Monday, January 26, 2009

Lesbo Concert One Summer Evening


I've been a fan of the Indigo Girls since the 80's. And when I went to San Diego this past summer and saw that they were to play at this place: Humphrey's "Concerts by the Bay" me and my youngest sister immediately booked tickets and went.

The catch was that both Indigo Girls are lesbians (but not lovers themselves), and at the time California was juuuuust starting to issue marriage licenses to gay/lesbian couples, it was an issue being talked about all over the news.

The morning the courts started doing that me and my wife went to a great breakfast restaurant which serves the best scrambled eggs with home baked bread, along with cut fruit and watermelon, the whole table is just filled with hearty juicy food. There were atleast 4 different tables around us that had gay couples dressed in tuxedo suits, with maybe a pink/peach handkerchief neatly tucked in. All celebrating their "weddings". One table had two couples with their families celebrating, the table was so long it took the whole side of the place.

The mood was festive, everyone was happy, they all felt like it was a triumph for humanity and justice.

That night at the concert with my sister I was waiting for salat ilmaghreb and I can clearly see when the sun is setting on the pacific horizon. So I get up to go to the bathroom and I'm told that most of the restrooms are reserved for women. The door with the Male sign has been taped with a piece of paper that said:
"We are sorry, but this restroom is for women only. Please use the male restroom at the gates"

Turns out since most of the fans for this band were also lesbians, 90% of the people attending were women. So I go and join the line of grumbling men waiting to use the single male-dedicated bathroom at the gates, overhearing lines like "How's this for discrimination", and "This is so unfair".

As my turn comes I quickly do my ablution (wudhu) and I hear the opening band starts, Brandi Carlile (The Story):


Lovely song, but I have a bit of a hard time finding a suitable patch of grass behind the bungalows and the stage to actually pray.

Then when I go to my seat which happened to be many rows behind my sister, because she reserved her ticket a month before, while mine was almost a previous day's notice. And surrounding me on all four sides were lesbian couples. And as the night went on and the songs became more affectionate, and the more beer consumed, the more kissing and smooching that happened all around me.

I felt VERY out of place and VERY uncomfortable needless to say. True that I had a good time repeating the words of some of the songs almost by heart, since they were so familiar to me. But I didn't actually like alot of what they stood for, I simply liked the beats and melodies which they wrote. As far as gay/lesbian rights go, I think what Allah decides in them is the most appropriate. Imagine if all the gay/lesbian people in the world lived in a single country, by theory and definition, that country should become extinct in a matter of 50 years or so... basically it threatens the continuation of the human race. Nothing serious really :P

My sister was screaming her head off on 2nd row, so she was clearly having fun. Good for her. Plus as a full blown feminist, the frenzy of justice and vindication for women was right up her alley, true she's not really comfortable with lesbians either, but I suppose she can indulge in some denial here, details details.. don't get bogged down in the details. Only liberty matters right? sure whatever.

And in the end, the noise was so loud throughout the concert my head hurt and I thought to myself, I could have just downloaded their albums and listened in the comfort and solitude of my iPod...... right?

But atleast Ms. Carlile was a pleasant surprise.

2 comments:

sadia said...

looool!

but ofcourse, i agree with you completely!...i'm just not "ok" with gays!

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