spooked

This weekend was hard. On Friday, I heard sad news. I went home and my phone was shut off. I went to San Francisco and banged on a toothless piano and whistled into a room mic with Randy and Rob. It was only OK. The Siamese cat Manny made me feel better. The wind was mild, just strong enough to move hairs, but even that frustrated me. I worked up my excitement to go see the Coachwhips' last show in SF. Rob and I visited Spencer and James first and warmed on their posi-smiley glow.

I had plans for wild interrogation at that show, I wanted to lead the crowd into muscle release and jaw unlock. We got there and waited in line for 45 minutes with people who wear uncomfortable shoes and verbally emote their hammered tootsies accordingly. While waiting in line Rob and I consumed about 50 ounces of Anchor Steam and that kept my pot simmering. Finally, we entered the building, and spooks massaged my burrito in my bag, searching my stuff and my pockets. It was a gallery show and I was not used to that kind of security detail.

I watched the band for a while and felt 5 hearts beating on my skin at once because it was so crowded. And bright. I went to get a glass of water and the plastic cup I was drinking from accidentally kind of broke into this girl. I expected some fashionable cruelty because this woman and her boyfriend seemed mean and girdled like most of the crowd.

She said something to me but it was so loud and overwhelming that I didn't know what she said.
"What?"
"Blah blah blah blah blah," she said. I could not read her expression, I was confused.
"I can't hear you!"
She blanched. "What's wrong with you?"
This was a foreshadowing montage.
"There's nothing wrong with me. I just can't hear you!"
She huffed. "Can't you take a joke? What's fucking wrong with you?" She and her boyfriend glared at me.
I asked him, "What is going on? What are you trying to tell me?"
Finally he said clearly, "She was asking you if you think I'm hot."

I made a puke face and just plunged back into the crowd. Then I ran into these massive guys trying to eject my pal Rob from the show. Rob was being pretty calm and trying to diffuse the situation, cause he did not want to be pummeled by these guys, who had already beat people for trying to sneak in. The conflict escalated so I stepped in between Rob and one of the guys and said a couple of things, trying to help these dudes understand that wild dancing is totally acceptable at the Coachwhips last show. The men said there was a woman standing on a catwalk who was instructing the security to forcibly remove people and Rob was picked out. Finally, they just got frustrated with me and told me I had to leave too.

I turned around and tried to melt into the crowd, but they extended their big hands to me and plucked me from the crowd. I don't remember much after that. I think I was on the floor once. I struggled against them. I saw friendly faces and reached toward people but people just watched me back. Adam Stonehouse finally helped me, he shouted, "She's a girl, you can't fucking fight her." The huge dudes concentrated on me and finally one of them just started dragging me out by the waist of my jeans. I clung to a door jam and people were arguing. "Shorty, just leave," one of the guys said. He was pulling me by the jeans so fiercely that I thought my pants would split and I'm surprised they didn't. I was already so humiliated, I can't imagine the indignity if I had lost my pants. They had to peel my fingers from the door jam and I agreed to leave, but then I panicked because all of my things were inside. They let Adam Stonehouse escort me to my purse and jacket's hiding place. I was so freaked out and scared that I grabbed his hand in a heroic moment. Everything was so blurry and dramatic and public. He helped me get my stuff and in my outrage I grabbed Dwyer by the shoulders and tried to tell him, but Adam said, "Forget it, just go." And I'm glad I did.

I went outside and found Rob and put my forehead to a brick building and started to cry for a long time. There are some people that find glamour in moments of controversy, or some people that just find bruality to be a so-what realilty of life, especially city life. "Safe space" notions make me a little sour, but yeah, I guess I do expect a certain amount of consideration and bodily security at any show I would be musically compelled to attend. The whole event made me very emotional and disappointed---in the fashionable indifference of the crowd, in the fascism of the venue, in the sheer mass of these men, in my own actions at the time. It was like a public mugging, and the audience was a group of people who stifled a yawn when I must have looked very scared and worked up.

I think the men who carried me out felt bad about it because the goons looked at me with sad faces at the night's end.

Rob and I took the transbay bus back and coughed up my sensi and he told me that Chateau is closing. Ai yi, I can't wait to leave.