Soo......

I got thrown out of Carnegie Hall today. The truth is I completely deserved to get thrown out. 

I was late to the concert because of a late train from Upstate that I had scrambled to get to, then took an expensive taxi to Carnegie, walked up five fights of stairs to get to my cheapest possible seats, and a woman was already yelling at the ushers for not letting her take a seat while the audience was clapping merely for the conductor entering.

As a rule, I really don't like people who abuse service industry members, and here I was being the exact person I despise and feeling really good about it. 

It basically comes down to this. I have a short fuse linked to a horrible temper, and through a basic diet of certain things, including social media invective at times, I have learned through strenuous effort to control it, at least in relation to whom I was twenty or twenty-five years ago. But if you come between me and my concert tickets, I have a basic involuntary reaction to destroy you. Live music of this type is how I get my personal happiness that can tie me over for weeks at a time. When people are cut off from their most reliable source of happiness, they become animals. I've managed to rein in my temper in nearly any situation, but this is one kind of situation where I'm not sure there's much to be done.... 

So I finally got to my fifth floor seats in the second-to-last row. Completely out of breath, exhausted, and already furious. The usher said you can't go in, so I said 'watch me' and opened the door. She blocked it with her body and told me she would call security. I threatened to shout and make a scene. The idea that I might get arrested occurred, and that didn't stop me. What stopped me was the thought that I might be banned from Carnegie Hall. 

Anticipating that a scenario like this was possible. I was already fantasizing on the way there about how if they dare not let me in, I would open the door and shout about how dare this conductor who is the monarchist son of a Nazi (true) conduct Beethoven's music of liberty! And things like 'down with the fucking oligarchy' 'your complacency is bringing down the United States of America!' 'you're all responsible for global warming!' and the like. 

But instead of my heroic, Beethovenian stand on behalf of liberty, I did the least heroic thing, and let loose a torrent of abuse on the ushers, telling them they're slaves of the rich, asking them how much they're making that they clearly get their kicks from being so shitty to people, when they asked me to show my ticket I threw it on the floor and told them that they're so petty they even have to check whether or not the customers are sneaking into cheaper seats. Exclaiming 'this is why classical music is dying! In twenty years nobody will be here and its because of behavior like yours! I finally was calming down, and went to the bar on that floor to ask for a glass of water from the tap, the person at the bar told me he could only serve me bottled water, so I told person serving drinks to fuck off, I went in the corner to get a drink of water at the water fountain and they told me to go back to the door where I was supposed to sit because they thought I might go in through another door, which I was not at all planning on doing. I told the lady 'don't fucking talk to me,' so she said 'do I need to call security?' so I said 'I don't fucking care.' So she called security, I finally said 'I don't need this' and started heading down the stairs and on my way out I said to the ushers 'I hope you have miserable lives.' And finally heard the ushers lose their cool on my way out....

I'm not at all proud of how I acted. This is the conduct of a crazy person, not a decent one fighting for the little guy. But I will not deny, it felt really good to unload on the fucking music oligarchy, even if these people are the very last people responsible for it or who can influence it or control any kind of policy at all. 

I'm clearly the villain in this story, and in this case, I'm honestly kind of fine with that.