Dear Ridiculously Tall People at Concerts,
Enjoying the privilege of being tall must be such a joy.
You get to do everything short people can't: Picking apples off the tops of trees; early predictions of oncoming storms; slapping high-fives with Jesus -- and perhaps the most self-indulgent of them all, the ability to attend jam-packed concerts and see everything and everyone there.
Us short folks wouldn't know anything about that.
As a relatively new music journalist/writer/blogger/whathaveyou, I enjoy the privilege of attending any number of concerts any given night of the week, provided that I compose a readable summary of every concert attended by the next day. As a relatively new music journalist/writer/blogger/whathaveyou who also happens to be comically short, however, that privilege comes with one drawback: When I attend the general-admission, standing-room-only hip-hop concerts that see you, tall people, running over me and my kind like a stampede of pissed-off giraffes.
I first noticed you guys' blatant disrespect toward us short types when I covered rapper Kendrick Lamar's concert at Warehouse Live two weekends ago. Lamar's wasn't the first concert of this type I've attended; last fall's The Weeknd concert was my introduction to "standing room only." Even then, the spacious interior of Bayou Music Center offset the sizeable crowd; if we got stuck behind one of you, we could easily move to another corner to view the singer's performance.
The very opposite could be said of Lamar's show. Both the rapper, the venue and I have the same thing in common -- we're pint-sized -- which should have meant a "show" of empathy for the puny pals in attendance, but alas, the crowd that squeezed into Warehouse Live was twice the size -- in numbers, that is -- of Bayou Music Center's, leaving me and those like me at the mercy of your thrown elbows and double-fisted drinks.
Perhaps you saw me? I was the knotty-haired, speckled-jean-wearing gal busily scribbling into a notebook, ignoring the security guards poking fun at me.
"Doing homework?"
Or maybe you didn't: No matter where I turned, I, 5-foot-3 on a very good day, always ended up lodged behind one of you beer-chugging six-footers. (Or in front of you: You can read about it here. Go to the very end of the story to be utterly horrified.)
I can already hear your yells of protest: "I don't give a damn about your little-person problems! I'll stand wherever I damn well please! I'm an American!" While one might argue that stacking concert attendees randomly is a nugget chunk of the American Dream, denying the vertically challenged an opportunity to witness our favorite musical artists is not only unfair, it's the very essence of inequality.
But here's where the tables turn: When you get mean, we get meaner. They don't call it a Napoleon complex for nothin'. Just because we're short doesn't mean we can't teach you a lesson in concert protocol.
