The first concert I ever paid my own money to attend was Bell Biv DeVoe (now ya know) at the Met Center in (I think) the spring/summer of 1991.

A longtime New Edition fan, I was giddy with excitement to attend this concert with my high school BFF Nikki. I drove two hours from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin where I lived at the time just to see BBD and Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill. I wore my flyest, brightest tie-dyed shorts.

Since I was a poor kid I didn’t get a lot of opportunities to see live music even though I loved the hell out of it. I spent any dollars I had on music I could keep, and in 1991 that didn’t happen very often. In fact, I stole most of my music from the Chippewa Falls library, making endless mix tapes from the records I’d check out.

Before Bell Biv DeVoe the only other concert I had seen was The Jets & Limited Warranty. So of course I was giddy as fuck. Nikki, my petite, blonde, cheerleader BFF, and I were amped up and chatty as hell as we navigated our way to our seats. And that was probably the last happy moment of the concert for me. Well maybe not when Johnny Gill sang Rub You the Right Way, but still . . .

I had the great misfortune to be seated at that concert in front of and behind total assholes. Every time I stood up the people behind me would tap me on the shoulder and ask me to sit down because they couldn’t see. Because I am a nice, Minnesota girl, I did. Of course. But because I am a freakishly tall Minnesota girl, whenever I sat down my knees were wedged into the seat in front of me, which totally pissed off the woman in front of me who turn around and ask if I could move my knees. It was awful, because I literally had no where to move them. At all.

There is something about being freakishly tall that really brings out the total asshole in people, even Minnesota Nice people, at paid events like concerts or movies. Take for instance this total bullshit about tall people being jerks puked up on City Pages today.

Of course when you’re 5’1″ as the author of that piece is, isn’t just about the entire fucking planet taller than you? And also, why do people taller than you owe you anything? We have just as much right to exist as anyone else. Plus, as my 6’9″ BFF Wolfdogg pointed out, actual tall people, the freakishly tall like me and him, are ridiculously aware of how much space we’re taking up at all times.

It reminded me of this wonderful description Kim Gordon had about her ex-husband Thurston Moore in her book Girl in a Band:

. . . and the wariness you see in tall men who don’t want to overpower other people with their height.”

That wariness goes about quadruple for tall women.

I’ve been a concert-going music fan for more than twenty years now and I have never, ever been front row center at any concert I’ve attended. I got pretty close when I saw Mike Doughty at Hippiefest a hundred years ago, but that was a strange combination of drunken bravado and hippies that had never before or since been duplicated in my entire life.

Being a freakishly tall female concert goer adds an extra level of peril to the whole experience, because then you get the sexism on top of the usual belligerence of shorter-than-you men. I remember a particular Ryan Adams concert at First Ave where a drunk guy was mad at me for being in front of him at the back of the room and at the same time told me how he’d forgive me in bed because “we’re all the same height laying down.” (Barf)

As you can see that article totally pissed me off. I see this lament about tall people at concerts all the time and it drives me bonkers. Because really? What are we supposed to do? It’s not like we can fucking help our height. So if you’re short, why don’t you stop being an entitled asshole and move. Fuck.

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However, the other day I discovered Sheffield has another book coming out this week, Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke and my first reaction was “fuck, we need another 40something white dude riffing on rock & roll like I need a fucking hole in my head.”

Then I scrolled down the book’s Amazon page and see a review by Chuck Klosterman and my head exploded. Because isn’t that a little like Ernie reviewing a book by Bert? At least that’s the way it seems to me. Really, really Ernie loved Bert’s book. Shocking.

I would just like to state for the record that I DO NOT CARE ANYMORE WHAT THAT LITTLE FRAT OF 40SOMETHING WHITE DUDES THINK ABOUT ROCK & ROLL and/or POP CULTURE. Enough. We can be done with their take on everything. DONE. DONE. DONE. Let’s let someone other than Sheffield or Closterfuck or Greg Kot or DeRogatis write about this stuff.

Like I already know what this new book says: I was lonely and awkward and heartbroken. I used music to heal my grieving soul and define myself and through music I met another girl and there was love. Also, I’m going to make fun of some of your favorites and proclaim as utter genius some Cheez-Whiz song everyone makes fun of. The End. Until my next book.

Publishing: give us a book with Jessica Hopper riffing for 300 pages on what she thinks about pop culture and rock & roll. I want to read that. Or how about Maura Johnston or anyone else for that matter?

Even though you don’t know this, I wrote all that about Rob Sheffield and blah blah this morning when I was farting about the Internet. It seems my day has been bookended by inane white-dude rock critic bullshit.

Because as I was driving home from Family Dinner tonight Sound Opinions was on The Current. After running to the bank I started to pay attention right at the part where Kot & DeRogatis are wanking on about, wait, I’ll just paste what they post from the footnotes to the episode:
“Is it fair to say Jack White?s an all-around good guy? First, he may have donated money to a Detroit baseball field. Then he pitches in to save the city?s historic Masonic Temple. And now he?s made a generous $200,000 donation to the National Recording Preservation Foundation. Three cheers for this former guest!”

Do you know what’s missing from that effusive praise of Jack White? The fact that his ex-wife filed a restraining order against him because she fears for her life. Sure this might be ridiculous coincidence, a show taped in advance that randomly praises Jack White happens to air the exact same week the story about the restraining order breaks. Sure. I buy that. And no, it doesn’t come of at all like doing a favor for a friend.

UPDATE: My pal @solace has confirmed the Sound Opinions episode was taped before the news of the restraining order broke and the bit of wankery was prompted by White’s donation to the Recording Preservation Foundation. However, if I were the Higher Power of Sound Opinions, I’d have pulled the episode because it makes them come off really bad and horribly insensitive)

UPDATE II: Greg Kot responds:

@solace @jodiwilldare We tape the show on Wed because we have to get it out to stations in time for broadcast. News broke next day. Ugh.

— Greg Kot (@gregkot) August 5, 2013

As many on Twitter were quick to point out, there’s two sides to every story, which I think means I should believe White over the woman who got a judge to issue a restraining order. You know, women be crazy. Women are always pulling that domestic violence card whenever things don’t go their way.

FUCK THAT!

I love how it’s automatically assumed she’s the money-grubbing shrew, because never in the history of ever has a famous man harassed/beat/killed his wife. Not ever. Why doesn’t she just leave, after all?

FUCK ALL THE THINGS.

I’m so damn mad I don’t even know what to do with myself. I did other things on this boring Sunday but they have all evaporated in the face of my white-hot fury.

The “It’s (Insert Day of Week) and I’m Boring” is a series that Christa and I do to pay homage to the beauty of old-school blogging. (I totally copied this nice explanation from Christa).

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Friday morning at 9 a.m., I dropped my beloved Ruby off at the local Tires Plus to get a tune-up. She’s been having this habit of not wanting to start. Plus, she leans to one side and can be kind of bouncy. You know, standard spark plugs and suspension kind of work. When I left Ruby in the arms of another I was under the impression that I was going to get all that stuff fixed and an oil change.

Apparently, the dopes at Tires Plus were under a wholly different impression despite what the notes on my order said. Since I often have a tendency to nag car repair shops, I decided I would let these people do their work and call me when it was complete. Because I am not adept at car repairs, I had no idea how long this would take. So when I didn’t get a call at all on Friday, I figured Ruby had the kind of repairs that took a long time. When Saturday passed with nary a call, I started to worry.

So worried was I that I woke up at the crack of 6:30 a.m. this morning anxious as all get out to call and see how my Rubes was doing. The shop opened at 9 a.m., I called at 9:03. I like to show a little restraint.

As you can imagine, this does not end happily. I discovered, upon calling, that they didn’t fix Ruby. At all. They changed her oil and that’s it. Oh, and they forgot to call me. I left my car with them for 48 hours and they spent, what? 15 minutes on her.

Furious doesn’t even come close to describing the amount of anger I harbor. After haggling on the phone with Dan from Shakopee Tires Plus, I had decided to let them have a crack at fixing the fucking truck. However, after hanging up I decided I was too angry to actually give them any more of my money.

When I get angry, I am usually a leaking, crying, yelling mess. It’s like I have so much negative emotion inside of me it can’t figure out the best way to escape, so it chooses all the routes at once.

It took every bit of strength and courage I had to go down to that shop and get my truck. I also had to work against every atom of Minnesota Nice in my body not to apologize for being angry and picking up my truck even though I had just said I wanted it fixed. I am proud to say that the word sorry never escaped my lips while I was there. In fact, I even said, “I’m very angry and doing my best not to take it out on you.”

The only thing I say that is positive about this experience? Dan was ashamed by what happened. He didn’t offer up any excuses and only apologized for he said was “inexcusable.” And he didn’t make me pay for the oil change. Which was nice, but Ruby’s still not fixed so it was the VERY VERY least they could do. Literally.

Nothing makes me feel more like a helpless, hapless woman than car repairs. I hate it. HATE IT with a passion. And this is the exact reason why.

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