i heart the mta

as much as i love the mta and as thrilled as i am to have unlimited metrocards soon raise in price to a whopping $103 a month, this has got to take the cake. thanks to the "beyond doomsday" budget problem -- i'm sorry, but how can you have a doomsday problem one week and go BEYOND doomsday the next? like what is that exactly? beyond DOOMSDAY?! this is starting to get very comic book people -- late night service might be wiped out altogether to help cut costs. to me that's not even a fathomable option, but to the lovely mta people, “one can’t say that anything is off the table.” deep breath.

a more likely option, however, is that they'll simply run fewer trains at night -- which is a pretty funny distinction in its own right, since that's basically the same thing as getting rid of service completely anyway. the f train barely comes once an hour after midnight as it is, so what exactly is a "service cut" but a euphenism for "you're going to be waiting on that platform for a really long fucking time." so you know, same as usual.

so about that show...

i never wanted to be that person that bitches and complains about a band not playing their old songs at a show. i always equated it to some form of the annoying age-old cries of sellout! from all those fans that can't even try to like newer songs simply because their own credibility lies in the fact that they saw the band back when they were nothing playing songs on broken guitars to 3 people in a laundromat and anything new must be shitty for the simple fact that it's new. (those songs are often shitty for entirely different reasons.)

i always want to give bands the benefit of the doubt. i get it. you've been playing x songs for x years and you're sick of them, and anyway, you're just so totally stoked on these new songs how could you not play them? fine. whatever. but what about when you decide to only play 2 of these all-important brand new songs in favor of a set overrun with good, but ultimately subpar, songs from albums that are just eh, totally ignoring the greatest songs in your arsenal?!

i'm looking at you alkaline trio. i'm looking at you long and hard. matt skiba actually looking normal (sans sunglasses, scarf, weird comb over) was a plus to the start of the night. opening with "my friend peter" was then a double plus. but then the show just went down the straight and narrow to "fine" as you ignored fantastic songs (and basically goddamnit in its entirety) and left me singing my heart out to songs i liked, but... well it wasn't the same. each new opening note had me hoping for a song that never came. and then you ended the night with only 2 encore songs. 2 songs?! and since "radio" was a given, that's only one toss-up track! seriously guys, wtf. no, seriously. we expect better from you.

so where did this all leave me? out on the sidewalk, tipsy, with a sore throat, and wondering aloud where the old songs were all the way home. you made me that fan -- if only for a night. but lucky for you, i'm not so easily discouraged. i will be at your next show. i will be getting drunk. i will be silently willing songs onto your setlist. please don't make me that asshole again.

let's see how this goes.

so after weeks and months of going back and forth and back and forth and yesing and noing and just about going for it before completely wimping out (twice), i've decided to finally take the plunge and do something totally unique and mind-blowing: blog. don't worry, it's okay that i'm about 10 years late to the party. just making my grand entrance. i promise. i'll make it worth your time.

maybe.