This is an open letter to the girl who pushed her way in front of us at the Bruce Springsteen concert in Los Angeles on October 30th.
There’s no question you’re attractive, a fact of which you are undoubtedly aware. The black tank top and tight white pants, the pretty face and long dark hair, and the bubbly, sassy, dare I say it, insouciant ‘tude all combined to make it more than obvious that you’re quite cognizant of your physical attractivicity.
The fact that you used your small, lithe frame to push past hundreds of larger people, reaching behind you to pull your much-larger-than-you male friends along for the ride was a classic trick, a variation on the film staple of the young hottie hitchhiker with her boyfriend waiting in the bushes.
That you were stunned that we’d be less than happy about you pushing in front of us, although we’d been waiting about four hours at the point, was itself pretty stunning. “Whoa…bad karma in this area,” you purred, as though you weren’t the one responsible for bringing said negative vibe to the region.
That you then lit up a spliff the size of Tulsa and consumed the entire thing in ninety seconds was impressive.
The way you started dancing once the music started, an odd combination of Woodstock-inspired hippie twirls with Y2K-era poledance grinding was amusing, if at times downright parodistic.
That you clearly thought said gyrations were fetching when what you were was actually mainly baffling and intrusive was humorously perplexing if distracting.
How clearly you knew and loved the music seemed contradictory but was at least somewhat endearing.
Watching you crash about 2/3 of the way through the concert was rather satisfying.
Most of all, though, what you were was a jerk, a complete and total antithesis to what Bruce Springsteen and his music has been about for the past forty years, about the importance of honesty and hard work. You wanted a great view but didn’t want to have to earn it. Well, sure—that’s understandable. Generally speaking, getting things for free is way better than paying for them. But as our boy Bruce himself said, “you wanna play, you gotta pay!”
You wanted to play. But you didn’t want to pay. You just wanted to cheat and cut to the front of the line, past those who were willing to pay the cost, the hassle of getting there early and the physical discomfort of standing out in the cold for hours, and then standing packed together for a few more hours. It’s a little thing. Except it’s not. This deregard for doing what’s right in favor of what makes you happy at that exact moment is one of the things that’s worst about our culture in a microcosm.
At the end of the day, on the scale of all that is good and right, with Bruce Springsteen and his music at one end and George W. Bush and his incompetent, corrupt and nepotistic administration and family at the other, you are one hell of a lot closer to GWB than to Spruce. And given how well you knew Bruce’s lyrics, I take at least a tiny bit of comfort in knowing you’d probably be horrified by that. As well you should be.
"This disregard for doing what’s right in favor of what makes you happy at that exact moment is one of the things that’s worst about our culture in a microcosm."
Exactly.
Posted by: Theresa | Saturday, November 10, 2007 at 05:56 AM
Perfect post. I'm impressed you guys are still hitting the front row of concerts with 5 kids. I guess the "Boss"is worthy of such devotion!
Posted by: Abigail | Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 02:41 PM