Hypothermia and the Master Plan of the Universe
I love the stories Eddie Vedder tells from the stage. Yesterday on Sirius’ Pearl Jam Radio he went on about cracks in Chinese vases and how the ancient Chinese used to fix those cracks with gold, making the broken and repaired vases much more valuable and beautiful.
And people get broken too he said, and when they get fixed, it’s beautiful. So it’s not the people with scars that we should worry about, he said. It’s the ones without scars.
I like that.
Two nights ago when Christine and I went through our little crucible to see the band here in Seattle, Eddie told a story from the stage, of a seven year old girl who insisted, insisted, insisted, that her dad take her out on their boat, as he’d promised, on an early Sunday morning on Maui, twelve years ago.
Even though Dad was exhausted and a storm was coming up, Dad relents - as fathers of seven year olds will - and soon the two come across three overturned kayakers in the channel between Maui and Lanai, just as the storm was really coming on.
Fortuitous coincidence? Master plan of the universe? … well, whichever … one of those kayakers was Eddie Vedder, and he feels pretty lucky — and grateful to that insistent seven year old. Who, by the way, is grown up now into a beautiful blond nineteen year old — and who happens to be visiting our emerald city tonight all the way from her emerald island. Eddie brought her out on stage to a roar from the crowd.
As I said, I really like his stories.
How Christine and I managed to get into the packed Key Arena yesterday to experience the Pearl Jam show was kind of a winding, amazing, adventure itself.
The story probably should start last summer when I read that Seattle’s homegrown icons would be finishing their tour with a show in Seattle. I even marked the date and time that the tickets went on sale, and then got busy or forgot to go online. The tickets were gone that afternoon.
Well, no worries. We don’t have to go, and anyway I live in Queen Anne, close to the venue. I’ve always had great luck just showing up a few hours before a show and buying surprisingly good seats from scalpers. I’ve seen Bob Dylan, and Garth Brooks, and Seal (second row), and Bruce Springsteen (Christine’s first Springsteen show) … among others. Life’s been good on those sidewalks outside the Key Arena.
Pearl Jam in Seattle would be different.
If I were more attuned to the universe I might have noticed that difference in the days just before the show when I browsed the online scalping sites like Stubhub and Craigslist, looking for tickets. Those being offered were uniformly mercenary. Bad seats at the top of the stadium for $500 a piece. Standing room in the “mosh pit” in front of the stage for $3000. — Ridiculous, and kind of mean. Wall Street capitalists.
A couple of hours before the show I went down the hill to the concert site and checked out the scalpers. I thought I recognized one guy. I think he sold me two decent seats to a Bruce Springsteen concert in 2008. He had a couple of pretty good seats for this show — and wanted an outrageous price.
I waited a bit. Came back, and about an hour before show time managed to talk him down a little. But it was still more than the cash I had — so he took a check for the difference(!) We walked over to a liquor store (where they seemed to know him) and wrote it out.
Mugged, but relatively content, I went back up the hill to collect Chris from home. I threw on a light shirt and took a leather jacket, figuring I’d be inside, in a packed arena most of the night. But it was cold outside.
Shortly we’re back down the hill, heading into the show and get stopped at the entrance. The bar codes on the tickets come up “invalid” on the scanner. We try a second door but we’re directed to the Ticketmaster window outside, which has a line around the block, filled up (as it turns out) mostly with friends of the band waiting for comp tickets. But it’s a looong line and we have no choice.
We make a circle around the outside of the arena, looking for the guy who sold the tickets. We go to the liquor store. No luck. We’re sure I’ve been ripped off. Man do I feel bad. And it’s like, zero degrees with the wind chill.
What a date. Chris doesn’t blink, though. And I don’t want to give up till I know for sure that these are bad tickets. For some reason I still don’t think the guy who sold them to me thought that they were bad. For one thing, he was meticulous about not taking a bad check.
Poor Chris. We wait and wait and wait in the line in the cold, cold, windy evening. A lot of those in line are happily fortified with legal substances, and looking forward to free tickets. We are not. We hear the muffled indoor sounds of Mudhoney, the opening band, as it comes on, plays a set and leaves. I’m shivering almost uncontrollably — serious shaking. Chris, at least has a couple of layers of clothing on.
Finally we get to the window. The Ticketmaster guy says yeah these are bogus. He’s got a special pen that leaves marks on fake tickets — and ours have marks. Then he says sorry. Then he says “I can sell you two tickets on the fourth row for $68.50 each. Do you want to do that?”
Yes we do want to do that.
I never thought I’d say this — but … wow … thanks Ticketmaster.
A few minutes later we’re inside and a couple of minutes after that Pearl Jam is on.
I don’t want to go into our seats though. I literally cannot stop shaking — for like 20 minutes or more I shiver. I have some water and a glass of red wine. Chris feeds me a hot pretzel. I literally have hypothermia — which is very uncomfortable.
Three or four songs into the concert I feel OK enough to head for the seats. Then I get warm right away. And I’m happy.
To mention Mr. Springsteen again — I once heard him say that it’s really worthless — impossible — to write descriptions of music or sex. I tend to agree. So I won’t attempt to describe the show’s music other than to tell you that it was really good. It was fun. They played their hits. Everyone in the arena stood the entire time the band played. Everyone — even the tip-top nosebleeder seats stood. Even the 6’5" guy right in front of me in row three. He never sat down. And the audience sang. And swayed. It was community. It was church. It was pretty neat. It made me love Seattle.
It healed the hypothermia. It mended the money wound. My church-going gal — who only really started-in with rock concerts when she took up with me — she loved it.
The thing about the show is, that we felt it. That’s what made it so cool. Pearl Jam is a special band. Perhaps they have a special spirit and a special audience — and they are from a very special city :)
So … when I got home I called my bank and cancelled the check. Then I realized that I had a card that the guy who sold me the tickets had given me, with his phone number on it. I’ll call him Mike — cause that’s his name.
About 1 a.m. I give Mike a call. I tell him about the tickets. He apologizes. He says he’ll give me the money back tomorrow.
We meet the next day. Sure enough, he shows, gives me my cash and my check back. Tells me he’s looking to get ahold of the guy who sold the tickets to him. I give him two of the hundreds that he brings back to me, and tell him the story of the fourth row seats. We go our ways, and he is a totally decent guy.
Christine and I ended up with amazing fourth row seats to an impossibly sold out Pearl Jam concert. And we got them for less than $400 including parking, my bank’s cancelled check fee, and my generosity to Mike. Even the hypothermia seems to be gone — but I never want to be that cold again.
With my money back in my pocket, I’m not feeling nearly so stupid.
Will I be smarter yet though, if I consider this whole thing as a fortuitous coincidence, or maybe part of the master plan of the universe? Some wild-ride-bit-of-magic that got us into a Pearl Jam show that I just had a feeling we were supposed to go to.
The whole adventure leaves Christine and I with big old smiles and stronger faith — in something. … I bet that‘s the way Eddie would probably see it, if he were telling this story.
posted at Queen Anne Seattle, 8 December 2013
