Faux Pas Friday: Pearl Jam

Amazingly enough, I can't remember a faux pas from this week. Which isn't to say that I didn't have any,  it's just that none of them were terrible enough to be ingrained on my psyche. Luckily, I have plenty of embarrassing memories from before I started blogging. I can't entirely blame my children for my lack of social graces. . . .

Year: 1995   Location: The OK Hotel, a music venue/bar in Seattle   Scene: Grunge

I am thrilled to pieces to be at The OK Hotel, where they actually filmed some of the movie Singles. I still love that movie. Anyway, my ex and I are there to see his friend's band perform. My ex hated going to see bands, which explains why even though I lived in the northwest in the '90's I missed most of the live music scene. Not that I'm bitter. But on this particular night he consented to join our generation, so there I was in the OK Hotel.

I drank a lot of beer. I wore black. I nodded knowingly when people talked about bands I'd never heard and that Pearl Jam was starting its own music label. I did get slightly excited when someone said members of Pearl Jam were going to show up, but I didn't see anyone who looked like Eddie Vedder.

After the show we sat at a table with the band and lots of other musicians. The guy sitting next to me - seemingly bored with some debate about Mother Love Bone - asked me what I did. I said I was in grad school but felt somehow lame about explaining that it was for elementary education. At that moment I wanted to be some sort of starving artist. So I brightly changed the subject and asked him what he did.

He laughed. I stared. He said he played guitar for Pearl Jam. Then he got up and went to the bar while the guy across from me - my husband's high school friend - begged me to tell him that I had not just asked Stone Gossard what he did for a living.

My ex decided to take me home, over my loud protest, "But how I am supposed to remember what he looks like? You always hog Spin Magazine." Stone waved at me as we left.