Nearly good luck and major good looks

Fluffy-headed Co-worker called as I was leaving work and had magically found three tickets to see M. Ward and Freakwater in the office printer, under a name we did not recognize. This fit with our last couple of days of nearly good luck and so we rolled with it, making plans to scream "I can't get a third strike" if we got checked at the door. The ride up there was heavily reminiscent of the edge of 17, forever wondering if I would have to read in McDonald's while my friends saw the show. We were brainstorming about whose tickets they could be and there was no one. Absolutely no one! Jesus did this for us, for he loves us! Until we were in and saw our super cool coworker Beth Pettinelli and Friends talking to the door man. Of course, Beth Pettinelli. She taught Freakwater to sing, M. Ward to play guitar, she was in the Replacements and the Pretenders and maybe the Beatles. We copped to our duplicity just as the manager came over and had re-printed their tickets, apologizing for the mistake Ticketmaster had made. We're in! And now these people think we are skeezy shysters and ridiculous adolescents. Beth was sweet: "I bet you guys thought 'Score!'" Yes, we did. And who the fuck thinks "Score!" anymore?

The string of nearly good luck continued, in that we were there, and caught three Freakwater songs. At the same time we had inconvenienced one of the world's kindest humans, and M. Ward blew. He was shocking. I was shocked. It was slow, and I get that--I can amuse myself if one has chosen to sing lullabies. I'll make jokes about launching pillows from a t-shirt cannon and look at boys. I was fucking hilarious.

I was shocked by his throw-back pretension. Do people really sing songs like that anymore? I'm not kidding, the lyrics were about an Artist and how they don't respect what he does because they want to watch TV; they don't know real Art, and they demand he change his Precious Music before he can get their Dirty Money. He's playing the fucking Park West, with assigned seating, black lacquer, and sheeny velvet curtains. They want him to make a video, can you imagine? The audience chuckles. That is droll. They sent him to Sundance (more chuckling) and now they want a video, so he subjects my precious cones and rods to an immature and stupid one-note inside joke. Narcissists. They make me think of my uncles. I should have demanded that other girl's money back.

We left early and Catherine Irwin, Best Person Ever, was smoking and telling a funny story about the Post Office trying to give her Ronald Reagan stamps. I pray that she use her magic powers of humor, beauty, and self-effacement to transform M. Ward into a real boy. Okay, wait: I love M. Ward. I don't like that thing I saw in him that I see places and I don't like, but I love M. Ward, and I love you.