Damn it. Not only am I pissed, but it's to the point of me blowing up - you know how it feels, the hot burning behind your eyes, the electricity fizzing and popping in your brain - a cross between rage and frustration and just how absurd they are being. Stupid and selfish.

They are stupid and selfish. And jealous. That's it. They are jealous that I (for once) am going to have some fun.

They don't realize what this concert means to me. They can't tell me what to do, what kind of music to listen to, what kind of concert to attend. I mean, face it, most popular music stinks. It's bland and whiny and basically all the same. Total crap.

So, for once I find a band that I love absolutely. Fast paced and heart felt with a comedic thread and edgy rage all somehow combined with a wild joy, complexity of rhythm and more personality than all the rest of them combined.

And the band is coming to town. And it doesn't cost the hundred dollars like those dried up old has-beens like to charge for simple-minded baby boomers so starving for a warped glimpse of their past. Rock musicians with face lifts, I mean, how pathetic is that?the very concept of rock music precludes face lifts, not to mention $100.00 tickets. Clutching at their past like Alzheimer's addled, bran damaged nit-wits with fat wallets and fatter asses.

$25.00. Not bad to hear the music you've been waiting for your whole f*^#+?g life. Not bad for a night of sheer joy, the opportunity to dance with total abandon, heart thrumming wild with the pleasure only your favorite music can elicit.

"You can't go to that concert! Those people are wild! It's too violent. You could get hurt," they say, both of them finally in agreement about something - about cutting in on my opportunity to actually have fun for a f#^*!#g change.

Who are they to tell me what I can or can't do?

They list the possibilities of trouble. Mosh pits, shoving, pushing, people falling down in the midst of a crowd of stomping feet and drunken hooligans.

"Punks! That's punk music!" he practically screams over the phone. "People get hurt. People get frightened. You could get hit over the head with a beer bottle!"

For once in my life, put me in a crowd of maniacs. I mean, it's really all about the music. If they are really concerned (they just don't want to have to visit me in the hospital) I will promise to be a wallflower. I'll dance at the edge of the crowd. I can stand in the back and tap my feet.

"You don't know how those people get!" I hear him bellowing into the phone.

Soon as somebody uses the phrase 'those people,' you just know they are full of shit. that what they said about your own ancestors, bub! Referring to them as 'those people' as if they lived on some lower rung of the human ladder. The phrase 'those people' is the key, referring to all those fun loving souls as if they were rubbish.

Well, in the immortal words of Joey Ramone:

"Put me in a wheelchair get me to the show

hurry hurry hurry before I go loco

I can't control my fingers I can't control my toes

Oh no no no no..."

My parents never forbade me to go to a concert. They trusted my common sense when I was only 14. But my parents are dead (God rest their souls). I'm 56 years old, for cryin' out loud! So how come I've got a 17 years old and a 25 year old telling me what I can't do?

As you can see from the video, the crowds in front of the stage are not a bunch of headbanging, violent idiots. The show at Ramshead in Baltimore was a small venue so there was a bit of a crush but the enthusiasm was supercharged fun. You can see how the audience jumps (that is to pogo in mosh pit jargon) in joy, moving with the music. In a crowd like that you become part of the music, it creates the movement...a wild mass of people that become the music... it is totally explosive joy, rambunctious dance...as long as somebody doesn't step on your foot.

Eugene Hutz has more energy than any other performer I have ever seen. There were few breaks between songs, they just kept going with that unique, manic combination of the old, the new, and the in-between. All the music that ever was rolled into one long, fabulous show. Take a look at the guy on electric violin (Sergey Rjabtzev - he's no spring chicken.

So, old Dolores dove into the crowd for a bit of a mosh. Fortunately, I am in pretty good shape so an hour and a half of jumping around like a teenager isn't the crippling event that I anticipated. I did not spend the entire time in the pit, but edged out. Let's not get carried away, ol gal. The only casualty was a silver ring with a lapis lazuli stone that somehow got snapped but stuck on the finger because it was sort of crushed on. Oh well.I should have weighed myself the next morning - I bet I lost 3 or 4 pounds in water weight.

The indignant older son who warned me away called for a report and promised that next time, we'd go together. The younger one still thinks I'm an idiot. But, you know, you want your kids to disagree with you... that's how they become their own selves, a tiny wedge must be driven in order for them to fully come to terms with self identity and maturity. After all, childhood is so quickly lost but immaturity is forever!