Random Tuesday musings

Ok, so to follow up on a couple things I've put out there in the past few days:

a) apparently you CAN hide yourself on Facebook, you just click "Offline" on the chat section. Sorry guys, I'm a little technology-challenged (I once turned my cell phone French by hitting, oh, TWO buttons and then obviously couldn't change it back because all my menu options were then IN FRENCH) so I'm a little slow on the trends. Hey, did you guys know there are cellphones out there that can take pictures?! And check email? Holy crap... :)

b) I have to say the debate is still-ongoing with the whole "Do I wear the t-shirt of the band to its own concert" issue. Not world-changing stuff, mind you, but hey, world peace has to start somewhere, and it might as well begin with us agreeing on the little things. Ban Ki-moon, take note. And hire me.

Krista has a good point that we Californians try to be as obscure and random as possible to thus make us even cooler - and I think Stewbottum gets to the source of it pretty quickly as well -- it all started off as TEAM pride, with music being the default (and Gwen noted, quite correctly, that the two are totally different.) I'm totally with Drollgirl about getting annoyed at the little trendsters who show up to concerts these days, and Des, I like to think that musicians appreciate fans no matter what they're wearing!

I think Celia summed it up best as "who cares how long I've been a fan?" -- people should be way less interested in what others are doing and just freakin' get out there and enjoy being who they are, regardless of what anyone else thinks. (Celia - I'm from Merrimack, just outside Nashua, by the way...and I'm totally jealous you got quality-Krista time). Both AJ and Jenn pointed out that this isn't necessarily an issue separated just by coasts (gah! An entire country seized in a concert t-shirt epidemic!), and Archana gets some serious cool points for naming the correct movie (Empire Records) that I quoted, but I gotta say, Archana -- the best concerts I've been to (and Flogging Molly is definitely one of these), the bands played their music much longer, louder, and insanely better than off their albums. If I go see a band that plays exactly how they sound on their CD, why did I bother...and believe me, I've seen my fair share of bands who do exactly that...and sometimes even worse. But when Green Day invites people to come up from the audience to play their instruments for them, or James Hetfield and Lars do drum battles at their Metallica concerts, or Flogging Molly riffs for 15 minute sessions...damn is it worth the price of that ticket...and maybe a few obnoxious tweens and some drunk idiots here and there.

I think we can probably concede, much as Shanna Suburbia pointed out, that wearing an older t-shirt from the band isn't quite as bad, and I think Jo, Sarah Alaoui, Iva, and Wine and Words are still making up their minds either way. As for you, Mildly Sensational... yes, I was totally going off of the movie PCU, and I love you too. :)

With that wrapped up, I can now move on to the two most interesting things that happened yesterday (besides the fact that I finally got to hang out with a wonderful girl last night for the first time in eons) by letting you all know that yesterday, while waiting in line at the bank, I was hit on by a blond guy named Hudson. In front of his mother.

Yes, Hudson and his mom were waiting just in front of me and he suddenly turned around, flashed me the most adorable smile I've seen on a guy in quite some time, and proudly announced that at home he had a rock and it was his and not mine.

Hudson was probably 3 and 1/2 years old.

At which point, his mom turned around, took one look at me and then Hudson, rolled her eyes and replied, "He's gonna be a big flirt."

At which point I'M thinking, Yes! I still got it!

And in the flirt/unexpected love department, approximately twice a year my cat Mocha (yes, occasionally she guest blogs on here) decides that she adores me and wants to be my pet. So late last night, after getting myself tucked into bed, she crawled all the way up the covers (she usually stays down by the foot of the bed), head-butted me to let me know that she now owned me, then curled up against my stomach and fell fast asleep. And it wasn't even cold in the apartment.

I think my jaw dropped. Here I was, thinking I was just an indentured servant for her...turns out she actually likes me once in a blue moon!

I hope you all are having lovely Tuesdays and that you enjoyed the Great T-Shirt Debate as much as I did. I loved hearing from all of you and I'll try to pose some more controversial questions in the future...like, is it okay to put salt on food that someone just cooked for you? That's always a touchy one... :)

east coast vs west coast, part two

So this conversation started, as many good conversations do, in the parking lot of a Trader Joe's. We park, I'm talking about how freakin' excited I am about the Flogging Molly concert we're going to next month, he drops the bomb. And by bomb, I mean that he says, "Yeah, I just wish I had a Flogging Molly shirt to wear to the concert."And I look at him. He looks at me. Wait, what?

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. If I had a Flogging Molly shirt I would totally wear it to the concert."

"But...you're AT the concert. You'd be That Guy. You don't want to be That Guy!"

"What does that mean? That Guy? Because I'm wearing the t-shirt of the band I like to their concert? It shows I'm a fan."

"NO. It shows you're That Guy."

"Well, on the East Coast..." blah blah blah words.

Anyways, he goes on to say that on the East Coast there is nothing stronger than what they refer to as old-school fan pride. That is to say, if you've been a fan since the beginning of the band's creation, or first album, or whatever, you can show your pride and how much you like the band by wearing an OLDER t-shirt (this is key here, folks) from ANOTHER concert or tour to show that you've been a fan for a long time and thus you are cooler than all those hip wannabes that are just now finding out how much your band kicks ass. Point in case, when we went to the Metallica concert in Jersey together, there were a ton of older Metallica t-shirts being worn, and none of those guys looked embarrassed to be wearing them. Or that they wouldn't be able to kick my ass if I made fun of them.

And I am baffled by this. Because all my life, since I moved to California at the tender age of nine, through Smashing Pumpkins and No Doubt and Beastie Boys and Green Day and Depeche Mode and Rage Against the Machine and U2 concerts, it has been drilled into me: never.wear.the.t-shirt. Ever. Unless, as Krista pointed out, it's to be ironic, which rarely works. Mostly you just look like the person who's trying too hard. And if there's anything we abhor in SoCal...it's trying too hard.

Which brings me back to the fundamental difference between East Coasters and West Coasters. East Coast people are totally cool with how proud they are, almost rabidly so, of their sports teams, bands, neighborhoods, ethnicity, whatever. And if it's suddenly hot and trendy, but you liked it BEFORE it was trendy, then woe to the guy who tries to claim he's a bigger fan than you. Because fan pride is what it's all about, and being there before the band or artist "sold out" and got big is a huge claim to fame. East Coasters like to go against the grain, but in a "damn the man, save the Empire" kind of way (give yourself a pat on the back if you know what movie that's from). On the East Coast, you get made fun of for not trying hard enough.

But California plays it chill. We have so many different neighborhoods, ethnicities, restaurants, sports teams (hell, we even have two basketball teams!), up and coming bands, tv shows, and artists, that we float from scene to scene and pretend we don't really care. Trying too hard or caring too much about one particular band is the ultimate un-cool. So we scoff at those who wear the t-shirts and show off their 13 year-in-the-making fan pride. We try to turn it around like, "Yeah, I just got here, I don't even know the name of the drummer, and that actually makes me COOLER than you." Our detachment from ever truly loving, caring, and rabidly following something is what supposedly makes us cooler than everyone else.

But...I dunno. I got to say, since I started writing these two posts...maybe those prickly New Englanders are on to something. Maybe it IS kind of awesome to follow a band since its days back as the opening act of some lame music festival where we saw what it would take others decades to see, and to wear that band's shirt in pride, to show that we actually followed through and have cared about something long before it ever showed up on YouTube or TMZ.

So...I turn it over to you guys now. Yes, we can probably all agree that buying a t-shirt at a concert and then putting it on before you even get back to your seat is kind of lame, the trying-too-hard to end all trying-too-hards.

But what if you've been following a band for years, catching them in concert as much as you could, and you dig through your wardrobe, pull out that concert tee from 1995, when the album kinda sucked but man did they give an awesome show, and you wear it so that all the little fourteen year olds out there who don't even know who Kurt Cobain is anymore can be just a little bit embarrassed for jumping on the bandwagon when you built that bandwagon's damn WHEELS.

Thoughts? Comments?

east coast vs west coast, part one

So I'll just put it out there that I'm sort of an LA transplant (that's what we call 'em out here...those from other parts of the country who come to sunny Los Angeles to make their dreams come true.)

I was born, raised, and grew up in New Hampshire, then moved to the OC when I was nine. In some ways I am very much a California girl, except for the part where I don't actually tan, but that's not because I'm a New Englander, that's because I'm Scottish and Dutch and go from pale to sunburned back to pale. As a Scottish-Dutch girl, I was built for being a kick-ass fighter and being very organized, respectively, and I do both equally well. Tanning is not required in either Scotland or The Netherlands (raise your hands if you thought Dutchland, then smack yourselves), nor is it required to start a bar fight or make a swell to-do list. I rest my case.

The California parts of me are the "woah, chill, dude, just feel the energy" aspects of my personality; an undying curiosity of what, exactly, my neighbors are up to; a love of all things ocean or sunny; and the crippling fear that I will be the first to show up to a party. I really can't help it, it's in the water here, kids.

There is also the all-important California attitude of playing it cool. (This will come into play later, everyone, so pay attention.) As a Californian you are expected to not care TOO much about any one thing, not try TOO hard, and look as if there is always some place a little bit cooler where you COULD be, but hell, you're a saint tonight, so why not just grace everyone with your presence and stay here. As a wildly over-enthusiastic spaz, I rarely do this one, but every so often I fall prey to it.

What I retained from New England (and more specifically, New Hampshire), is the will and drive to succeed at everything I do and base my self worth off of how productive I am; a very strong resistance to anyone who tries to tell me what to do with my life, ever; the general feeling that if I feel crappy, a four-hour long walk through a forest will help clear my head (think Robert Frost); and STUPID FRAKING CAR WHY ARE YOU GOING BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT AND IN FRONT OF ME. That last one really freaks out the poor visitors to New England. Sorry, guys. In my last post, I noted that I was courteous and polite driver, and I am now... after driving for several years and scaring the crap out of my friends.

Side story: Until I was about 21 I thought it was perfectly fine to stop my car about three and a half inches away from the car in front of me at intersections. Finally a friend politely asked me exactly what the hell I was thinking.

"This is the way I was taught to drive," I replied.

"And who taught you to drive, may I ask?" (apparently my friend was Mr. Belvedere)

"My dad."

"And what driving experience does your father have?"

Pause.

"He was a cab driver in Boston."

Riiiight.

Anyways, this isn't a post about my poor upbringing as a super aggressive Boston cabbie in training, this is about something entirely more important that seems to be a huge contention between East Coasters and West Coasters. Are you guys ready?

This is about whether or not you are supposed to wear the t-shirt of the band that you are currently at the concert of.

Part two to follow on Monday as I explain my reasoning...so have a good weekend :)