I Got $6 On It

These days six dollars doesn't get you very far. Last night I spent the best six dollars I will ever spend and no it wasn't on a burger.

The Back Story: I was in yoga last Friday and heard two songs that caught my attention. It caught my attention enough that I almost grabbed my phone to Shazam the song or the other option was to raise my hand and interrupt the class to find out who they were. I did neither of those things, but for days kept thinking about the songs. I finally go back to class and find out who the band was. There are two things that happened after this that made me want to kick myself in the butt, which I'm getting rather good at. First thing I do is check my iTunes and of course the song is there. I have a bad habit of downloading a crap load of music and listen to about 25% of it. The second thing was when I was talking to Palindrome she brought it to my attention that she told me about this song a while ago and apparently I wasn't listening. I hear things when I hear things and if you are someone like me who lives in their head a lot there isn't much room for others to invade.

Aside from living in my head, I have a part-time residency on the internet. Don't ask me what it is I look at because I have no idea. I'm either on my MacBook or playing with my iPhone. When I hear a band I like, the first thing I do is to check when they are playing a show in town. As luck would have it the band was playing a show somewhat in the vicinity of Southern California but the setting was a little weird. The concert was going to be at the Del Mar Racetrack after the last race of the day. I'm not too fond of watching animals, people and/or cars go around in circles unless it's the roller derby. Weighing out the pros and cons my love of music won out and the adventure was on. What possessed mArvin to embark on this little adventure with me is beyond me. There was really no convincing involved. I asked, he said yes and that was that.

Researching the event I found that the concert was free with paid admission to the racetrack. When I read that the admission was $6 I kept looking online to find the "real" price of admission. There had to be some catch and not being familiar with what gambling entailed, I couldn't figure out how the racetrack made a profit charging $6 a person. It didn't take me long after we arrived exactly how the racetrack survives. People make a day of watching the horses race, placing bets, drinking alcohol and eating food etc...

We had a few hours before the show so we went to check out the action on the track. I had my prejudgments and wasn't too excited about this. Watching race after race every time the horses would round the final bend the excitement would build in the stadium and I found myself excited with them. I still don't agree with the premise of using animals for entertainment, but it was fun.

After the final race we went back down to the stage area and waited for the band to come on. The show was one of the best shows I have been to this summer. The band sounded great and energy of the crowd was amazing. After the show the band members came out to greet the fans and that made me like them even more. Given the opportunity I would have gladly paid more money to see the show. The fact that it was practically free made me appreciate it even more. The day could not have been any better than the way it turned out. I was with good company, experienced something new and got to listen and watch a great band.