that time i almost got to see phoebe bridgers

I posted a few things on my IG story about this experience and realized that most people are normal and they wouldn’t understand unless some less normal person explained it.  I’ll be the less normal person if you’ll be the normal one.

Phoebe Bridgers is a singer-songwriter who blew up just before the COVID shutdown.  It was one of those things where her music was the cultural Zeitgeist.  The lyrics and the overall mood of the music unlocked something for a whole group of people.  I wasn’t early on the Phoebe trend but I got to it as soon as I realized what I was missing.  

There were months when I listened to only Phoebe when drawing in my studio.  Her music really powered a whole couple of bodies of work for me.  Eventually Violet got on board and we ended up covering several Phoebe songs during our music times.  Blue was also a fan.  For a good while, he listened to the same Phoebe song each night to wind down for bed.  

We were here for Boygenius, the supergroup of Phoebe, Julian Baker and Lucy Dacus.  They released an album, did a tour and then Phoebe disappeared.  

For the last few months, Violet and I have wondered when she would resurface with a new album.  The rumors were that she was recording.  Then the rumors said she was doing some movies.  Then we heard she was unhappy with the album and delaying it.  The McAbees were big sad.

A couple of weeks ago, we saw posts on IG indicating there was a surprise concert in New Mexico.  It was announced around 11:00 am local time and it was going to be a solo Phoebe concert at a very small club.  Tickets sold out in an hour.  Then another pop-up concert happened in Texas.  Then Arkansas.  She was coming this way.  

Violet and I talked about it the way you talk about what you’ll do with your lottery winnings.  Where could she possible play that was anywhere near us?  How many hours would we drive to try to see her?  What would we skip just to have the chance to go?  How long would we wait in line?  These were safe questions because, let’s face it, I live in the middle of nowhere and there’s no way Phoebe Bridgers was coming to the Upstate of South Carolina.

Would she?  After a show in Macon and then Savannah, GA, we were on high alert.  Violet and I were both following an account dedicated to posting all the latest information about these pop-up shows.  This was my first week of summer break and on Monday, I enjoyed a full day of drawing in my studio.  Today, I woke up with no alarm, ran 3 miles and took a shower.  Violet has exams this week so her schedule is modified.  She was home this morning and planning to go to an exam at 11:45.  She was making breakfast when I started making my coffee.

As the first batch of espresso was dripping, I opened my phone and the first image I saw was of people lined up at a location in Greenville, SC, just 40 minutes from my home.  I read out loud “rumors of a show in Greenville, SC but nothing announced yet”.  Violet didn’t believe me.  Another update minutes later:  “The venue is passing out water and assuring everyone they’re in the right place but no announcement yet”.  There were also posts about people lining up at a club in Jacksonville, FL.  It was too soon to tell what was what.

As I sat down with my hot coffee, the latest post came in.  Equipment was arriving at Radio Room in Greenville.  It looked more and more possible.  Those earlier conversations about what we would do if she showed up at our backdoor suddenly became very real.  Violet has an exam.  You can’t miss an exam.  I have no faith in the K-12 system and even I know that.  But I could easily alter my plans for the day.  Was I about to drive 40 minutes to get in a ridiculous line for the POSSIBILITY of seeing Phoebe Bridgers in a small club?  

Violet said I should go.  She said it was worth the chance.  The only thing I had to lose was a day of work, so I downed my coffee, brushed my teeth, grabbed a hat and a water and rushed out the door.  I probably didn’t obey all traffic laws but I was safe and I arrived in good time.  Violet texted the confirmation of the show poster when I was still 15 minutes away.  

My first glance for a parking space showed a line stretching all the way around the block and zero spaces.  I saw an opportunity for a non-parking space big enough for my car and I took it.  I hopped out, grabbed my stuff and ran for the back of the line.  A line that started at the Radio Room door, stretched across the parking lot to the road, down that road and then down a completely different road.  I was there, standing in line on that second road.  

the line in front of me

the line behind me

Here's where I need to explain things to normal people.  There are rules for these shows and here’s how it works:  Everything is super-secret.  Fans are trying to predict the next show and some just go line up on a hunch.  Venues have to be prepared for the overwhelming crowd so there are sometimes actions that give hints.  Giving out water and sunscreen are definitely good signs before any official announcement.  Show posters advertising the event go up around 11:00 am.  A line forms (or deepens at this point) and it’s a first come, first served basis.  Tickets are not sold at this point.  People in line get a tamper resistant wristband with a number on it.  This is your guarantee to get the chance to purchase a ticket later.  You get a wristband and you go home.  

One wristband is given to each person in line until the club reaches capacity.  You can’t buy someone else a wristband.  You have to be physically present to get one.  There was no way for me to get Violet into the show.  At this particular show, doors open at 6:00 pm and at that time, all people with wristbands will be lined up in order according to the number on their wristband.  That line then purchases tickets.  $50 plus fees, cash or card.  You must have a picture ID and anyone under 16 must be with an adult.  Most venues have been capped at 400-500 people.  

“Anyone parked in this corner lot is about to get towed!” the staff guy announced as he walked down the line.  I pointed at my car and verified, “THAT corner lot?”  He smiled and said yes.  I asked the stranger in front of me if she would save my spot in line.  She said yes and I ran to my car.  Lots of people were still trying to find their first parking space while I was fighting for my second.  I zipped in a side lot trying not to see the “private parking” sign and as I opened my door, a lady said I would get towed there.  I drove further away to a bigger lot, ignored those signs too and parked.  I ran back to my spot in line.  

A lady from a restaurant across the street brought over a whole bin of ice water to give away.  She made several trips.  The venue staff brought sunscreen through the line.  It was such a positive vibe.  These were good people.  Still, it was glaringly obvious to me that I was one of few males in line and I was definitely the oldest dude there.  None of this mattered to me.  If they were giving out pamphlets, water and sunscreen, surely they had counted and surely we were getting in.  

I was expecting a cap of 500.  As I moved up with the line, one guy walked by and said he was number 350.  I guessed that there were about 50 people in front of me.  I was definitely getting in.  My line neighbors were all celebrating.  We couldn’t believe our collective luck.  They talked about what they were going to wear and when they were going to arrive.  Staff members were watching the line and making small talk.  They told us what to expect when we returned at 6:00.  

Phoebe’s tour bus was parked 50 feet away.  We were at the sidewalk of the building.  The wristband table was just a few feet away.  One staff member was telling us that after we got our wristband, he wanted us to go home and shower but he cautioned us that the wristband was reactive to heat and that we may not want to put it under very hot water.  If the wristband is distorted or stretched, you will be denied entry to the concert.  

Another staff member interrupted him and with a very loud voice he said “I’m sorry but we are now sold out!  There is no way to get access to the concert.  Thank you for standing in line, we are sorry.  Go home.”

I and my new friends were in utter shock.  We were just imagining our glamourous lives as people who saw Phoebe Bridgers in a small club during her wild pop-up tour.  We were thinking about how we were going to shower without messing up our wristband.  It was all right there in front of us.  Just a few literal feet in front of us.  Was he kidding?  We looked for a smile.  Anything.  

Nothing.

“Seriously, go home”,  he added.  

Most people stood still for a few minutes trying to process our now much less glamourous lives as people who ALMOST got to see Phoebe Bridgers in a small club during her wild pop-up tour.  Suddenly we were much less cool.  Much less happy.

The family chat was lit up all morning with updates.  Violet had decided to skip school and follow me to the venue.  Then changed her mind after seeing how many people were there already.  I updated as I moved forward, inching closer and closer to the door.  Then one final update.  Sold out.  I didn’t get in.  

“We didn’t want to go to the concert anyway!” one of my line neighbors shouted.  I was reminded of humor and its power over reality.  She was on her lunch break and now had to go back to work hungry.  We all shared a laugh before turning towards our illegally parked cars and walking away, trying to smile.  No joke, when I started my car the first song that came on shuffle was “Everybody Hurts” by REM.  

So yeah, I drove 40 minutes and stood in line for two hours in direct sunlight for the chance to get into a Phoebe Bridgers concert.  I was very disappointed but life continued for us all.  Violet took her exam and doesn’t have to make weird arrangements to make it up.  I stopped at Lowe’s and used my concert money to buy an expensive piece of plywood for my next couple of drawings.  Then I whipped into a legal parking space at Culver’s and bought a pint of Rocky Road.  

And I have to be completely honest here.  I’m not all that sad about staying home tonight.

wisdom, teeth

A lot of my students get their wisdom teeth cut out.  You’ve seen the videos where they talk crazy, right?  I’m Gen X and I went to an old-school dentist in the tiny town of Inman, SC.  I had the same dentist from birth through my 30s.  He was hilarious and he loved to joke with me when I came in – which was pretty often.  My teeth are kinda terrible.  I didn’t grow up with fluoride in my water since we had a well.  Pair that with my intense love of candy and a steady flow of soft drinks and you end up with a mouth full of fillings.  In the 1980s and 1990s, those fillings were all some sort of toxic metal and I had enough metal in there that when I stuck a spoon in my mouth, I could get radio signals from Russia in my head.  Then science discovered all that metal was actually toxic and I had to get all those fillings removed and replaced by whatever the newest, less toxic thing was.  So much drilling, so much Novocain and so many trips to visit my dentist.

I also had 4 wisdom teeth and two of those had erupted from the gumline in a way that was crowding my other teeth.  No big deal to Dr. Beachamp.  He said we’d just pull those suckers out.  He shot me full of Novocain, grabbed some dental pliers, put his foot on my shoulder and yanked those puppies out.  I may be exaggerating the foot on my shoulder, but I’m not joking when I tell you he was asking me to pull against him as he used all his body weight to pull those teeth out.  

I was in my early 20s when he did this and I never once thought he didn’t know what he was doing.  It never occurred to me to stop him and ask him to explain why he was pulling my teeth the way he was.  I grew up working in my dad’s welding shop and I had used pliers a lot in my 20 years.  I never considered telling my dentist that he wasn’t holding the pliers correctly or telling him I had a better idea for getting my teeth out.  I mean, that would have been silly, right?  Like, actually ridiculous.  

I was thinking about this recently when a student questioned me about my teaching.  A couple of students, actually, have done that this academic year and it’s not uncommon.  I would say that at least once a year, I have one or two students who will ask me to stop what I’m doing and explain to them the exact nature of my pedagogy.  They don’t understand why I’m making certain choices in my teaching, they think they know a better way and they demand an explanation.

At my age, I’m not very patient.  Now that I’m 54 I figure I can play my age card and just not tell people I was never patient at all.  After 24 years teaching college level studio art classes, I feel safe saying I know what I’m doing.  Sure, students have changed and so has the educational climate, but I have kept up.  I pay attention and I’m a very driven teacher, so I have adapted my teaching to continue to be successful in these very different academic times.  Because of that, when a student asks me to slow down and explain my every decision, I just don’t have the patience to oblige.  Most recently, I will respond with something along the lines of “I’m asking you to trust me”.  I figure if the student doesn’t trust the professor, we’re pretty much done being productive anyway.  

See, I know that Dr. Beachamp went to school for some extra years to become a dentist.  I understand that school involves some book learning, but that he also had to spend a lot of time practicing his craft before he earned his degree.  I also knew that as a middle aged man when I met him, he had extensive hands-on experience at being a dentist.  Dude had seen some teeth and worked on them, you know?  As a child and even as a 20 year old, I had not been to dental school, nor had I worked on teeth for a decade or so.  He was the expert in the room when it came to teeth.  

At this point in my teaching career, I’ve been teaching studio art classes longer than most of my students have been alive.  They are either fresh out of high school or in their undergraduate years and most don’t even have fully developed frontal lobes.  Absolutely none have teaching experience at the college level.  Not even a semester.  The idea of having to stop my class and explain to them why I’m making the choices I’m making is just as ridiculous as questioning any other professional.  I just don’t understand it.  

I didn’t like getting my gums shot full of Novocain.  I didn’t like getting my teeth drilled.  I didn’t like the Doc jerking my teeth out with all of his body weight.  Still, I didn’t blame him for what needed to be done.  I didn’t question it because I had zero understanding of dentistry.  He said something needed to be done and I said, “Ok”.  No discussion, no questions.

What is it about the current climate of education that causes teachers to be treated so differently from all other professionals?  University professors have annual reviews, intense 3 and 6 year reviews and our course evaluations from students are treated like sacred religious texts, often quoted or otherwise referenced in our annual reviews.  At any moment, we are expected to explain exactly what we are doing, why we are doing it and then we are expected to politely explain why the students’ “better ideas” aren’t actually better ideas without insulting them or hurting their feelings.  It makes no sense.  

A K-12 teacher must have a degree, pass the Praxis and be certified by the state.  It seems like those achievements would merit some sort of trust and respect.  A university teacher must earn the terminal degree in their field of study.  Not only are they expected to be experts in the area of study, but also in the practice of teaching.  Again, they are reviewed annually and observed in the classroom on various occasions to ensure competency.  Why can’t we trust them?

When the decisions affecting education are being made outside of the teaching institution and being made by people who have never taught in the educational system, you should expect those decisions to be pretty terrible for education.  

If you’ve ever wondered why public education is in the state it’s currently in, maybe you should be asking why we don’t trust teachers to do their jobs and why we don’t elect former teachers to make educational policies.

atrophying intelligence

I’m sure I’m not the first person to come up with the real meaning behind the abbreviation “AI”.  Listen, can we just be real here for a moment?  Maybe let’s all drop the pretense about how busy and important we all are and just sit with some thoughts for a few minutes.

AI is not going to help you.  Relying on Chat GPT and other forms of generative AI to do things for you is actually hurting you.

The very goal of AI is to do things for humans.  You’re busy, you don’t have time to do stuff.  Don’t read the search results one by one, let AI summarize it for you.  Don’t write that boring paper, let AI write it for you.  Don’t do the research, let AI find it for you.  Don’t hire a graphic designer, let AI design it for you.  It’s all about cutting humans out of the equation.  Did you read that last sentence?  It’s all about cutting YOU out of the equation.  

When we started with smart phones, I was there.  Always a skeptic but convincing myself I’m a realist, I gave the first generation of iPhones the side-eye.  I didn’t think we needed all that in our hands when we all had a computer on our desk.  They got me with the music, though.  Yes, it was a phone and you could send text messages but you could also keep your entire music collection in the palm of your hand.  I’m a big-time commuter, so by gen 3, I signed up and never looked back.  I thought it was cool when I could get my email on the beach.  Until I realized I could be emailed while I was on the beach.  Now, we’ve pretty much all moved into “on-call 24-7” sorts of jobs.  I guess that convenience came with a pretty big price, huh? 

These smart phones didn’t end up saving us any time.  They simply ushered in an era when more of our time would be demanded by jobs and by social media.  Look at it with honest eyes, guys, we kind of lost that one too.  

Now we have a generation of school kids who know how to use AI to write papers without being caught by AI detectors.  It’s not that hard.  I know you’ve heard the stories about the dumb ones who didn’t proof read the AI draft, but you may not have heard about the larger group of more clever students who used AI to do the heavy lifting and then rephrased the whole thing in their own words.  They didn’t do the work, didn’t learn what they were supposed to learn but still got the credit and moved on.  They’re driving on your street and they’re going to vote in November.

We also have teachers who are using AI to write lesson plans.  That doesn’t sound evil at all because we know we expect far too much from teachers already.  Using AI sounds smart because any way we can give teachers more time, that’s a good thing.  But it doesn’t stop there.  A shortcut is a shortcut and any profession will find ways to use them to save money.  To cut costs.  To cut jobs.  Remember that teacher thing?  Do you also remember that Star Treky weird speech the First Lady gave recently about robots taking over the teaching profession.  Still think it’s a good idea to use AI to write a lesson plan?  As soon as they see they can do it without you, they’ll do it without you.  It’s all about cutting YOU out of the equation.  

Most recently I saw that several AI experts agree there’s at least a 20% chance AI will be responsible for the demise of human existence.  That’s another sentence you should read again.  That wasn’t Joe-Bob down the street from you.  These were AI developers and technology experts.  It’s all about cutting YOU out of the equation.

I’m 54 and my body doesn’t work as effortlessly as it did when I was younger.  I grew up outside playing, working and moving all the time.  As I got older, I noticed certain movements were different from when I was 16.  In my 20s I noticed that my musculature was not visible anymore.  It scared me enough to start looking into exercise.  I was running pretty regularly, but I started running even more.  I added some stretches and weights to my routine.  In my 40s, I noticed that I didn’t recover as quickly from races and that the food I ate actually made me feel bad.  I had to make more changes.  

Steadily since then, I’ve been adding more and more to my daily routine.  I stretch more.  I do more strength training.  I still run a lot.  If you ask me why in real life, I’ll make a joke and you’ll laugh about how crazy I am.  But if you want the truth, it’s because I learned about atrophy in high school biology.  Then I learned about it again in that college Bio class I barely passed.  If you don’t use it, you lose it.  

I’ve watched my elders grow old and become inactive.  I’ve literally watched some of them disintegrate right in front of me.  Wrinkled skin and bones where there use to be muscle.  Now when I read about exercise for people my age, the word atrophy gets used a lot.  Exercise experts agree that men in their 50s reach a point of accelerated muscle loss if there’s no exercise to fight it.  The body knows to focus on what is important and those things we’re not using must not be important.  If it’s not important, the body will do away with it.  

Find how AI can become a shortcut for you and use it.  Then watch yourself forget how to do that task.  Watch students stop doing research from sources they actually have to read and stop writing papers with their own brains.  Watch them let AI do it all for them.  Then watch them lose the ability to research and compose.  Stop using human intelligence and watch it go away.  There’s already data showing we’re losing intelligence by the year.  

You’re not too busy to read more than one Google result.  You’re not too busy to write your own caption for Instagram.  Please stop using AI.  Use your own intelligence.

Use it or lose it.  

Statement of the obvious:

I am aware that AI has shown positive results in helping to detect and remedy medical concerns like cancer.  I think this science and medical based application is a proper use of technology.  While I can likely support the use of natural resources for things that actually provide a service to humanity, there’s a vast difference between this use of AI and the most common uses that cross my path on a daily basis:  dancing elf videos with your face, making your cat speak English, faking an artist statement and sourcing recycled ideas for visual art.  Generative AI is hurting you a lot more than it’s helping you.