The Marin Memorial Veterans Auditorium is a growth of concrete situated on the shore of a lagoon. Lit up like a concrete growth, its image shimmered in the waters around it. Being extremely early, we found a great parking spot and were prowling around the lobby in a matter of moments.
There was the inevitable bar, a good forty-footer, whose management had demonstrated a fundamental grasp of planning and logistics by running low on premium items before the audience actually showed up. I thought about getting a beer, but they were down to Sludge, Sludge Lite, and Sludge Draft. Strangely, Sludge Draft was in bottles and plain old Sludge was on tap. Having an allergy to chemical-induced brewing techniques, I sauntered on to the next area, where, it turned out the souvenirs were being hawked.
The items for sale were laid out on a plain folding table--t-shirts, mainly, and a couple of license plate holders, and a few signed CDs. Since I had been looking to buy one of The Firesign Theatre’s more recent albums, “Boom Dot Bust,” for a while, this seemed like it would be as good an opportunity as any. There was one copy, festooned with the autographs of each of the four. “How much?” I asked the young lady who was picking through boxes behind the table.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m not sure. They haven’t set the price yet.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Boy, I’ve been looking to buy one of these. Sure would like to buy this.”
“They should tell us pretty soon,” she replied.
Perhaps someone was waiting for an E-Bay auction to expire or trying to get a fix on the day’s trends on the Nikkei. I couldn’t be sure, but market forces are mysterious things, and loathe am I to mess with forces of any kind. I put the CD back on the table and made a silent appointment with it for later.
Mark and Bernie were also picking through the merchandise by this point, but their browsing came to naught as well. We wandered back out toward the bar, where quite the crowd had gathered, mostly middle-aged and white, the kind of folks who had thought of property as a crime until they started getting mortgages on some.
Now, I don’t want to paint myself as being some kind of pioneer or something, but I was suffering from mild agoraphobia long before it became the TV disease of the week. Milling in the midst of a crowd of strangers quickly turns into a scene from a surrealist film with the sound of my pulse beating in my throat and ears as the score. Therefore, it didn’t take more than two minutes before I had to beat a hasty retreat back to the souvenir room.
Fortunately, this neurotic outbreak paid nice dividends when I returned to the table to find that the CDs were now priced, and that the autographed “Boom Dot Bust” in question was only 25 simoleons. Before anyone else could bid on it, I whipped out my check card. “I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “We’re only taking cash.”
“I can do that,” I said, and thrust the money I had originally set aside for the bridge toll at her. She took it. I took my CD.
“So, you got it?” Bernie was beside me.
“Yeah. I was going to buy it anyway, so why not?” Then I thought. “How much is the toll across the bridge?”
“Five dollars.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m going to have to stop and get some cash tomorrow.”
His wallet was out. “Here,” he said, thrusting a bill my way.
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just stop.”
The negotiations continued for a moment or two. I won’t reveal what the result was, although I don’t remember having to stop for cash on my way out.
Mark joined us, and we decided that it was time to go ahead and claim our seats. Since they had reserved theirs a mere months before I had bought mine, they were sitting somewhat closer to the stage. They made their way to the orchestra, and I climbed the stairs to a section called something like “Orchestra Plus.”
Tomorrow, Part VII: The Voodoo That They Do
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