Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘Cell Phone Cameras’

The past few concerts I’ve attended have revealed to me that things I was foolishly chalking up to an unfortunate succession of isolated annoying incidents are, in fact, disturbing trends. Whether these trends apply to all public events or only concerts is still unclear.

1. People trying to record the entire thing so they can post it on their YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, or whatever-the-hell-else.

I’m not sure what these people are thinking, or how they’re able to suspend their arms in the air for 90 minutes (especially when they’re obviously and profoundly out of shape), but a full 25-33 percent of the people were doing exactly that at last concert I attended. Do you think these people ever ask themselves: How good high can my production values be if I’m recording this on my LG Storm 3000 cell phone held erratically over my head?

And...cut. That's a wrap.

2. Puddles

There’s nothing more unnerving than a wet or sticky floor—especially if you have no choice but to marinate in it for hours. This isn’t actually a new problem. But lately, it seems to be getting out of control. Let me give you all a piece of advice, from experience: don’t put your nice-anything under your seat at these things. Unless, that is, you want it smell like a cocktail of cocktails. I don’t know if there’s some unreported epidemic of vertigo, or if beer vendors are experiencing an unusual bout of generosity, but there oughta be law: lids (and straws) for all drinks.

Last I heard, there's store called Lids.

3. Dramatic increase in requests for audience participation.

Dear artist: I didn’t pay you (and a pimp with the street name of “Ticketmaster”) many-many rupees to come and sing myself. I came to listen to you. After all, you’re much better at it. Trust me: if you do a good job tonight, I’ll sing the whole car ride home. Just imagine if you paid good money, let’s just say, to watch me type this blog entry. Then, somewhere in the middle of it, I shout “everybody!”, and hand you the keyboard to start writing. Exactly.

What the audience should say, in unison: "No, really, it’s okay. You sing."