Just Like Heaven (part III: Never Enough)

Most people want to come out ahead of the game. You want to feel like you got every single bang for your buck, like you you walked away with the best possible deal around. In other words, you don't want to feel like you got cheated or that you missed out.

I'm one of these people, and because I know I'm like this, I fully appreciate the saying, "Ignorance is bliss." Sometimes it's better not knowing the thing I bought full price went on clearance last week. Sometimes you're better off believing you got a great deal even if it's not actually the truth.

On the night of the show, my husband and I walked to Madison Square Garden from the hotel, skipping dinner so we’d make the 8 p.m. start time.

Looking back, skipping dinner was kind of a stupid move (in fact, it comes back to haunt me later). When your last meal was breakfast and the concessions available amount to beer, coke, hot dogs and cotton candy you’re better off grabbing something to eat and being a little late to the show.

Much to my relief, the seats were not crappy. They were on the floor level, but thanks to this fantastic invention called “risers” we weren’t stuck looking at the backs of thousands of heads. And, there were chairs. And, people were using them. And from the looks of the crowd, the Cure’s fan base was growing older, just like me. Most of the audience looked like they came from the 30-45 age range. For some reason this made me feel better. When you go out, you never want to be that person. You never want to he standout for being the oldest one in the crowd, garnering looks of pity from the kids as they talk in lowered voices and laugh about the fossil in their midst.

I don’t know why I was worried though. I did the math and figured out Robert Smith was about 50 (he’s 49). It tripped me out to think I am older than he was when I first watched the Fascination Street video on MTV (in the days when they used to play videos) and became enamored enough to go and buy Disintegration(on cassette, of course).

My husband dutifully went to buy food and returned with a dry hot dog and cup of diet coke. I watched people as they found their seats. There were a couple of girls channeling the early 1990’s in stripey tights with clunky shoes and pigtailed heads, but mostly everyone looked normal. Not surprisingly, my husband and I and a black man I had seen walking up the aisle ahead appeared to be the only black people in all of Madison Square Garden (not including anyone there selling food and tee-shirts).

The opening act was 65 Days of Static, a group that was good on its own, but to quote Austin Powers, it wasn’t really my bag, baby. I clapped in the spaces betweem songs and patiently waited for the main act. When the group hit the stage at 9, I was enamored again.

Aside from the age thing, my other fear had been not knowing their newer songs. Well, with 30 years of music to choose from, that wasn’t an issue. They played stuff from every album and it was loud enough for me to sing along without worrying if anyone could hear me. The only place I sing is in the car or in the house if I know there’s no audience.

The Cure took their places with Robert Smith center stage in a black button down and black pants and shoes. Black is slimming, I guess, even though he was looking, er, not so slim. When you think of a rock star, you think skinny, which makes sense. Fast living and burning up calories on the stage usually results in a stick figure physique. Lenny Kravitz and Mick Jagger--David Bowie and Steve Tyler--all those skinny rockers come to mind. All except Robert Smith. Poor Mr. Smith can't seem to shake that "softer" look, but like I always say, the extra just means there’s just more to love. Also, when one of your favorite singers has aged, you never see them how they truly are. You see them the way a kid looks at a beloved stuffed animal. Sure, an eye is missing and the synthetic fur is matted, but you don't care because that stuffed animal was there through the good times and the bad. The same applies to music and the artists who write and play the songs. In my teenage years, the Cure got it. After so many years, I don't want to see the wrinkles and the chub. I want to remember how they looked when they stared down at me from the paper posters I thumbtacked to my bedroom walls. I might be looking at this, however my mind is seeing this. (That's without beer goggles.)

In between songs I’d look over at my husband, who had given up trying to follow the lyrics and was now sitting and playing with his iphone. He’s typing in a facebook entry while they're playing "The Walk." Sometimes I’d attempt to engage him but talking during a live concert is pointless. I’d yell and my husband would nod, but that was either because he understood or he didn’t want me barking in his ear anymore.

After two and a half hours, the show was over and the audience was chanting for more. I never really got the encore thing. I mean why not play what you’re going to play and go home? Or come out, play one song and then really go home? Maybe even take a bow so we know you're finished. It seems like such a tease to keep going away and coming back.

Minutes passed and the crowd was still shouting for more. Then, just I sensed defeat settling in, one by one, the Cure emerged. took their places and played 2 more songs and promptly disappeared again. The crowd chanted and they came back for 3 more. Then, we waited again, but they didn’t come out. It was over, I told myself. Let's go before people flood the exits.

Besides, we we were hungry.

Before you enter the stairwells of Madison Square Garden, there are warning signs telling you that you can not return once you pass through those doors. The finality of that left me uneasy, but we descended the stairs. They were done, I told myself, a lot of people are leaving, so the Cure can't possibly do another encore. No one does 3 encores.

My husband bought my birthday gift (a concert tee! Score!) and we walked back out onto the street. On the way back to the hotel, a heavy rainstorm hit. It was the kind that was born from a huge passing cloud. Giant drops splatted against the street and the sidewalks, and those without umbrellas hugged up to building stoops and under awnings to take cover. I brought an umbrella for the trip but it was in the hotel room. I imagined it tucked into our warm, dry bed, watching Jay Leno's opening jokes while my husband and I huddled under a grocery store awning in a midnight downpour.

The storm passed and we searched for a pizza joint. My ears were ringing and Saturday would involve a long drive home, but it was worth it. Going had turned out to be better than not buying the tickets in the first place. My last concert was in Baltimore, for the Wiggles. Don't get me wrong--I like them too, but it was due time for me to get back into music aimed at adults.

Once I got home, I checked the Cure’s website. The set list from the show was there, including the encores. As I read through the titles, I picked out the songs I recognized. Then I reached the bottom, where the author had typed the words: “Encore 3”

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!

(ignorance is bliss!)

Just like Heaven (part I: the TicketMaster® trials)

I recently celebrated my birthday (33rd, if you must know). I’m happy to report that this one qualified as “best birthday evah!”

Part of the story behind it involves not getting tickets to the Cure concert when they were in town. The first I heard of their tour was last year, when the Washington Post Express newspaper advertised that they would be playing in September. Should I go? I asked myself. Nah. I had seen them in concert as a lively teen, in the heyday of my Cure love, so it wasn’t such a huge deal. Every day I saw the ad for the tickets, I convinced myself it wasn’t worth the trouble of going. That would mean getting a babysitter and getting off work in time to make the show and so on. Life was considerably more complicated when you were an adult. You have to plan everything and that’s not fun. Sometimes planning ends up being such a hassle that you don’t even make the effort. As a teen, there was no question whether I’d go or not. I got the tickets, lived the days up to the show in anticipation of the event, and then went, screamed, danced, sweated and returned home with ringing ears and a grinning mouth.

One morning, I opened the paper and saw that the show had been canceled. Good thing I didn’t bother with tickets, I thought, while also wondering what happened. Then, a few months later, there was a new ad. The show was set for May 9th in Virginia. “Tickets from September date will be honored!” said a blurb. This was a new opportunity that stuck to the back of my mind. I didn’t buy their last album and I hated “Bloodflowers,” I thought, why would I possibly go? Also, who would go with me? My husband? Not a fan. In fact no one else I knew was a fan and the thought of going alone sounded kind of, well, not fun.

As the May date drew nearer, I tried to think of solutions. Even though I had talked myself out of buying a ticket, I wanted to go. I have over 200 Cure songs on my ipod. I had most of their albums, even the early ones, back when Robert Smith sang the words clearly and it sounded like they were playing inside of someone’s basement. I had bought some of these albums multiple times, first on cassette, then CD and then, when new, digitally remastered versions came out on itunes, I bought those too. I was a true fan. Even if I didn’t buy the last album, I thought, I had every right to go to the show.

Early in the week, I threw out the bait.

“Would you want to go to a concert with me?” I asked my husband.

"Sure...who's playing?”

“The Cure?”

The face he made told me the answer was no. This was no surprise; we've already established that he wasn’t, isn't and probably will never be, a fan. He disliked any music that involved whining (anything sung by Ginuwine is an exception), wailing or too much treble and not enough bass. He likes rock and loves Lenny Kravitz, but once you stray from the upbeat, he walks away.

“Never mind,” I said. To be fair, I didn’t tell him they were playing at the end of the week and that I was not asking a theoretical question. Only after the local show date came and went did he realize my question had been real.

“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go?”

“You said you didn’t want to go. Why would I subject you to that if you don’t want to go?”

“I would’ve gone if you asked.”

“I did ask. And you said no.”

Everyone who emphasizes the importance of communication in a relationship should also add that the communication should be direct. In other words, don’t be like me.

I went online and checked out the remaining tour dates. There was a show on my birthday in New York. It was a four hour drive, but we could make a trip out of it, dropping the dog and the kid off at my mom’s on the way. It could happen.

“There’s a show in New York…on my birthday.” I called to my husband, who was working in the loft.

“Hm,” came the disinterested response.

“Never mind.”

Another month passed and the thought of the concert stayed in the back of my mind. You don’t even know their new stuff, I told myself. The first concert I went to was, well, okay. I was right up front and there was no seating. It was a hot summer day in San Jose and by the time the opening act finally finished, much of the crowd smelled like beer and sweat. Then, when the Cure hit the stage, there was a crushing push from behind as everyone rushed forward. I savored my spot up front, just a few feet away from the beloved Mr. Smith, but after awhile I grew claustrophobic, so I retreated to the bleachers and watched the rest of the show from the sidelines. What if this was a repeat of the show from the Wish tour? If it was, then I was too old for that shit.

I changed my mind after reading a message posted by a person on a message board (Naturallycurly.com, if you must know). The message was along the lines of, “I went to the best concert. I got to see the Cure and…”

Well, you get the point. If that was all it took to convince me to go, then the truth is, I wanted to go all along, since nearly a year earlier, when I first saw the ad in the newspaper displaying the ill-fated September dates.

My birthday was coming up, and my husband asked if I wanted his parents to meet us for dinner. That was nice, and they are always very giving and good about celebrating special occasions, but we did that every year. With a sigh, I said, “Sure” and thought, "not really."

The next day I finally admitted I wanted to go to the show in New York. Getting tickets would be easier than it had been when I was a wee lass of 16 years. Instead of cutting morning classes to go over the hill to Tower Records to buy tickets, they were a mouse click away on Ticketmaster. As long as you could decipher the warped looking words, the site would process your request and find available seats.

With just over five days until showtime, the site kicked back tickets for seats on the floor level. That would have been okay, except they were way in the back.

“Those look kind of crappy.” My husband said.

"Damn it, I should have bought them sooner," I lamented.

We tried again. This time around there was nothing available and I panicked. “But we just had those seats!” I said. What had initially been perceived as “crappy” was now ideal. I could’ve worked with those, I thought as I typed in the warped words and refreshed the Ticketmaster® site. Then, there they were again. I exhaled.

“Let’s see if I can find something too,” my husband said as he opened his laptop.

“Hurry up, they only hold these for a minute and a half. Then these tickets get released to the public.” I said, reading the words from the screen. The seconds ticked by. Ticketmaster® bases its business on first come first serve. If you stand there too long trying to decide whether you want fries with that, they will skip you and take the next guy’s order.

The session times out and I go into a panic. I felt like pounding my head on the keyboard and shouting “I’ll never get it!” like Don Music from Sesame Street. “Calm down.” My husband replies, “I have them on mine.” Sure enough, the same tickets that had disappeared from my screen are now available on his. He passes his computer to me and I hurry to grab my wallet from my bag so I can buy the tickets. I’m shaking as I check and double check the credit card number for typos. The ticket options are a blur. You can have them mailed to you, or you can pick them up, or you can print them in the comfort of your own home. I neglect to see which option my husband has chosen. 45 seconds remain and I enter the order.

Seconds later, the confirmation screen pops up, informing me I have two tickets and slightly more credit card debt. I breathe easy at last.

Goth Girl Of My Dreams

The internet is an incredible thing. Even now that it’s a daily (hourly? minutely?) presence in my life, I continue to marvel at the possibilities that exist—accessing everyone, everything and anything you desire is just a simple Google search away. Thank you, Al.

My first days of internet access were as a cadet with my own computer, which was connected to the wall by a bright blue cord that looked something like a thick telephone line. An “Ethernet” cable, they called it. I had an email address consisting not of a name, but of a number and letter combination: my Cullum number plus academic company assignment. I had access to “bulletin boards”—West Point’s own version of Craigslist that existed before Craigslist--some portions of which were restricted to cadets only. Because plebes were not allowed to speak to each other in the cadet area, they often took their conversations to the boards designated for our class.

“Jokes” one person would title their post. From there you could use your mouse and open the entry to read the jokes or click again to add some of your own. In the more popular posts, comments cascaded down like intricate staircases made of bright blue hyperlinks. Many of the contributions were part of a collective effort aimed at making mealtimes easier for us all. If your table commandant demanded something funny, you could placate him by whipping out that printed page of jokes that good old “Smokestack” posted the night before.

That’s another plus of the internet—you could post as “Spider-Man” and none would be the wiser. In the readers’ minds you really were that guy in the red and blue suit spinning webs on the web. Most people used their actual names, but some thought it fitting to throw in their alter ego as if to say, I’m a generic plebe by day, but behind my computer I’m a superhero, and I’m letting all one thousand of you in on the secret.

Ghost that I was, I was petrified of heading out of my room at the end of the day. I didn’t socialize, I didn’t study, I merely lived in daily terror of the upperclassmen, who in retrospect weren’t really all that scary. My refuge was the local network and the cadet bulletin boards. It was there where I sparred with some yearling calling himself “the General” or poked around to find something clever or funny. It was there where I printed off trivia and menus for upcoming meals, or read debates about the fairness of the rules and whether the academy’s “toleration” clause in the Honor Code was worth following.

It was there where I discovered someone else who admired The Cure just as much as I did.

One of my classmates had posted an inquiry about the Cure—my favorite group. That post hung there, unanswered, as if it were beckoning for me and only me to respond. I was a worthy responder--I had every one of their albums in my Case Logic CD storage book, including their very first album, produced when I was 3 years old. The group’s lineup had changed over the years, but the one that mattered, Robert Smith, had been there from the start. I spent most of my high school years wanting to be that man’s lipstick, and even went through a phase where I carried a Wet N’ Wild tube of the closest knock off of the shade he wore. My Spider-Man wasn’t the one in the skintight suit, it was the thing from the “Lullaby” video. At one point I had five posters of the Cure on my walls in all, each one containing the aforementioned Mr. Smith with his porcelain skin, raccoon eyes, teased black hair and smudged red lips in what was to me at the time, a varying array of come hither poses. What my parents must have thought when they opened the door and looked at the walls—I’ve never asked, but I sometimes wonder.

“I love them,” I typed, excited to have found a kindred spirit, one that didn’t post about U2 or Jimmy Buffett or any of the typical cadet musical mainstays, no! This guy liked the Cure. And so did I! Finally, someone who got it! Who can ask for anything more?

We exchanged a few more messages until the guy decided we needed to meet. Things were rolling right along, why not? It might be a love connection or at least someone else to swap music with.

“Meet me by Ike Hall.” He replied.

See, this was the point where I should have politely declined because all of the magic, all of the conversational chemistry we had over the web couldn't possibly survive once we met. In fact, everything came to a grinding halt not long after we recognized each other and introduced ourselves.

He was attractive—tall, with well placed features on an oval face. Wire rimmed glasses framed inquisitive eyes and dress gray made him sharp. My first impression wasn’t the problem but I knew instantly from the look on his face that he was disappointed. "This isn't the Goth girl of my dreams," he appeared to be thinking. Here was the down side of the internet--left to your own devices, the person typing on the other side of that ethernet cable looked any way you wanted. Then you actually met them, the reality very rarely matched up to the illusion you created. I'm guessing he was imagining a female version of Robert Smith, with alabaster skin, a wisp of a figure and hair the color of midnight. I knew in my heart that the reality: tan skin, short curly hair and the lack of being able to carry on a conversation as effortlessly as I had done through a computer was going to be the death blow to anything that might have been, and ironically enough, "what might have been but never was" is the running theme of many Cure songs.

“Um, so it’s nice to finally meet you,” I said.

“Yeah.”he replied, though he probably felt like adding, "Get away from me, you impostor!"

Kill me—kill me now, and kill me quickly, I thought, when things fell so flat so fast. I wouldn't be able to rescue this meeting with small talk because I don't have that quality we all know as the gift of gab. I know you're thinking, "Nooo...not you. It can't be. I've read these blog posts and you are one wordy mutha (shut yo' mouth)!" Well, that's true, I can be wordy if it doesn't involve actual talking. I can work wonders with a keyboard and lag time to come up with something witty, but when it comes to a live performance I get stage fright. And God help me if the other person is cute.

“Well, the Cure, I mean, their intros are just sooo long.”

“Oh, yeah." he said, nodding, "They do have really long intros.”

We stared at each other, knowing that unlike a Cure song, this intro was likely to be very, very short. We both wanted this to work but we also seemed to realize that it wasn't. With just a few lines of conversation we found ourselves bogged down in that swamp known as “So what?” territory.

“I have all their stuff.” I said, while thinking: “Eject, Eject, Eject!”

We didn’t last five minutes. Maybe he had invited me to Ike Hall with the idea that at some point we could venture inside for a Coke and fries, but he never admitted it and I don’t blame him. Why continue the awkwardness when you could cut your losses? When we parted, we returned to the barracks with the smallest of goodbyes, and the unspoken promise to pretend it all never happened, to never speak of our meeting again. We didn’t even attempt to rekindle the magic over email because we knew it was futile.

It was a disappointment (not the worst) then but it’s funny now. What was I thinking? How did I ever believe that meeting was a good idea? How could I ever have thought, in my deluded teenaged mind, that if only Robert Smith met me would he truly know his soulmate when I couldn’t even get past a few sentences with a commoner--a non-famous fellow fan?

I’ve often asked and sometimes wonder.