Sunday, May 17, 2009

Gun, Gun, Son of a Gun

Earlier this week I went to The Grind in Lincoln Square. Like many coffee shops, it has postings of all sorts of upcoming events in its window. A poster for The Vaselines caught my eye. Apparently, they are touring, 20 years after they broke up, and last night was their one Midwest show.

I've given up asking people to go to live shows any more; it's like they all want to look back on their lives when they're 90 and have no regrets about the TV they didn't miss. So I bought my ticket and headed over to The Metro.

The crowd was pretty cool, and the ID-checker was a little twentysomething hottie in a hoodie. He took my license, held it up, looked at it, looked at me. A smile spread across his face. Not a smirky smile, but a pleased smile. A flirtatious smile.

"Go right on in," he smiled, handing my license back, looking into my eyes.

"Thanks man," I smiled back.

I've never been to The Metro, although I knew of it - it's a popular venue. I really liked it. It was intimate, for one thing: the back of the main floor is 25 feet from the stage. It's an old-fashioned theater, complete with nice old fixtures and a proscenium stage. Best of all, there is an upstairs balcony, where tables and chairs sit against the railing, and the floor is raised about a foot behind this. The result was that I was standing behind seated people with a clear view of the stage, and room to dance.

And dance I did. It was a really fun show, and they did a great job. There was a section of people in the main floor who were dancing, but up in the balcony it was pretty much just me. This may be my new super hero name: The Lone Dancer. The couples at the tables sat there, holding hands, and the boys standing near me performed that quintessentially male routine where they hold a beer in one hand, put the other hand in their pocket, and nod their head (maybe) to the music. 

Me? I'll be putting sport cream on my neck before I go to bed.

The one drawback is that The Metro is smack in Wrigleyville, spawning ground of Frat Boys and Trixies. The streets are lined with sports bars where beefy drunken jarheads hook up with platinum blondes with high-enamel lip gloss and braying voices.

There are many Cubs shirts and side boobs.

Whenever I have to pass through Wrigleyville I'm usually accosted by some loser who feels the need to yell something; it's apparently genetically impossible for these douchebags  to see a woman walking alone and not be an asshole.  Tonight it was the guys yelling at me from their truck as they cruised down Addison, trying to get my attention. Seriously, does this ever work? And how drunk does someone have to be if it does? I'm never afraid, because a.) there are plenty of bouncers I can turn to, and b.) I have a ready supply of thermonuclear rage. And I fight dirty. I'm not some college girl who worries that the boys won't find her cute if she isn't nice.

At my El stop, one of my neighbors got off another car, so we walked home together, which was nice - crime is up in our 'hood, and it's better to have company.

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