I guess I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be 16.
I get to the Ottobar with my two best friends, Emily and Bethany, the latter whom I’ve dragged (willingly) to MP shows across the state for the past four months, and head upstairs.
We grab our Coronas with limes, check the schedule, find out MP isn’t on until 1:00, sigh, and then I go downstairs to check out the other acts.
The first guy, Hammel, I think his name is, is the best poet with strings I have seen since the days when Chris Chandler and Amanda Stark used to grace Planet X in College Park, before it closed down.
And speaking of which, God I miss Planet X. God I miss gulping 10 cups of coffee, munching on chips, spouting out my poetry on that two-foot stage, and feeling exhilarated when I stepped down, surrounded by applause.

  Which brings me to my original point: I miss being 16.

You could be obnoxious without feeling guilty, you could chug Nattie Bo without feeling guilty. You could maneuver your way to the front of a show without feeling guilty.
Hell, now I’m so guilty that I can’t even be like Mary and print the “F” word unless it’s from someone else’s lips.
So, Laktic Acid, a local band sporting the best female Danzig of a lead singer I’ve seen, leave, and I’m sharing the front row with this really tall, pink-haired high school girl who is physically bigger than me. All is well, and I’m chatting it up with the older ladies around me about how I see Mary Prankster every week, and it’s become my new favorite thing to do.
All is well, until, as I watch Jon tune Mary’s guitar and Phil move stuff, this little girl (drunk as hell) wants to be next to the big girl in front. Hell no! I say, not letting the girl in front at first. Mary Prankster is my favorite band, and dammit, I got here first.
But the big girl gives me that “I’m bigger than you look” and the little drunk one gets in front. Then, as MP start their soundcheck song and roll into “Tits and Whisky,” the high school girls start sloshing around and pushing back, and I go from feeling intimidated to being pissed…So pissed that I can’t even enjoy MP playing the best set I have heard since the Fletcher’s version of the “Roulette Girl” CD Release party. So pissed that when I sing along to “Mata Hari” and “Swan Dive” I feel like the girls in the MP songs are those girls and I’m hating them. But My Mary Prankster Experience – the way I feel when I listen to MP – isn’t so unlike theirs.
So I made peace with Tall Pink Hair by giving her my hairband so her hair wouldn’t get all over her sweaty face. And I let it go. There will be other shows and I will have many chances to stand right up front.