SHARING THE SHOWS
First off, Mark, I'm giving you a shoutout for your birthday! I would have given you my ticket, but, well, you know...;) So I’ve been blessed with this job that gives me two weeks off for the holidays, and I always go to New York to visit my Mom and brother. Family time is wonderful, and some additional perks include real NY-style pizza and Italian food and seeing friends like Gary, Nina, Susan, and Pat (if I left your name off, feel free to tag yourself). I headed into Manhattan to meet my friend Natalie for dinner; we went to a place near Grand Central Station called DJ’s Pizza. Their slices were thin-crusted and smooth, and the atmosphere was quiet (see my Spinach slice here). I debated whether I should include the picture of the Garden or the slice, and Natalie said, “Why not both?” Good call, Natalie. Spoken like a true photographer. (sI got into the venue at about 7, and although Phish’s 7:30 start time actually means 8:15, I still like getting in early because the lines aren’t as long (less widespread panic trying to get in). As I get in, a dude commented that the blue shirt I bought during the Baker’s Dozen run a couple of years earlier was a lot lighter than his. I don’t use bleach on colors, but I guess it must have come out in the wash. I ran into Chuck on my way to my section, and we chatted New Year’s plans (Infamous Stringdusters in Richmond, VA for me, a Long Island-based Dead cover band called Halfstep for Chuck). Anywhere you go, you can find good music. We’re both only doing one night of Phish. I’ve decided that since my book, How to be a Happy Bachelor, will come out next year (*coughs* PRODUCT PLACEMENT *coughs*), I want to spend money promoting it and building a business around it, so if I have to cut some shows, so be it. And I’m past the phase where I need to see EVERY show. One will just have to be enough this year. And it turns out it was. In fact, this was my 40th show, and the best one I’d ever been to. I got to my seat and met Josh and Shannon, a nice pair of friends from Maine who came down for all four shows. This was Shannon’s first show, and she asked, “Any advice for me?” My response, “The trick is to surrender to the flow.” I saw an opportunity to insert a Phish lyric into a conversation, and I took it. Though with that, I have to call myself out. My assumin’ ass did it again. When talking to Shannon, I referred to Josh as “her boyfriend.” It turned out Josh and Shannon were platonic friends, and Josh is gay. Josh said, “No problem; happens all the time.” As a singles activist, I try to change people’s perceptions on singlehood, but it appears I have to check my assumptions as well. I do assume that when I see a man and a woman together, they’re together; this is societal conditioning. Maggie and I go to tons of shows together in Virginia, and I’m guessing some folks assume we’re a couple. But we’re a couple of awesome concertgoing buds! The boys opened with a tune I had never heard before, and it turns out it was their debut, a mellow tune called “Evening Song.” They then started jamming out on “No Men in No Man’s Land.” This isn’t one of my favorites, but they jammed out on it hard. Same deal with “Down with Disease.” I didn’t recognize “20/20 Vision;” upon checking the setlist, I learned it was an old Gene Autry song. I heard a “No Man’s” tease in “Ghost,” and at this point, the glowsticks started flying. “Gumbo” kicked ass, and then “Rift” came on. I think the boys saw my posting of Rift on Facebook. Shawn tagged me in that chain post that has me posting 10 albums that inspired me, and on day 7, in honor of Phish, I showed Rift, my first ever Phish experience, when a kid named Jason Alinkofsky played it for me during a Jewish youth group trip. I wasn’t hooked right away, but It planted a seed. They must have liked my meme so much they did a twofer on Rift, following it with “Weigh.” Another memory: during college, I worked at Samsonite Travel Expo during the summers at the Palisades Mall, and I had really gone down the Phish rabbit hole. I had a coworker, Luis Serapio, who just couldn’t understand how I listened to Phish, and even worse, in his eyes, insisted on playing it over the store's speakers (“I want to cut your head off so I can weight it!? What the hell kind of lyrics are that!?”). I did get him into the Dead though, particularly Shakedown Street, so 50% works (Johnny Mac, you’ve got a spirit animal). They busted out a rarity, “Dog Faced Boy” (my first time hearing it live). Josh said, “I wonder when the last time they played that was.” It turns out it was 10/24/16 at Grand Prairie, Texas. “Twenty Years Later,” one of my favs, gave me my first skingasm of the night. And I just reflected that it’s been exactly twenty years since Big Cypress. That was quite the event. “Tube” was next, but the real highlight was one of my new favorites, “Say it to Me S.A.N.T.O.S.” off Kasvot Vaxt. My first live experience was 7/6/19 at Fenway, but this one, as it closed the first set, gave me perhaps the biggest skingasm I’d ever had at a Phish show. After it ended, I thought, that was perfect. I can go home now. On the way to the bathroom, I heard someone say, “That song made me want to make a smelly fart.” I guess that space would smell like a fart, wouldn’t it? I’d say that joke’s on par with me yelling “this is what space smells like” during “Space” at Dead & Company last month. Shows are a good place to test out cheesy material. During setbreak, I chatted briefly with Fred and talked with Judy. A fellow academic, we typically talk some shop at the shows. She and my friend Ellen are both neuroscientists, and I made sure they connected at a Neuroscience conference in Washington, DC; we three, along with Bill, saw Jimmy Herring perform at the Hamilton back in 2017; it was a fun night. Every time I see her or Bill, we send selfies to Ellen. I also chatted with a dude named Ethan May, who plays with a band called Jank Setup from Chicago. I also like to plug bands on here, so folks, take a listen to this track. It’s pretty groovy. Set 2 opened with “Everything’s Right,” followed by two Trey songs, “Beneath a Sea of Stars” and “Set Your Soul Free” (“we’re all here together in a spirit family” sums up the vibe of our scene quite nicely). I hadn’t heard “Gotta Jiboo” in a minute, so that was welcomed. During this song, the dudes next to me were trying to throw their glowsticks over a glass divide to the upper section (way harder than it looks). I tried it myself, and didn’t make it. And my old ass threw his arm out doing it (see the divide below). Sometimes, my mind tells me I’m 22, but my 41-year-old body disagrees. “Free” and “Piper,” show staples, were next. I was ecstatic to hear their cover of The Who’s “Drowned,” and “Ass Handed” is always wacky, and it came with a cool instrumental. “Character Zero” closed the set. The encore: I hadn’t heard “A Life Beyond the Dream” before, and it had a poignant feel to me. Skingasm #3 came in the form of an upbeat “Rocky Top.” Fortunately, the show doesn’t end when the band plays. Some dialogue I heard in the men’s room:
Young New York phans crack me up. During the slow crawl down the stopped escalator (Mitch Hedberg’s routine about how an escalator can’t break comes to mind), a woman named Sheila was telling me about how her friend Tony was a hammerhead. I thought it was an interesting line so I wrote it in my pad. Sheila then turned to me and said, “Are you taking notes on us!?” I then told them about my blog, and we conversed. She then gave me a card she made up (see below). I’d love to give this card to people who insist on having loud conversations at the show, especially when those conversations are with me. After the show, my contact buzz drew me to a street vendor, who sold me a hot pretzel with mustard (that’s required cuisine when visiting NY). Sadly, I missed the PATH train to Hoboken by about thirty seconds, so I had to wait for the 1:32 back to Suffern, the last train of the night. The New Jersey Transit people had the doors closed, and some drunk dude was yelling at the closed train something about “It’s a fucking conspiracy! This is what my taxes pay for!” Looking back, I think it might have been funny for me to yell, “Power to the People!” At least, in theory. In practice, probably not so much. At any rate, it was good postshow entertainment, as I said to the two dudes from Jersey I talked to, who also dug the sets.
The conductors and transit cops came by, telling us they weren’t letting anyone on the train without a ticket. Understandable, as it is the last train of the night, and drunk riders will either: a) sneak on without one; or b) forget to buy one, and then pass out. I refer to that late-night train as “the drunk train.” I was entertained by this group of 20something drunk girls who I’m sure had been partying in Hoboken or Manhattan. They were debating which Insomnia Cookie to eat, and then my mind filled with regret. I got a Snickers ice cream bar as “something sweet” when I could have gotten an Insomnia Cookie (or two). As I thought further, one cookie wouldn’t have been enough (as that was the case when I visited Chuck and Lisa in Milwaukee last year), and I’m trying to be good even when I’m bad. All in all, one night was definitely enough this hard. Could this be a sign of change of the horizon? Cue the horror music…
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April 2024
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