Reasons to be Sneer-ful
by Robin Pastorio-Newman

Let's speak with complete clarity: I would rather eat my collection of little old lady hats than see another show at the PNC Bank Arts Center, under any circumstances. If Iggy Pop personally called to ask why oh why I wouldn't come out to play, I still wouldn't. If you feel which way the wind's blowing, you won't either. Saturday, July 28, 2001: I was persuaded by friends, avid fans, that we should see a band. Well, I caved. We bought expensive tickets. One of my friends called ahead to avoid a problem we often have: she's a large woman, her hips don't fit regular seats. She was issued tickets for appropriate seating where we could all sit together. That's it. That's the one thing PNC Bank Arts Center did right. The facility was staffed by suspiciously clean-cut, bored teenagers who acted as if there were little or nothing they could do to help patrons. A bored teen waved us into a parking lot far from the arena where we had to ask young, affluent prigs to move their tailgate party chairs so we could park. In retrospect, we should have regarded that as an omen and hastily departed.

While the Arts Center offers bus service from the parking lot to the arena, we didn't see buses or signs for them, so we followed a stream of people walking up a road through the woods. We could not see the road twist and assume a long, steep incline. My companion had difficulty, stopping frequently to catch her breath. Without recourse, she had to get to the top of the winding hill on her own power. I planned what I'd do if my friend became incapacitated. At the hilltop, we accosted a bored teen who, asked if there were some other way to get to the arena, told us to just keep walking. My friend's face was an alarming red. She said, "I CAN'T." The bored teen eventually flagged down a bus driven by a woman who provided us with useful return-trip information, a surprise. Confronted by daunting staircases at the entrance, my friend asked a bored teen asked if there were, once again, some other way. The V.I.P. Entrance, she was told. We walked around to the V.I.P. Entrance atop a no less daunting series of ramps. I was scared for my friend. Adults at the gate were polite and helpful, another surprise. After the weird indignity of being carded by people born after my high school graduation, I followed my friends to flights of stairs down to our seats in the handicapped section. You read that right. We later accidentally discovered ramps leading down our seating level, on the opposite side of the arena from the V.I.P. Entrance. Hmm.

Confused? Join the club. At the top of the stairs, a bored teen examined our tickets. Down two flights, another examined our tickets. Down another flight, a compassionate bored teen examined our tickets and led us to our special seats. I am not disabled - except morally - so I felt oddly comfy in a stadium seating situation where I am always miserable, despite my diminutive stature. Believe me: the above is a long story microscopically short.

What does this have to do with music? Everything, and has everything to do with you. From here on out, I am a music fan sitting in an open air venue with a $6.75 Budweiser in my hand and I can't smoke a cigarette. PNC Bank Arts Center forbids smoking in an effectively outdoor arena. The arrogance of a $6.75 beer brewed across Route 1 from Newark Airport after the torture of my physically limited friend, combined with the indifference of gallingly young staff, handicapped-inaccessible restrooms, and my inability to smoke in my seat demonstrated to me that my patronage was less important to the management than meeting the management's control needs over a questionable consumer group: rock music fans. Oooo, we're scary.

The audience as well as the venue made me nervous. Last time that many natural blonds assembled in one room, George W. got the Republican Nomination. Enough children scampered the grounds past bedtime that I wondered if babysitters had unionized. Some people felt comfortable in this setting, I supposed. Yet, handicapped accessibility was insignificant in a venue where until recently the majority of paying customers flocked to see Andy Williams. In a theater without walls I traversed three flights of stairs to smoke. The issue is not intelligent crowd control, it's PEOPLE control. It's that family values thing in pop culture form, in which music fans pay wild sums to be carefully confined. Isn't music, at its essence, about unlimited feeling and breaking out of our confinements?

The final straw, in case you're not convinced: pairs of bored teens walking up and down aisles during the show, WATCHING the audience. I, for one, prefer a filthy bar show with drunken fighting, hideous ventilation and sweat running down my back to a squeaky clean all-ages arena show where I cannot be what I am. I am a free person, I love music, I dance with my whole heart; I smoke, I drink, some of my friends have special physical needs, we have disposable income. I am not willing to become smaller or lesser to fit into a corporate behavior model, not even temporarily. Not even for my love of Iggy Pop. Are you?

©2001 Robin Pastorio-Newman