hes my man

2009-04-09 12:40 p.m.

My only extravagance, I feel, is music. Last class James just asked me how much I spend a year on going to shows and made me feel bad. My saving grace is that I refuse to pay more than $20, except in really special circumstances, i.e. Leonard Cohen.

Tuesday afternoon I suddenly realized that the California tour I had waited for over a year to come was starting and I hadn't gotten tickets. For a year I obsessively checked my email for messages from the Leonard Cohen mailing list hoping membership would grant me a headstart/presale to no avail. I checked ticketmaster at least once a week to make sure he couldn't slip by me. The day finally comes and I don't have a ticket. GG, Cat.

I decided to rush down to San Diego anyways and try my luck outside the door - without much hope though, considering the demographics of his fanbase. Old people don't scalp. The show also started right on time, criminally early as well. Unprecedented! I suppose it's because he is 74 after all and needs to get to bed at a reasonable time.

I drove down to UCSD to pick up Anton in a record hour (it's supposed to take at least thirty minutes more) with traffic but without going over 70 mph the entire time. We would have been good on time if I hadn't gotten lost and taken a driving tour of the sprawling campus of UCSD. It took me fifteen minutes to blindly guess and find Anton's dorm. From there, we drove to downtown San Diego and spent twice as long looking for parking on the street. I refused to pay $10-15 to park in a lot when I wasn't even sure we would get in. I was very worried whenever we passed by the front of the symphony hall and there was no one outside.

When we finally did park on the corner of Sketch St and Janky Ave, I had to run downhill for two and a half blocks in heels. We went inside the lobby of the beautiful hall, and already heard music. A lone woman sitting on some couches asked us if we had any tickets, and we told her we were looking as well. She said the show had already started, and it was sold out. When I had checked earlier that day, there were still front row seats! I knew I should have gotten them. She also told us that what extra tickets were left were going for $200. Anton and I felt so ashamed, with just $40 in our pockets.

My heart sank only a little though. I have every intention of going to Coachella next Friday, when he is also playing. It just would have been so nice to see him in an elegant setting, instead of out in the dirty desert. He'll probably only play a 45 minute set next week too, without an encore sure to include "Chelsea Hotel". Finally, how will I find him to offer head on an unmade bed in the scores of people at Coachella? I should have just found his tour bus last night and camped out in front of it.

After our defeat, Anton tried to cheer me up with mexican food - bad idea. We ate it in the radio station where he works. There's a practice room full of instruments there, and I wanted Anton to cover the Zombies for me, but there was a selfish bluegrass band there would not leave. So many things going wrong. Instead of staying the night, I decided to just go home. I visited his dorm room for a little bit, then we went to commons for ice cream. Seems like trips to UCSD always end that way, but I don't mind that much.

I'm now on craigslist again looking for tickets for the LA show on Saturday. The lowest people will go is $75, and I'm seriously considering it. I'm not hired as a reader yet, and Coachella will be expensive. So many reasons why I'm being unreasonable right now.

But oh, Leonard Cohen.

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