That's the ticket

Today has been a day of heavy-duty cleaning chores here in my home office. That is to say, I've only now discovered that there is an office beneath all the years and years' worth of crap that I had allowed to accumulate up here. You cannot even begin to imagine the bullshit I've dug out, laughed about, and then finally allowed myself to pitch. It's been quite liberating, to let go of all this clutter that I could never discard before. It's also been a day punctuated by nostalgia, mostly the giggly kind, but also some things that made me wistful, some trinkets and pictures that made me think of people who aren't around anymore, some scribblings and mementos that caused quick, sharp pangs of regret. There's always that danger when one digs into the physical tokens of the past, I guess.

I threw out my own weight in magazines that, at one time, I didn't think I could possibly live without. You know, the ones I haven't looked at in ten years? I also tossed many giant envelopes filled with newspaper clippings and comics that I once found important to have. And, holy bunga bunga, the receipts! I sure have bought a lot of shit in the last 15 years or so. Lots of t-shirts went, too, which is a minor miracle. I'm talkin' concert t-shirts, and that isn't something I take lightly. But it was just time to face the fact that most of these shirts were almost completely faded, were full of holes, and just wouldn't fit like they did when I was 25 and my body hadn't decided to hold all those Twinkies against me.

A batch of souveniers that did not make the trash basket would be the mass of concert ticket stubs I found. There are an awful lot of ticket stubs in this house. I found three in particular that slammed my ass right into the cheap seats on the rock n' roll time machine.

My first concert:



I could lie and say, "Yeah, it was the Beatles!" but then again, I think the 1978 date would make y'all cry bullshit. It's actually the Beach Boys. With all three Wilson brothers, if my dented brain is remembering correctly. The concert took place on the football field at Grand Haven Senior High, and Squirl took me so that Mom and Dad wouldn't have to hassle with the crowd. Some version of the Byrds without many or any of the original members opened, but it was all about the Beach Boys for me, anyway. I will confess that I remember the music less than I remember the spectacle of the crowd, and the people on the blanket next to ours who shared their wine with the adults on our blanket, and the funny smell in the air that I couldn't place and Squirl wasn't about to explain. Good times!

The stub from my second concert doesn't have the date visible, unfortunately, but I would guess that it was in the early part of 1979, maybe in February (Squirl, do you remember?):



Though he is cut off the ticket, I assure you that the Captain was there with Tennille, which yielded, oddly enough, the Captain and Tennille. This was shortly after their TV show was cancelled, and they were touring in support of their third album, Come in From the Rain. May the heavens have mercy on me for knowing so much about the Captain and Tennille. Mom and Dad took me to this one, so I'm thinkin' Squirl came along of her own free will, instead of as my babysitter. They put on an excellent show, and if you have anything bad to say about C&T, I've got a grabby little pucker for your tongue. It was at the LC Walker Arena in Muskegon, and some comic whose name I can't remember opened for them. All I remember is, I was 13 years old, and even then I could pick out a lame comedian when I saw one.

Now, since both the Captain and Tennille spent time touring as part of the Beach Boys (yes, Toni Tennille was the first and only Beach Girl), it seems like kind of a logical progression that they would be my first two concerts. But then my third concert threw that pattern right out the car window like a can of Blatz with hair in it:



It seems my musical tastes took a complete detour somewhere in the months following the Captain and Tennille concert. I had become hooked on this Tom Waits character, and when I heard he would be at Grand Valley, I begged, literally begged, Squirl to take me. The tickets were something insanely cheap, like eight bucks a head, and she graciously acquiesced. The show was in a tiny little auditorium in the college, intimate as could be, and when Tom took the stage, I knew I would never be the same again. He was on tour for Blue Valentines, and he had a gas pump and a lamp post on the stage as props. During the show, Tom swigged on a bottle of whiskey, spit on the stage when he felt the need, and put out some of the best live music I've ever heard, even to this day. It was a fairly long show, but the one song that stands out more than any other is Burma Shave, with just Tom and the piano. On the drive home, I was chattering a mile a minute in my overwhelming excitement, and to her credit, Squirl did not even once stop the car and push me out.

I just ain't been right since then. We can blame it on Tom Waits.

And just to prove that point, here's another item I found today that I just can't bear to discard:

I may or may not have added Photoshop jizz. You be the judge. Plus, I haven't used the word "jizz" in a post in days and days.

What? You didn't really expect a whole post of sincerity from me, did you?