The World's Common Tater

I wrote recently about memoirs. It got me thinking about stories about my life. I’m not sure any stories about my life are that interesting. This one at least involves a musician who just released a new album(buy it!) and has songs playing on the radio. So, there is at least one interesting person in the story.  This is not the same as the party I talked about in an earlier post where I wandered out of my brother’s New Year’s Eve Party and ended up at a random person’s party. I went to this one completely sober and aware of my actions.

We start with me being the type of person who follows musicians I like on social media. Ryan Hamilton had been in a band I liked and had a new solo album out. I saw on his events page that he had an event for the DC area. I clicked on the link for tickets and it didn’t work. I think at one point it had a place to click to get an email about tickets. I got nothing. I finally emailed Ryan to ask why the ticket thing wasn’t working. He emailed back and told me it was a private event. That should have been the end. If it had been the end I could have avoided the awkward part that comes next.

Ryan told me he could ask about getting me an invite to the party. Normally, I would decline because I’m awkward and not the type to willingly go party with strangers. For some reason, I said yes and he got me the invite. Somewhere in all of this times were mentioned and I thought I knew what time I was supposed to arrive. I thought wrong. I would love to say 100% Ryan gave me the wrong time. It would be easy to do and I could claim he owed me for the awkwardness. I no longer have the email, so I can’t say for sure that I didn’t read the time wrong. All I know is that I had the wrong time.

I arrived close to the time I thought I should arrive. I should also mention that this event was at someone’s house, not a nice, safe public venue. I could see that no one else had arrived. I really wanted to just go somewhere and wait for more people to show up. There were two problems. One, there was no place to pull over and wait where I could see when other people arrived, Two, I wasn’t 100% sure I was at the right place. I felt like I should at least knock, ask if I was in the right place and then go from there. So, I knocked. They answered. It was the right place, I was awkwardly very early. They insisted I stay. I did.  They were very nice. I felt terrible while I awkwardly waited for more strangers to show up.

Eventually, other people arrived and I was able to fade into the background. I’m pretty sure I was the only person there who didn’t know the hosts and didn’t really know the performer.  I was just some weirdo who had driven to Northern Virginia to show up way to early at a strangers house to hear someone sing. I did enjoy the show and everyone was very nice. There was more awkwardness at the end when I had to be the last one to leave because everyone else was behind me in the driveway(and I’m also very bad at reversing). The hostess hugged me when I left. She probably felt bad for me. I was very awkward.

I saw the hostess recently at another concert. It was a public venue. The band has a song about her that they sang at the show. She was backstage and came out on stage at the end of the song. Maybe I should have stayed in touch. I’m not sure anyone wanted that.

I’m still friends with Ryan on Facebook and just bought his new album. I’m patiently waiting for his band to do a show, a public show at a public venue, in the DC area. I just missed him when I was in London last year. I think he’s avoiding me.

And now here is a Timehop photo of Ryan singing in the house since I apparently no longer have the original on my phone.

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