[Today’s guest post is from Todd Levin, author of the website Tremble. See if you can get through this post of his without using Google. Go ahead. Try it. See?]
Lately, I’ve been preoccupied with the parts of me that seem adult vs. the parts of me that maturity continues to elude. It’s a two-columned mental list, divided by items like “getting married” (man!) and “want to have a monkey act as our ring-bearer.” (man-child!) After seeing The Raconteurs (a.k.a. Jack White and Those Other Guys) perform a couple weeks ago, I added and triple-underlined a new item in my list’s “adult” column: I no longer enjoy rock concerts.
Even if it’s my favorite band in the world—The Hooters—I can only give 45 minutes of my attention before I grow restless and start fantasizing about being back home, watching a DVD. (e.g. Let’s DVDance: The Definitive Hooters Collection) I hate encores. They used to feel like a precious secret between the band and me, now strike me as a labored formality. If the Hooters just said goodnight without playing “All You Zombies,” I think there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be hearing an encore tonight. Stop treating us like babies.
I get frustrated over drink prices and coat check lines. I roll my eyes at every person snapping an Al Qaeda-quality video of the band on their cell phone, or the fact that the Tallest Man Who Has Ever Walked The Earth decided to position himself directly in front of me instead of standing at the very back of the venue with his back pressed against the wall, like a decent person.
At the tightly-packed Raconteurs show, one young man was whooping so loudly during Jack White’s guitar solos that I fantasized about spitting my gum into his open mouth. And another person was grinding against my pelvis for so long and with such vigor, I had to break my usual rule of silent passive-aggression, and tell him to stop because “I feel like you’re giving me a lapdance.” I actually scolded him, just like a real grown-up.