MEAT - APPARENTLY, STILL MURDER

Ridiculous Amount Of Time It Took Me To Get Home From Culver City At Noon Today: 50 minutes

Ridiculous Amount Of Time It Took Me To Drive From My House To Just East Of Palm Springs Today: 4 hours

Artists I Wanted To See At Coachella But Missed Because Of Said Traffic And Also Because The Stupid Hotel Totally Screwed Up Our Reservation And Wasted Thirty Precious Minutes Of Our Time: The Black Keys, Leonard Cohen

(Supposedly) Gay Celibate Husband I Finally Got To See Perform For The First Time And During Whose Performance I May Have Immaculately Conceived Said GCH's Baby By Way Of Osmosis: Morrissey

Reason All That Driving And Shit Was Worth It: Paul McCartney


I wasn't even going to come out to the desert at all (keywords: desert, dry, hot, people on drugs flailing around with glowsticks), but then tickets and super VIP passes magically worked their way into my paws and I couldn't say no. Tanya and I piled into ole Ruby and crawled across the 10, only to arrive at our hotel and find out that they gave our room away due to some front desk misunderstanding/malfunction.

We missed the Black Keys, and we arrived just in time to catch a few Leonard Cohen songs. What I did hear was deep and dark, and did nothing to belie his 73 years. Break it on down, brotha!

Then on to the main stage for Moz, a man I've pined for since the Smiths served as part of my high school trifecta of mopedom. My impressions, you ask?

a) Morrissey is one hot bastard
b) His voice is still panty-droppingly torchified
c) Multiply that by 20

The only odd moment for me? When he started pinching his nose and grimacing and cutting short lines to his songs, explaining, "I can smell burning flesh, and I hope to God it's human."

Dude, I know you're a veggie, but a) that was creepy, and b) have you never performed in a festival setting before where there's meat a-cookin'?

He ducked offstage, presumably to vomit, then returned and said, "The smell of burning animals is making me sick; I just couldn't bear it," then proceeded to swagger around, grimacing a bit. It totally unsexed the whole thing for me...and oddly, caused me to crave an In N Out Burger, plain, protein-style.

But Paul, OH PAUL!
If you've never seen Paul McCartney live - which I haven't, until tonight - you MUST. He is the consummate performer, he has a catalogue spanning over 40 years (and he performs songs from across the spectrum), and his band kicked all of the ass.

Ok, and there were fireworks. Fireworks always win in my book.

But really - Paul McCartney? PAUL MCCARTNEY?

ROCK GOD!

I must admit that I kind of wrote him off in the "old guy milking his iconic status for dollars" category, but tonight - all three hours, three encores of it - proved me entirely wrong. His performance was simply the best rock show I've ever seen. EVER.

I just want to hug Paul McCartney and never let go.