Me and Snags at it, again.
Snags is riding shotgun in the rental, setting up appointments on Craigslist while I drive. Its a Jetta; good on gas and has some balls so we can get where we're goin' in a hurry. He fuckin' hates the way I drive, though. I don't blame him. I miss exits, make some psycho moves, and have to have it pointed out to me that the light I'm sitting at has turned green (or the light I just went through was red) on a pretty regular basis. But it's how we started this thing however-many years ago, so we do what we do.
If you don't know what we do, we work the grind - buy for a nickel, sell for a dime. We've done it for over a decade, logged thousands of miles and flipped tens of thousands of tickets and we're fuckin' good at it.
In our travels, we encounter all kinds of people - mostly, pretty cool humans. Occasionally, we run into the odd fuckstick. It's unavoidable. When we were younger men, we'd allow ourselves to get distracted and get into beefs, but as we've wizened with age we realize that such episodes cost us time, and time is money, and money is why we are here. Also, speaking for myself, I've come to believe that there is no downside to being nice to people, even when they suck. So, I make the effort.
Anyways, Snags has found someone on Craigslist and I'm driving to meet them in Bellevue while Snags continues doing the clickety-click (that's what Kentucky Fried Mike calls using a computer, so that's what we call it) to set up our next appointment, and it isn't long before some douche-hose tests my Zen.
I'm pissed at myself for not getting a picture of the back of this guy's shirt. I had pulled over in a loading zone, waiting Snags' guy to call when this heavyish, fortysomething white guy with typical male-pattern baldness walks down the sidewalk in the same direction as us. The back of this clown's bright red, XXXL T-shirt reads,
"I will defend the constitution against all ENEMIES, foreign and domestic and DEMOCRAT."
ME (under my breath): "What a fuckin' toolbox."
Snags is already making the "leave-it-alone-Ron" face when his customer calls. I wordlessly assure him that I will (I won't) as he exits the car and goes to meet his guy.
The guy with the shirt hasn't gotten far. He's at the corner waiting for the light to change. I put the car in drive and slowly creep up on him as I roll down the passenger window.
"'Scuse me!"
He stops and turns to me and I continue.
"Hey, I was just wondering. Am I you enemy?"
"You vote Democrat?"
"Yeah."
"Then you're my enemy."
Matter-of-fact-like. He's not mad or anything. Then he turns to walk away but turns back to me as I call.
"'Scuse me! I served four years in the Marine Corps. I took that oath on the back of your shirt. I don't remember that last part being there. Are you saying that me and tens of thousands of veterans, some who gave their lives for their country, are your enemy if they vote for Democrats?"
The guy shrugs and looks at me with this I-don't-know-what-to-tell-you look, like he doesn't have a choice, and says, fatalistically,
"Democrat."
I didn't get mad. I just called after him, sincerely,
"You are not my enemy!"
Cuz I'm a lover.
Snags has returned with some tickets. He gets back in the car (which he notices is half a block west of where it was a few moments ago) and gives me a look.
ME: "What?"
Saturday, September 8, 2018
Saturday, July 19, 2014
FENWAY PARK - Boston, July 18, 2014
It's not always about the money. It mostly is, though.
As of this writing, the Red Sox have the worst record in Major League Baseball. Pretty unimpressive considering they won The World Series at home last year.
And it was only a couple of years ago that the Red Sox ended a 794-game sellout streak, and while there are many who dispute that figure, it remains a fact that fans regularly shelled out $75-$100 to sit in a $20 bleacher seat for any game in July and August for a good number of years. Whether they were playing good or shitty did not matter. The economy was hummin' along and Boston had plenty of good-paying jobs - Business owners, Bankers, college students with rich parents, union guys...they all joined the tourists who were flush with cash. Everybody came to the newly renovated, historic Fenway Park to see the greatest team in baseball play in one of the last of the great parks. Everybody earned. The team owners, the guys in the box office... and every hustler on the street still talks about the days when you could make hundreds if you just touched a handful of tickets.
Those days are long gone. You look on StubHub right now and you'll see games in August selling for eight bucks. Disgusting. We buy 'em up and try to get $20 on the street and do that ten times. Do the math. Some guys are actually getting jobs. Fuckin' sad is what it is.
But once in awhile you get a good game and Friday was one of those games. Not like the old days, but reminiscent.
Snags called it. The first game after the Allstar break is always at least halfway descent, but this game looked good for a while and no one was paying attention. We bought some Standing Rooms a couple of weeks in advance, sold some online and kept the rest for the walk. The economy is picking up. The weather is perfect. We were optimistic but we did not expect a sell out. And while it wasn't a hundred-dollar ticket, it was a sixty-dollar hand-out and it just got better and better.
We'd already made a good chunk of cash. The game was in the second inning and there were still a hundred people waiting in line even though there were no more tickets to be had. Snags was at the top of Landsdowne street selling the last couple of seats we had. I was running around trying to "pick up" so we could flip a few more seats before it was over. I tried a bunch of my usual spots but was not having any luck, then I scored eight seats on Boylston St. for short money and was heading back to meet Snags when I bumped into a woman near Gate B who was looking for a single. There was something about her....
The window of opportunity to sell these seats was brief, but I did not want to stop talking to this chic. Her name was Jennifer and she had just finished defending her Doctoral Thesis in Neurochemistry. Her whole family had come from Kentucky to help her celebrate. She bought everyone tickets and was one short. She told them all to go inside and said she would find one and that is where I came in. I told her seventy bucks was the price. It was high, but close to the face value of the ticket. That's when she told me about her accomplishment. I know what that's like when you achieve something that took a tremendous amount of perseverance and you just want to tell the first person you see. I remember when I was learning how to ski and skied my first black diamond trail. I grabbed a guy by the shoulders at the bottom of the slope and screamed, "That was my first black diamond!" Scared the living shit out of the poor prick. Dr. Jennifer didn't grab me by the shoulders, but she lit up like fireworks when she told me. She said she felt like she deserved to be drunk for a week and I wished there was something I could say that would make her want me to spend that week with her. She was just magnetic and I knew I would never see her again. She bought the ticket, I shook her hand and congratulated her and gave her five dollars back.
"The least I can do is buy your first beer."
Then she was gone.
It was dark by the time Snags and I sold the rest of our seats, but we had our best day at Fenway in a long time. We got a couple of steakbombs from Deliworks, went back to the house and ate freezepops while binge-watching the last season of Californication.
As of this writing, the Red Sox have the worst record in Major League Baseball. Pretty unimpressive considering they won The World Series at home last year.
And it was only a couple of years ago that the Red Sox ended a 794-game sellout streak, and while there are many who dispute that figure, it remains a fact that fans regularly shelled out $75-$100 to sit in a $20 bleacher seat for any game in July and August for a good number of years. Whether they were playing good or shitty did not matter. The economy was hummin' along and Boston had plenty of good-paying jobs - Business owners, Bankers, college students with rich parents, union guys...they all joined the tourists who were flush with cash. Everybody came to the newly renovated, historic Fenway Park to see the greatest team in baseball play in one of the last of the great parks. Everybody earned. The team owners, the guys in the box office... and every hustler on the street still talks about the days when you could make hundreds if you just touched a handful of tickets.
Those days are long gone. You look on StubHub right now and you'll see games in August selling for eight bucks. Disgusting. We buy 'em up and try to get $20 on the street and do that ten times. Do the math. Some guys are actually getting jobs. Fuckin' sad is what it is.
But once in awhile you get a good game and Friday was one of those games. Not like the old days, but reminiscent.
Snags called it. The first game after the Allstar break is always at least halfway descent, but this game looked good for a while and no one was paying attention. We bought some Standing Rooms a couple of weeks in advance, sold some online and kept the rest for the walk. The economy is picking up. The weather is perfect. We were optimistic but we did not expect a sell out. And while it wasn't a hundred-dollar ticket, it was a sixty-dollar hand-out and it just got better and better.
We'd already made a good chunk of cash. The game was in the second inning and there were still a hundred people waiting in line even though there were no more tickets to be had. Snags was at the top of Landsdowne street selling the last couple of seats we had. I was running around trying to "pick up" so we could flip a few more seats before it was over. I tried a bunch of my usual spots but was not having any luck, then I scored eight seats on Boylston St. for short money and was heading back to meet Snags when I bumped into a woman near Gate B who was looking for a single. There was something about her....
The window of opportunity to sell these seats was brief, but I did not want to stop talking to this chic. Her name was Jennifer and she had just finished defending her Doctoral Thesis in Neurochemistry. Her whole family had come from Kentucky to help her celebrate. She bought everyone tickets and was one short. She told them all to go inside and said she would find one and that is where I came in. I told her seventy bucks was the price. It was high, but close to the face value of the ticket. That's when she told me about her accomplishment. I know what that's like when you achieve something that took a tremendous amount of perseverance and you just want to tell the first person you see. I remember when I was learning how to ski and skied my first black diamond trail. I grabbed a guy by the shoulders at the bottom of the slope and screamed, "That was my first black diamond!" Scared the living shit out of the poor prick. Dr. Jennifer didn't grab me by the shoulders, but she lit up like fireworks when she told me. She said she felt like she deserved to be drunk for a week and I wished there was something I could say that would make her want me to spend that week with her. She was just magnetic and I knew I would never see her again. She bought the ticket, I shook her hand and congratulated her and gave her five dollars back.
"The least I can do is buy your first beer."
Then she was gone.
It was dark by the time Snags and I sold the rest of our seats, but we had our best day at Fenway in a long time. We got a couple of steakbombs from Deliworks, went back to the house and ate freezepops while binge-watching the last season of Californication.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
THE ROBBER
It felt good shoving Muzzy down a flight of stairs.
It was really out of character for me; I've always been a pacifist. But he fuckin' had it comin'. It was just like in the movies. No one said shit. The other scalpers new that Muzzy was a piece of shit who robbed people so much his other nickname was "The Robber" (pronounced, "The Robbah").
A typical situation would be like this: Back in the day, we'd all be workin' the Patriots down at Sullivan Stadium. The Pats sucked so bad back then, that we would pick up thirty dollar end-zones for ten bucks and sell them for twenty. The Pats only drew twenty-thirty thousand in those days, but so many people came to tailgate and buy the cheap tickets, that we could all make seven or eight hundred on a Sunday afternoon, so long as the cops (Mostly Mass State Troopers) didn't hassle us, which they rarely did because they had no clue how much money we were making. One "Statey" said to me once, "You guys must not do to well with the Pats, huh?"
I'd shrug. What am I gonna do? Tell him we're absolutely killing it?
Anyway, back to that low-life, Muzzy. So there was this one State Trooper who worked undercover busting us back in those days. His name was Dave Pare and he was a pretty stand-up guy. He busted me three times in one summer, all by the book. I invited him to one of my weddings and he did not attend, but as a present, he got the prosecutor to give me a walk (no fine, no guilty finding). Also, he pretty much stopped arresting me after that. He'd break my balls of course...stop me on the street, pull tickets out of my pockets and whatnot.
"Where's your probable cause, Trooper?" I'd ask him.
"You being here is probable cause."
He'd smack me on the head with my tickets, stick them back in my pocket and tell me to screw.
So one day, Trooper Pare is on the fucking warpath. He just starts hookin' guys up left and right. He's got Troopers on horseback, motorcycles, bicycles helping him. They rounded up all of the usual suspects put us in a big-ass paddy-wagon and tell us none of us will make another dollar until he's got Muzzy in custody.
Now, everyone will say they never rat, but all I know is that within an hour of Trooper Pare cutting us loose, Muzzy was in cuffs and everything went back to business as usual.
Fact is, the kid is a fucking menace and he brings all kinds of heat and no one wants that. Whenever he finally gets pinched and does a few years, there is an audible exhale emanating from the collective lungs of the scalping community in Boston.
So, back to the where, when, why and how I came to be physically throwing Joey Ferarra, aka "Muzzy" down the stairs at the "T" stop, outside a David Bowie concert at the Orpheum Theater in Boston in the Winter of 199?....
I had never met the kid or heard about his rep as I was new to the street. I'd been introduced to most of the Boston guys by Leo, who had vouched for me and knew absolutely everybody and was respected by all. Between that and me scoring 64 seats in the first three rows of Paul McCartney, I made my mark early and had a reputation as being a stand-up guy who didn't cause trouble and could be trusted. It was also known that I had a solid crew of 8-10 kids who would always be the first in line outside a ticket outlet when there was a big onsale. I'd usually drop off two kids at four or five different machines (Ticketron or Ticketmaster machines - usually at a record store or theater in those days) in remote areas so as not to draw too much attention. They were loyal and dedicated and I treated them like they were family. I'd drop them off at night with envelopes full of cash and pick them up after the onsale which was just what I had done the morning I first heard of Muzzy.
I picked up my kids from several Ticketmaster locations in southern Maine. We had all been successful. I had about thirty tickets to The Grateful Dead concert that was going to be held at Sullivan Stadium. I had left my girlfriend, Mary Helen, with another six kids at Bostix near Fanuil Hall in Boston. I gave her a couple of dimes figuring she could send everyone through the line twice. I was on 95 south north of Portland when she paged me. I pulled over and called her on a pay phone. She was crying and talking fast.
"I don't know his name but I know you would recognize him. He knows you. Why would he do it if he knows you? He said he knew a guy. He said there was no way we would all get through the line again before the show sold out. He asked me where you were and I told him you were in Maine. I gave him the money and he went in the door and never came out."
Eight hundred bucks. She had gone through the line and spent about twelve hundred and was following my instructions and waiting in line again when a guy approached her and told her he had a friend in the Boston Garden box office (mind you, this show was in Sullivan Stadium) which was a few hundred yards away. He told her she could come alone. His friend would handle everything. Mary Helen GAVE HIM EIGHT HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS and watched him talk to a guy at the Bruins box office - a conversation about anything but Grateful Dead tickets. Then Muzzy goes through a door, flashes the "One minute" sign to MH and he's off to the crack dealer.
I was screaming in my head, "You stupid fucking cunt!"
But I just said, "It's alright, baby. Everyone makes mistakes. You got a good number of tickets. We'll get through this. I'll find out who this guy is and take care of it.
At the time, I did not know his name and the only description MH could give is that he was white and had a "rotten tooth".
I got back in the car and drove back to Lawrence, hitting the roof numerous times while shouting, "You stupid fucking cunt!" repeatedly, at full volume.
The next day, I contacted Keith Sullivan. Keith wore many hats. Father, Husband, Ticket Broker. But Keith was mostly known for being one of the biggest bookmakers in Charlestown. He was a big, imposing figure who not many people would fuck with, although I did hear he had had some trouble with Whitey Bulger's crew, years ago because he wasn't kicking up to them, but you didn't hear it from me. Anyway, Keith and I had a close mutual friend and he always treated me well. There were a couple of times when my crew and his crew crossed paths and Keith could have told me to fuck myself and have his crew run mine over, but he didn't. He was always fair with me and he was smart. And...no one did any dirt without Keith knowing who had done it and what the dirt was.
I told him about MH getting robbed and Keith gave me the guy's name before I could finish. "That's Muzzy. Joey Ferrara. You want me to have one of my guys pick him up for you so's you can give him a beatin'?"
I told Keith I just wanted my money back and he told me that Muzzy was a junkbox who mostly smoked crack and that my money was most likely smoked up by now. Keith wouldn't have anything to do with the police and he told me as much, but seeing as how it was my girl who got robbed and not me, he said that if she went to the police on her own and told them the story, they would know who she was talking about.
I left it up to MH and she chose to press charges, but first I wanted to see if I could extract some cash from The Robbah. So a few days later, I showed up posing as a vic (ticket customer) at the Orpheum. I spotted Muzzy right away.
I was wearing a wig and some sunglasses and walked right past all the other scalpers. Not one of them recognized me. (I have done this on numerous occasions when I was persona-non-grata at a venue and worked, undetected alongside guys who have known me many years :) I asked Muzzy in a not-that-great Cockney accent what seats he had. When he took them out to show me, I grabbed him by the lapel and through him down a flight of stairs that went down to the T-station. At the bottom landing, he jumped to his feet and produced the smallest knife I had ever seen and threatened to cut me with it, though he did not ascend.
"I want my fucking money by tomorrow, or Mary Helen's going to press charges."
I strode off feeling enraged and exhilarated leaving behind my wide-eyed colleagues and witnesses who hurried to forget what they had seen.
It was really out of character for me; I've always been a pacifist. But he fuckin' had it comin'. It was just like in the movies. No one said shit. The other scalpers new that Muzzy was a piece of shit who robbed people so much his other nickname was "The Robber" (pronounced, "The Robbah").
A typical situation would be like this: Back in the day, we'd all be workin' the Patriots down at Sullivan Stadium. The Pats sucked so bad back then, that we would pick up thirty dollar end-zones for ten bucks and sell them for twenty. The Pats only drew twenty-thirty thousand in those days, but so many people came to tailgate and buy the cheap tickets, that we could all make seven or eight hundred on a Sunday afternoon, so long as the cops (Mostly Mass State Troopers) didn't hassle us, which they rarely did because they had no clue how much money we were making. One "Statey" said to me once, "You guys must not do to well with the Pats, huh?"
I'd shrug. What am I gonna do? Tell him we're absolutely killing it?
Anyway, back to that low-life, Muzzy. So there was this one State Trooper who worked undercover busting us back in those days. His name was Dave Pare and he was a pretty stand-up guy. He busted me three times in one summer, all by the book. I invited him to one of my weddings and he did not attend, but as a present, he got the prosecutor to give me a walk (no fine, no guilty finding). Also, he pretty much stopped arresting me after that. He'd break my balls of course...stop me on the street, pull tickets out of my pockets and whatnot.
"Where's your probable cause, Trooper?" I'd ask him.
"You being here is probable cause."
He'd smack me on the head with my tickets, stick them back in my pocket and tell me to screw.
So one day, Trooper Pare is on the fucking warpath. He just starts hookin' guys up left and right. He's got Troopers on horseback, motorcycles, bicycles helping him. They rounded up all of the usual suspects put us in a big-ass paddy-wagon and tell us none of us will make another dollar until he's got Muzzy in custody.
Now, everyone will say they never rat, but all I know is that within an hour of Trooper Pare cutting us loose, Muzzy was in cuffs and everything went back to business as usual.
Fact is, the kid is a fucking menace and he brings all kinds of heat and no one wants that. Whenever he finally gets pinched and does a few years, there is an audible exhale emanating from the collective lungs of the scalping community in Boston.
So, back to the where, when, why and how I came to be physically throwing Joey Ferarra, aka "Muzzy" down the stairs at the "T" stop, outside a David Bowie concert at the Orpheum Theater in Boston in the Winter of 199?....
I had never met the kid or heard about his rep as I was new to the street. I'd been introduced to most of the Boston guys by Leo, who had vouched for me and knew absolutely everybody and was respected by all. Between that and me scoring 64 seats in the first three rows of Paul McCartney, I made my mark early and had a reputation as being a stand-up guy who didn't cause trouble and could be trusted. It was also known that I had a solid crew of 8-10 kids who would always be the first in line outside a ticket outlet when there was a big onsale. I'd usually drop off two kids at four or five different machines (Ticketron or Ticketmaster machines - usually at a record store or theater in those days) in remote areas so as not to draw too much attention. They were loyal and dedicated and I treated them like they were family. I'd drop them off at night with envelopes full of cash and pick them up after the onsale which was just what I had done the morning I first heard of Muzzy.
I picked up my kids from several Ticketmaster locations in southern Maine. We had all been successful. I had about thirty tickets to The Grateful Dead concert that was going to be held at Sullivan Stadium. I had left my girlfriend, Mary Helen, with another six kids at Bostix near Fanuil Hall in Boston. I gave her a couple of dimes figuring she could send everyone through the line twice. I was on 95 south north of Portland when she paged me. I pulled over and called her on a pay phone. She was crying and talking fast.
"I don't know his name but I know you would recognize him. He knows you. Why would he do it if he knows you? He said he knew a guy. He said there was no way we would all get through the line again before the show sold out. He asked me where you were and I told him you were in Maine. I gave him the money and he went in the door and never came out."
Eight hundred bucks. She had gone through the line and spent about twelve hundred and was following my instructions and waiting in line again when a guy approached her and told her he had a friend in the Boston Garden box office (mind you, this show was in Sullivan Stadium) which was a few hundred yards away. He told her she could come alone. His friend would handle everything. Mary Helen GAVE HIM EIGHT HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS and watched him talk to a guy at the Bruins box office - a conversation about anything but Grateful Dead tickets. Then Muzzy goes through a door, flashes the "One minute" sign to MH and he's off to the crack dealer.
I was screaming in my head, "You stupid fucking cunt!"
But I just said, "It's alright, baby. Everyone makes mistakes. You got a good number of tickets. We'll get through this. I'll find out who this guy is and take care of it.
At the time, I did not know his name and the only description MH could give is that he was white and had a "rotten tooth".
I got back in the car and drove back to Lawrence, hitting the roof numerous times while shouting, "You stupid fucking cunt!" repeatedly, at full volume.
The next day, I contacted Keith Sullivan. Keith wore many hats. Father, Husband, Ticket Broker. But Keith was mostly known for being one of the biggest bookmakers in Charlestown. He was a big, imposing figure who not many people would fuck with, although I did hear he had had some trouble with Whitey Bulger's crew, years ago because he wasn't kicking up to them, but you didn't hear it from me. Anyway, Keith and I had a close mutual friend and he always treated me well. There were a couple of times when my crew and his crew crossed paths and Keith could have told me to fuck myself and have his crew run mine over, but he didn't. He was always fair with me and he was smart. And...no one did any dirt without Keith knowing who had done it and what the dirt was.
I told him about MH getting robbed and Keith gave me the guy's name before I could finish. "That's Muzzy. Joey Ferrara. You want me to have one of my guys pick him up for you so's you can give him a beatin'?"
I told Keith I just wanted my money back and he told me that Muzzy was a junkbox who mostly smoked crack and that my money was most likely smoked up by now. Keith wouldn't have anything to do with the police and he told me as much, but seeing as how it was my girl who got robbed and not me, he said that if she went to the police on her own and told them the story, they would know who she was talking about.
I left it up to MH and she chose to press charges, but first I wanted to see if I could extract some cash from The Robbah. So a few days later, I showed up posing as a vic (ticket customer) at the Orpheum. I spotted Muzzy right away.
I was wearing a wig and some sunglasses and walked right past all the other scalpers. Not one of them recognized me. (I have done this on numerous occasions when I was persona-non-grata at a venue and worked, undetected alongside guys who have known me many years :) I asked Muzzy in a not-that-great Cockney accent what seats he had. When he took them out to show me, I grabbed him by the lapel and through him down a flight of stairs that went down to the T-station. At the bottom landing, he jumped to his feet and produced the smallest knife I had ever seen and threatened to cut me with it, though he did not ascend.
"I want my fucking money by tomorrow, or Mary Helen's going to press charges."
I strode off feeling enraged and exhilarated leaving behind my wide-eyed colleagues and witnesses who hurried to forget what they had seen.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Beginning - HO DED PICKETS
My name is Dice. I've been a professional ticket scalper for 20 years. This is my story.
Dice. Weird nickname, I know. But no one in this business gets to pick their own nickname; if they did, there'd be a shitload of guys with names like, "Awesome Mike" or "Steve, The Great." Nope. Someone calls you something and, if it fits, the next day, everyone calls you that. My boy, Snags started calling this one kid, "Seabiscuit" on accounta he's got kind of a horse face (which was his nickname at the time). Horseface hated Snags callin' him "Seabiscuit," which seemed retarded to me. Really. You'd rather people call you "Horseface" than "Seabisuit?" No matter. "Seabiscuit" didn't make the cut. So "Horseface" stays "Horseface" and Snags doesn't get the high honor (just bragging rights, really) of originating another scalper's handle. Personally, I think he was on the money with this one.
Wow, that was a tangent. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. The Beginning. Most everything is true. Ish. I change the names of those who wish and those people and places whose names I cannot recall.
A BIT OF BACKGROUND...
LAWRENCE, 1989
Mary Helen was a petite and coquettish little darlin', 'bout my age, who spoke with a drawl as thick and as sweet as the Pecan Pie her mother was famous for in the tiny, frozen-in-time Alabama town where they were both born and raised. I rescued Mary Helen (her mother says, "a-stole") from the hum-drum life she dreaded as well as the charges she faced for check fraud in the nearby metropolis of Gadsden, Alabama. I spirited her away to Lawrence, Massachusetts where I was neither born nor raised, but which had the cheapest rent near my home town of Andover and was all I could afford at the time.
Cars drag-raced late at night on the street in front while cocaine and heroin were sold openly in the alley behind our run-down apartment building which, at one time, had been a single-family Victorian home. We liked to party. We smoked what passed for good weed back then and had a bar stocked with all top-shelf liquor for when we entertained friends. Truth? We never once entertained friends. It was always just me, Mary Hellen and her two dogs, Bo-bo and Pepper. The intoxicants were all for us and while we tolerated the activity outside our rear window, we generally eschewed "powders", except when we didn't and all hell would break loose.
Growing up, I had always loved music, but for some reason never dove all the way in. I remember I loved playing records on my brother's stereo (The Beatles - Abbey Road and the complete works of Jim Croce come to mind). But I never got a stereo of my own. And though a lot of my friends went to concerts, I rarely did. Before I saw my first show ("Yes" in the round at Boston Garden), I didn't get what the big deal was. But in 1989, both The Who and The Grateful Dead were touring North America and both would be at Foxboro Stadium in July of that year. Mary Helen and I both decided we would go since neither of us had seen either band. But we had almost no money between the two of us and she came up with the idea of buying a few extra tickets for each show (both shows were expected to sell out in under an hour) and use the money from the sale of those extra tickets to pay for our own seats as well as T-shirts and maybe a Limo (Mary Helen was obsessed with the idea and would never abbreviate "Limousine").
Next Installment:
SPRING 1989 - THE WHO @Sullivan Stadium, Foxboro, MA
Onsale - Ticketron - Retro Records, Lawrence, MA
Dice. Weird nickname, I know. But no one in this business gets to pick their own nickname; if they did, there'd be a shitload of guys with names like, "Awesome Mike" or "Steve, The Great." Nope. Someone calls you something and, if it fits, the next day, everyone calls you that. My boy, Snags started calling this one kid, "Seabiscuit" on accounta he's got kind of a horse face (which was his nickname at the time). Horseface hated Snags callin' him "Seabiscuit," which seemed retarded to me. Really. You'd rather people call you "Horseface" than "Seabisuit?" No matter. "Seabiscuit" didn't make the cut. So "Horseface" stays "Horseface" and Snags doesn't get the high honor (just bragging rights, really) of originating another scalper's handle. Personally, I think he was on the money with this one.
Wow, that was a tangent. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. The Beginning. Most everything is true. Ish. I change the names of those who wish and those people and places whose names I cannot recall.
A BIT OF BACKGROUND...
LAWRENCE, 1989
Mary Helen was a petite and coquettish little darlin', 'bout my age, who spoke with a drawl as thick and as sweet as the Pecan Pie her mother was famous for in the tiny, frozen-in-time Alabama town where they were both born and raised. I rescued Mary Helen (her mother says, "a-stole") from the hum-drum life she dreaded as well as the charges she faced for check fraud in the nearby metropolis of Gadsden, Alabama. I spirited her away to Lawrence, Massachusetts where I was neither born nor raised, but which had the cheapest rent near my home town of Andover and was all I could afford at the time.
Cars drag-raced late at night on the street in front while cocaine and heroin were sold openly in the alley behind our run-down apartment building which, at one time, had been a single-family Victorian home. We liked to party. We smoked what passed for good weed back then and had a bar stocked with all top-shelf liquor for when we entertained friends. Truth? We never once entertained friends. It was always just me, Mary Hellen and her two dogs, Bo-bo and Pepper. The intoxicants were all for us and while we tolerated the activity outside our rear window, we generally eschewed "powders", except when we didn't and all hell would break loose.
Growing up, I had always loved music, but for some reason never dove all the way in. I remember I loved playing records on my brother's stereo (The Beatles - Abbey Road and the complete works of Jim Croce come to mind). But I never got a stereo of my own. And though a lot of my friends went to concerts, I rarely did. Before I saw my first show ("Yes" in the round at Boston Garden), I didn't get what the big deal was. But in 1989, both The Who and The Grateful Dead were touring North America and both would be at Foxboro Stadium in July of that year. Mary Helen and I both decided we would go since neither of us had seen either band. But we had almost no money between the two of us and she came up with the idea of buying a few extra tickets for each show (both shows were expected to sell out in under an hour) and use the money from the sale of those extra tickets to pay for our own seats as well as T-shirts and maybe a Limo (Mary Helen was obsessed with the idea and would never abbreviate "Limousine").
Next Installment:
SPRING 1989 - THE WHO @Sullivan Stadium, Foxboro, MA
Onsale - Ticketron - Retro Records, Lawrence, MA
Thursday, September 27, 2012
YOU CALL US WHAT?
Jimmy and Victor have known each other for a little more than ten years. Jimmy's an Irish kid from Charlestown. Victor's Black. He's from Brooklyn. Their paths cross several times a year on each other's turf (usually Red Sox /Yankees games), where each vouch for the other when their respective colleagues want to know, "Who the fuck is that?"
Last year, they decided to go partners at the Final Four. For those that don't know "going partners" can work a few different ways, but basically its like this: Two guys pool their cash, share expenses (airfare, hotel, car rental, food), work the event as a team, and split the profit (or loss). Even guys that always work alone tend to make an exception for the Super Bowl or Final Four or World Series. These events require a lot of up-front investment and there are plenty of scumbags looking to rip off a scalper who is not paying attention. A partner provides another level of security. Also, working as a team is more efficient. When one guy is picking up or dropping off seats, his partner can be combing Craigslist or Stubhub for more.
So, Jimmy and Victor are sitting in their New York hotel at their respective laptops. Victor works. Jimmy is daydreaming....
JIMMY
Hey, can I ask you something?
VICTOR
Yeah. What's up?
JIMMY
When we show up in New York, what do you guys call us?
Victor, a bit perplexed, looks over the top of his screen. His eyes meet Jimmy's.
VICTOR
I'm not sure I know what you
mean. What are you asking me?
JIMMY
I said...When we come to
The City, what do you call us?
VICTOR
I heard what you said. I just...
Who are we talking about, here?
JIMMY
Scalpers. You know, New York
hustlers...Boston hustlers.
VICTOR
Ummm. We...call...you...scalpers.
JIMMY
Very funny, fuckstick.
You know what I mean.
Victor, a little annoyed, shrugs.
JIMMY
(to the air)
Ay, ay, aye, this fucking guy.
(to Victor)
When a bunch of scalpers, white guys, from
Boston or wherever show up, like six or seven
deep, at a Yankees game or a Pearl Jam show,
what do you and your homies call them?
VICTOR
My homies? Really?
JIMMY
Whatever, why you being a dick, Victor?
Its a simple goddamned question. When
y'all bitch about us behind our backs, you
gotta call us something. You know, we
call you niggers. What do you call us.
Victor blinks. You can almost hear the cartoon "doink-doink" noise. He stares at Jimmy.
JIMMY
Don't look at me like that. Its not
racist and you know it.
VICTOR
This oughta' be good.
JIMMY
It's like..."Jesus, can you believe this? This game's
already a stiff and to top it off we got these niggers
to contend with."
VICTOR
You say this?
JIMMY
Not so's I can remember, but it sounds like something
I'd say. Sounds like something every kid I grew up
with would say. So what do you guys call us? Nobody
says, "Honkey" or "Cracker" anymore, do they?
VICTOR
So y'all call us, "niggers"?
Jimmy nods. Victor is starting to get pissed off.
JIMMY
Jesus, are you mad? What the fuck! You think
I'm a racist? I'm one of your best friends. How
many jackpots I help get you out of? And that
goes both ways. Be pissed off if you want to, but
tell me what the fuck you call us so I can stop...
ruminating.
Victor stews for a minute, then starts to think. He shakes his head.
VICTOR
Niggas. We call y'all, "Niggas".
JIMMY
Really?
VICTOR
Yeah, like, "Man, we show up in Boston,
we 'bout get run off. Then, these niggas here
show up at this mutherfucker? Fuck these niggas!"
JIMMY
Wow. So you call us the same thing we call you?
VICTOR
Yeah, I guess so.
(beat)
JIMMY
So, we're good, then?
Victor closes his laptop and starts walking out.
VICTOR
No, nigga, we are NOT good!
Monday, August 13, 2012
IT IS AN OCCUPATIONAL NECESSITY...
...to occasionally work in another locale. It may be another city, another state, another country or just another venue in your home town where someone else has more juice than you do.
There are rules.
They are not written down, but they do exist. They exist to keep order. Keep order, and we all can make some money.
For instance, although I am born and raised in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when I work at Fenway Park, I consider myself to be working on other people's turf, people from Southie and Charlestown and Somerville and East Boston. I only work a handful of Red Sox games per season, I keep a low profile. I make a deal and I move on to another spot. I don't post up in The Square or on the bridge or outside the Cask. I work deep and try not to step on the toes of the guys who work eighty-one home games every year, because this is THEIR house.
I make less money at Fenway than they do and that is how it should be. I extend them the professional courtesy of not being a greedy fucking pig and they, in turn, extend me the professional courtesy of not threatening me or giving my partner grief or taking a swing at me or worse. It's all about the money. Beefs turn into fights. Fights attract police. No one can work when the cops are around. So, we usually keep the peace.
When Snags and I work out of town, same fucking thing. We work hard, but we DO NOT try to tear a place down.
But, Great Woods...That is MY house.
I have worked Great Woods for twenty-four years and I expect (and nearly always get) the same courtesy. All are treated as equals. Everyone gets a taste. Just don't slice us (approach a customer who was heading my way), don't approach cars until they are parked, don't sell blinks. These are rules which, if broken, will have repercussions. Some other rules are more like strong suggestions: Don't be too early. Don't stay too long or come too often. Don't bring your whole crew. Ignoring these suggestions will get you the cold shoulder and when someone in authority asks me if I know you, the answer will be, "No."
There are half-a-dozen of us who have been there since the beginning. Wrong Allan and Cadillac Frank pretty much work the middle - the walkway next to the Jersey barriers. Jeremustin (Jeremy and Justin). They work up front, mostly. Me and Snags? We work the cars. As soon as you park, you will see us. Before that, it was me and The Animal and before that, it was just me.
We are the ones that are always there, but there are usually anywhere from two to ten other hustlers present, depending on the event. Locals from Boston who repay the professional courtesy I show them at Fenway, a couple of Hartford guys, and every now and then, Jersey John and Jersey Chris - good guys, but Jersey Chris has been known to stretch the truth a time or two (claims to own a Lamborghini, which no one else has ever seen).
So that's the regulars and semi-regulars. But when a big event like Ozzfest or Mayhem or Rockstar come through our town, we are inevitably visited by out-of-town talent. Most of these cats, I have known for years - crews from Philly, Chicago, New York; all solid characters who "get it". I see these guys at the Super Bowl and the Final Four every year. They're all right.
But every Summer, there is at least one. One ignorant, arrogant, head-up-his-ass-turd-in-the-fucking-punch bowl who thinks they are going to come to my fucking house and take it down, like we are going to bend the fuck over, and, to quote The Dude, "This aggression will not stand!"
Mayhem Festival Tour, Summer 2012. The show comes to Mansfield. Snags and I have a brick, but we know it is going to be huge, so we are trying to add to our stack by picking up....
"Tickets! Tickets! Anyone have any extras? Anyone NEED tickets?"
I've got my sign which reads, "I NEED TICKETS" (which means, oddly enough, that I NEED tickets, not what people think that watched that fucking movie with Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon).
We hit two rows of cars when I spot them. Some off-brand motherfuckers that are being pretty aggressive and ignoring our presence. One is this blonde dude who looks like he got in a motorcycle accident without a helmet on when he was a child. The cars are being parked in a double-row. Assface is working the front while his girlfriend (let's call her "Classy") is moving her enormous mass in between the back row of cars. Snags tries to explain that we can alternate sales, but she just shoves him aside, her armfat flapping as she does so. I try to reason with Assface. He assures me that he will be cooperative, but he tries to get every buy and every sale.
Classy, meanwhile, is giving Snags no quarter and he is starting to get real agro. He tells me that shit is going to go down. Moments later, he is proved correct.
Cadillac Frank comes over to work the cars. This happens, early. Ten people working the only row of cars being parked. He tries to work in, but Classy is blocking. She finds a customer and tries to buy their extra ticket for ten bucks. Frank offers twenty. She flips. Classy bumps Frank and he gives her a very light hip check back. She freaks.
"You hit me!"
She runs to get security. Her man is sure we are going to get kicked out, leaving them with the spoils. We're fucked. If they believe her, we will all get shut down. No money for anyone. If the cops get involved, we may be out of work for a week. This is how some lowlife from Rochester or Cinci or, in this case, Detroit, can fuck up our good thing.
It's stupid to get into this shit early on. If we just wait, there will be more cars parking, more people showing up, more money to be shared, less tension in the air. But these guys were just pieces of shit. Yo. Here comes two golf carts. One with the Yellow Shirts. One with the cops. Great.
Classy goes on to tell her bullshit story. She's laying it on real thick. Her boyfriend says he saw the whole thing and swears that Frank hit her. Officer Patullo, who (unbeknownst to these two douchebags) has known me for fifteen years and has never had a problem with me or any of my friends, asks me what I saw.
"I saw her shove him. They seem to be running some kind of con, faking an assault so they can get us kicked out and have the place for themselves. You might want to check them for outstanding warrants."
"That's a good idea," The officer says. "Lets see some ID's."
Really guys? You thought you would come to our fucking house and rat us out to the people who have known us all for years? Nice move.
I'm not a toughguy or a bigshot. I try not to gloat, but I gotta say, when I saw those two scumbags getting handcuffed, I couldn't help but think...
"It's good to be The King (at least for today)."
There are rules.
They are not written down, but they do exist. They exist to keep order. Keep order, and we all can make some money.
For instance, although I am born and raised in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when I work at Fenway Park, I consider myself to be working on other people's turf, people from Southie and Charlestown and Somerville and East Boston. I only work a handful of Red Sox games per season, I keep a low profile. I make a deal and I move on to another spot. I don't post up in The Square or on the bridge or outside the Cask. I work deep and try not to step on the toes of the guys who work eighty-one home games every year, because this is THEIR house.
I make less money at Fenway than they do and that is how it should be. I extend them the professional courtesy of not being a greedy fucking pig and they, in turn, extend me the professional courtesy of not threatening me or giving my partner grief or taking a swing at me or worse. It's all about the money. Beefs turn into fights. Fights attract police. No one can work when the cops are around. So, we usually keep the peace.
When Snags and I work out of town, same fucking thing. We work hard, but we DO NOT try to tear a place down.
But, Great Woods...That is MY house.
I have worked Great Woods for twenty-four years and I expect (and nearly always get) the same courtesy. All are treated as equals. Everyone gets a taste. Just don't slice us (approach a customer who was heading my way), don't approach cars until they are parked, don't sell blinks. These are rules which, if broken, will have repercussions. Some other rules are more like strong suggestions: Don't be too early. Don't stay too long or come too often. Don't bring your whole crew. Ignoring these suggestions will get you the cold shoulder and when someone in authority asks me if I know you, the answer will be, "No."
There are half-a-dozen of us who have been there since the beginning. Wrong Allan and Cadillac Frank pretty much work the middle - the walkway next to the Jersey barriers. Jeremustin (Jeremy and Justin). They work up front, mostly. Me and Snags? We work the cars. As soon as you park, you will see us. Before that, it was me and The Animal and before that, it was just me.
We are the ones that are always there, but there are usually anywhere from two to ten other hustlers present, depending on the event. Locals from Boston who repay the professional courtesy I show them at Fenway, a couple of Hartford guys, and every now and then, Jersey John and Jersey Chris - good guys, but Jersey Chris has been known to stretch the truth a time or two (claims to own a Lamborghini, which no one else has ever seen).
So that's the regulars and semi-regulars. But when a big event like Ozzfest or Mayhem or Rockstar come through our town, we are inevitably visited by out-of-town talent. Most of these cats, I have known for years - crews from Philly, Chicago, New York; all solid characters who "get it". I see these guys at the Super Bowl and the Final Four every year. They're all right.
But every Summer, there is at least one. One ignorant, arrogant, head-up-his-ass-turd-in-the-fucking-punch bowl who thinks they are going to come to my fucking house and take it down, like we are going to bend the fuck over, and, to quote The Dude, "This aggression will not stand!"
Mayhem Festival Tour, Summer 2012. The show comes to Mansfield. Snags and I have a brick, but we know it is going to be huge, so we are trying to add to our stack by picking up....
"Tickets! Tickets! Anyone have any extras? Anyone NEED tickets?"
I've got my sign which reads, "I NEED TICKETS" (which means, oddly enough, that I NEED tickets, not what people think that watched that fucking movie with Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon).
We hit two rows of cars when I spot them. Some off-brand motherfuckers that are being pretty aggressive and ignoring our presence. One is this blonde dude who looks like he got in a motorcycle accident without a helmet on when he was a child. The cars are being parked in a double-row. Assface is working the front while his girlfriend (let's call her "Classy") is moving her enormous mass in between the back row of cars. Snags tries to explain that we can alternate sales, but she just shoves him aside, her armfat flapping as she does so. I try to reason with Assface. He assures me that he will be cooperative, but he tries to get every buy and every sale.
Classy, meanwhile, is giving Snags no quarter and he is starting to get real agro. He tells me that shit is going to go down. Moments later, he is proved correct.
Cadillac Frank comes over to work the cars. This happens, early. Ten people working the only row of cars being parked. He tries to work in, but Classy is blocking. She finds a customer and tries to buy their extra ticket for ten bucks. Frank offers twenty. She flips. Classy bumps Frank and he gives her a very light hip check back. She freaks.
"You hit me!"
She runs to get security. Her man is sure we are going to get kicked out, leaving them with the spoils. We're fucked. If they believe her, we will all get shut down. No money for anyone. If the cops get involved, we may be out of work for a week. This is how some lowlife from Rochester or Cinci or, in this case, Detroit, can fuck up our good thing.
It's stupid to get into this shit early on. If we just wait, there will be more cars parking, more people showing up, more money to be shared, less tension in the air. But these guys were just pieces of shit. Yo. Here comes two golf carts. One with the Yellow Shirts. One with the cops. Great.
Classy goes on to tell her bullshit story. She's laying it on real thick. Her boyfriend says he saw the whole thing and swears that Frank hit her. Officer Patullo, who (unbeknownst to these two douchebags) has known me for fifteen years and has never had a problem with me or any of my friends, asks me what I saw.
"I saw her shove him. They seem to be running some kind of con, faking an assault so they can get us kicked out and have the place for themselves. You might want to check them for outstanding warrants."
"That's a good idea," The officer says. "Lets see some ID's."
Really guys? You thought you would come to our fucking house and rat us out to the people who have known us all for years? Nice move.
I'm not a toughguy or a bigshot. I try not to gloat, but I gotta say, when I saw those two scumbags getting handcuffed, I couldn't help but think...
"It's good to be The King (at least for today)."
Sunday, July 15, 2012
RASCAL FLATTS - Hartford 6/15/12
Utter, fucking bedlam.
I've been doing this thing for awhile and I am not easily impressed, but the amount of drunken debauchery, thievery, physical and verbal abuse, and all-around general fuckery that occurred at the Comcast Theater the other night was nothing short of epic.
To put the events of that night in context, a brief history lesson is required...
Back in the day, this place was called, "The Meadows". People partied in the parking lot before a concert. Security and local police were mostly hands-off, unless there was a fight or some "extremely outrageous behavior" (which we now just call "behavior").
Then came Pearl Jam. In October of 1996, midway through the bands set, fans on the lawn rushed the reserved seats. A police officer was knocked down. Out came the pepper-spray and the riot gear. After the show, things intensified even more. A full-blown riot ensued in the parking lots. Cars were overturned. Springfield Jeremy got his jaw broken that night (remind me to tell you that story). A lot of people went to jail.
For the next two years, tail-gating at "The Meadows" was forbidden. The parking lots became mini police states. Park you car. Get the fuck out of your car. Go to the fucking show. Have a nice day. Partying of any kind was possible, but it was like fucking your girlfriend while your parents are home. You had to be so low key, it kind of took the fun out of it.
So, present day. Sixteen years later and there are few cops on Hartford's police force who were there for the riots (the '96 Pear Jam show was one of several shows where shit went down) at The Meadows. The pendulum has swung the other way. All the way the other way. Tailgating at the Comcast Theatre, now resembles Rush Week at Tulane. These kids are pounding booze like the shit is gonna run out. Carload after truckload of mostly college-aged concertgoers, set up tables with red Solo Cups, half-filled with beer and play "Beirut", while others waste no time pulling out their beer funnels (because you can't drink beer fast enough without gravity's assistance). And the police mostly ignore all of this behavior. Getting arrested at the Comcast Theatre has actually become a challenge.
So there we were surrounded by have thousands of very drunk adolescents, many of whom do not yet have tickets for the Rascal Flats concert, and then it happens...the show bangs out.
Everyone is caught off-guard. What should have been a nice little buy-for-twenty-sell-for-thirty grind has turned into a hundred dollar ticket. As you can guess, the response from the profoundly shitfaced fans to a quote of $100 per ticket ranges from incredulity to ridicule to "Go fuck yourself!"
For every ticket I sold, I got "motherfucked" a hundred times. And you can't talk shit back to these kids. They are drunk and fearless and ready to fight. You just take your lumps and move on.
Things were pretty hectic already. Then the blinks (counterfeit tickets) came out. Hundreds of them, like cardboard time-bombs set to go off throughout the night once the gate opened. Shit was about to get real.
Legitimate scalpers (I know. Shut up.) hate when a show gets blinked. Not only are people drunk and pissed off, but fans who get burned have no money to buy our real tickets. Unable to find who ripped them off, they turn their anger on us. "You guys all work together!"
Uh, no. We don't.
At 7pm, as if on cue, the fans pound their last jello shots and pour out of the lots and onto the only walkway which leads to the gate. Imagine ten thousand planes flown by drunk pilots landing on one runway over the course of an hour or so and you begin to get the idea of the chaos that ensues. All of us have to watch each other's back. A fan grabs four tickets out of Cadillac Frank's hand. Stupid. Where you gonna go, buddy? The fan and his buddy are standing in line at the gate, waiting to get in with the stolen tickets. Frank gets the cops. He gets his seats back and both kids get arrested.
Note to stupid people: We are selling tickets, not crack. If you steal from us, you will get arrested. I have seen this happen more than once.
The fucking blinkers are wreaking havoc. Teenaged girls in cowboy boots are crying. Their muscle-bound, overly tribal-tattooed boyfriends are trying to sell us the fake tickets after they get turned away at the gate.
"Yeah, these are fake tickets, bro."
"Um...er...uh...No they're not. We just don't want to go to the show anymore."
God, people are tools.
Those who have enough cash left over buy up our remaining tickets at the price they said we would never get. I know I'm a prick for saying this, but I get more than a little satisfaction when the people who told us we would eat all our tickets and no one would pay us $100 are there to see us sell out. Sorry.
A pretty, petite blonde who looks to be about twenty-two walks up to us.
"Do you guys have any tickets left?"
We are all out. It's late. Time to get some food or smoke some weed or go to the casino or go home to the kids, depending on which scalper we're talking about.
Justin, who is fond of the opiates and now gets referred to as "Junkstin" by some, found a ticket on the ground earlier which looks legit, but might have been scanned already. He asked us earlier, what we thought. No one said anything, but we all made our version of the, "I wouldn't sell it" face. He weakly offers it to this chic.
"Is this a real ticket?" She asks.
"Yup," Justin replies.
The girl heads to the gate. Everyone heads home. Snags and I were saying our goodbyes to Kentucky and Quiet Mike when the blonde stormed out of the gate with murder in her eyes. I figured she'd find Justin who would give her money back, no harm done.
I saw Justin the next day at the same show in Mansfield. He had a pretty good shiner.
"You got beat up by a girl, huh?"
"Yup."
He's a funny fuckin' dude.
I've been doing this thing for awhile and I am not easily impressed, but the amount of drunken debauchery, thievery, physical and verbal abuse, and all-around general fuckery that occurred at the Comcast Theater the other night was nothing short of epic.
To put the events of that night in context, a brief history lesson is required...
Back in the day, this place was called, "The Meadows". People partied in the parking lot before a concert. Security and local police were mostly hands-off, unless there was a fight or some "extremely outrageous behavior" (which we now just call "behavior").
Then came Pearl Jam. In October of 1996, midway through the bands set, fans on the lawn rushed the reserved seats. A police officer was knocked down. Out came the pepper-spray and the riot gear. After the show, things intensified even more. A full-blown riot ensued in the parking lots. Cars were overturned. Springfield Jeremy got his jaw broken that night (remind me to tell you that story). A lot of people went to jail.
For the next two years, tail-gating at "The Meadows" was forbidden. The parking lots became mini police states. Park you car. Get the fuck out of your car. Go to the fucking show. Have a nice day. Partying of any kind was possible, but it was like fucking your girlfriend while your parents are home. You had to be so low key, it kind of took the fun out of it.
So, present day. Sixteen years later and there are few cops on Hartford's police force who were there for the riots (the '96 Pear Jam show was one of several shows where shit went down) at The Meadows. The pendulum has swung the other way. All the way the other way. Tailgating at the Comcast Theatre, now resembles Rush Week at Tulane. These kids are pounding booze like the shit is gonna run out. Carload after truckload of mostly college-aged concertgoers, set up tables with red Solo Cups, half-filled with beer and play "Beirut", while others waste no time pulling out their beer funnels (because you can't drink beer fast enough without gravity's assistance). And the police mostly ignore all of this behavior. Getting arrested at the Comcast Theatre has actually become a challenge.
So there we were surrounded by have thousands of very drunk adolescents, many of whom do not yet have tickets for the Rascal Flats concert, and then it happens...the show bangs out.
Everyone is caught off-guard. What should have been a nice little buy-for-twenty-sell-for-thirty grind has turned into a hundred dollar ticket. As you can guess, the response from the profoundly shitfaced fans to a quote of $100 per ticket ranges from incredulity to ridicule to "Go fuck yourself!"
For every ticket I sold, I got "motherfucked" a hundred times. And you can't talk shit back to these kids. They are drunk and fearless and ready to fight. You just take your lumps and move on.
Things were pretty hectic already. Then the blinks (counterfeit tickets) came out. Hundreds of them, like cardboard time-bombs set to go off throughout the night once the gate opened. Shit was about to get real.
Legitimate scalpers (I know. Shut up.) hate when a show gets blinked. Not only are people drunk and pissed off, but fans who get burned have no money to buy our real tickets. Unable to find who ripped them off, they turn their anger on us. "You guys all work together!"
Uh, no. We don't.
At 7pm, as if on cue, the fans pound their last jello shots and pour out of the lots and onto the only walkway which leads to the gate. Imagine ten thousand planes flown by drunk pilots landing on one runway over the course of an hour or so and you begin to get the idea of the chaos that ensues. All of us have to watch each other's back. A fan grabs four tickets out of Cadillac Frank's hand. Stupid. Where you gonna go, buddy? The fan and his buddy are standing in line at the gate, waiting to get in with the stolen tickets. Frank gets the cops. He gets his seats back and both kids get arrested.
Note to stupid people: We are selling tickets, not crack. If you steal from us, you will get arrested. I have seen this happen more than once.
The fucking blinkers are wreaking havoc. Teenaged girls in cowboy boots are crying. Their muscle-bound, overly tribal-tattooed boyfriends are trying to sell us the fake tickets after they get turned away at the gate.
"Yeah, these are fake tickets, bro."
"Um...er...uh...No they're not. We just don't want to go to the show anymore."
God, people are tools.
Those who have enough cash left over buy up our remaining tickets at the price they said we would never get. I know I'm a prick for saying this, but I get more than a little satisfaction when the people who told us we would eat all our tickets and no one would pay us $100 are there to see us sell out. Sorry.
A pretty, petite blonde who looks to be about twenty-two walks up to us.
"Do you guys have any tickets left?"
We are all out. It's late. Time to get some food or smoke some weed or go to the casino or go home to the kids, depending on which scalper we're talking about.
Justin, who is fond of the opiates and now gets referred to as "Junkstin" by some, found a ticket on the ground earlier which looks legit, but might have been scanned already. He asked us earlier, what we thought. No one said anything, but we all made our version of the, "I wouldn't sell it" face. He weakly offers it to this chic.
"Is this a real ticket?" She asks.
"Yup," Justin replies.
The girl heads to the gate. Everyone heads home. Snags and I were saying our goodbyes to Kentucky and Quiet Mike when the blonde stormed out of the gate with murder in her eyes. I figured she'd find Justin who would give her money back, no harm done.
I saw Justin the next day at the same show in Mansfield. He had a pretty good shiner.
"You got beat up by a girl, huh?"
"Yup."
He's a funny fuckin' dude.
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