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Let's see if I can tell this clearly: to begin, I'm 15 or so in a movie theater in my hometown with a group of friends. Some of us are being loud and rowdy, a theater employee, Paul G----, who was a few years older than us comes down the darkened aisle and tells us to be quiet. He singles me out in the dark to make an example of, the best behaved of us all, and hollers at me to sit down and that I'm close to being booted. As we got older I knew of Paul G. a bit more. He dealt in cocaine and cars, had a bad temper and was a big fan of the rock group Yes.
Fast forward 30 years. I'm living in the same state, but far away in a different city hours from my hometown. My girlfriend and I get tickets to see Yes play at an arena not far from where we live. I'm excited to see these guys for the first time. They are musical heroes of mine, in particular Steve Howe the guitarist. For whatever reason I'm in a mood the night of the show, I'm wearing a ridiculous fedora and I march us into this small venue and get our seats. The show starts and I wander up closer to the left side of the stage, soon realize there's virtually no security so I barge and push my way up right to the foot and pull out my phone (a blackberry at the time, what an asshole), I lean in and start video taping Steve who is playing just a couple feet directly in front of me. I'm right in the grill of this legend, a hero of mine and all that. I could hear a guy screaming "sit the f--k down" at me. I'm leaned in with the blackberry out in front taping, the guitarist and I make eye contact and then he looks away a little disgusted and I think, worried. Had to be wondering why there's no security to get me away from there. I was a star-struck idiot in that moment, I guess, and oblivious to myself. That's the - I'm an asshole -part of the story. Jesus.
The weird post-script. A couple days later I go to the Yes website and check the reviews of the show. Great show, everyone says. One guy says the venue was great, it was one of the best shows of the many he's seen of the band over the years. He also commented on his seats close to the stage, and about the lack of security and some "yahoo" in the crowd getting too near the musicians. I clicked on the user name below his comment and it brought up my email template with the "To:" field populated with the name, you guessed it: Paul G----.
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