Mavis Staples concert (1 of 2): Ticket strategizing.

The other week I headed up to the Mavis Staples 75th birthday concert to see if I could get a cheap ticket; I would have just gone ahead and gotten a ticket, but the cheapest one was $75 (tax not included), which was too much for me, so I thought I'd risk trying to get one for cheaper out front.

So, I made sure I had like $50 in my wallet, then waited outside.

Fortunately, it was cold, and after talking to a couple scalpers and a guy with 2 $250 tickets from his friends to sell, I talked with a younger (white) (very straight) (rocker) guy with a longer wavy brown hair and a black leather jacket who had 1 $150 ticket because his girlfriend couldn't make it.

He said $50 wasn't enough, then went inside.

Later, he re-emerged and said he'd sell it to me for $60, and I pulled out my wallet and looked through my bills and said I had $57, and I could give him that and all the change I had in my pocket.

"That's fine," he was like, and took the bills I was handing out and handed me the ticket.

Then, I slipped right in behind him as we went through line, so I could call him out if the ticket was fraudulent, though it wasn't.

He and his friends were in the same row way up in nosebleed seats in the upper-middle part of the upper balcony, and every time he passed by me to go get a beer he called me "Slim".

"Excuse me, Slim," he'd be like.

His other friend had the seat right by me, and asked me if I smoked pot.

I said I didn't, and he was like, "Well, I hope you don't mind when we do."

Before the concert, he also asked me what book I was reading.

"A radical feminist analysis of transsexualism," I was like.  "She says that men who get sex change surgery are fetishists who cause women harm on many, many levels."

"Really?, he was like, "Tell me about it between songs."

"Okay," I was like, "If you want."

"I was kidding," he was like.

Later, after I scoped out empty seats during intermission, I moved down into the middle part of the lower balcony and got pretty damn sweet seats; the people there had moved down further to empty seats next to their friends, the people nearby said.

Not bad for $57!