrow morning I'm up bright and early to jaunt off to my super-secret training facility on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. My team of trainers suggested that I get started early this year on preparing body and soul for the rigors of KttD IX. It's a tough job, but I'll do anything for the sport.
Though I'll be back on Saturday night, several days of yoga always leaves me a trifle conciliatory, which is no state to be in when you're blogging.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with yet another benefit of my newfound Guitar Hero obsession, my late discovery of the face-crushingly awesome Priestess.
