Good smag / bad smag

Joe's Pub is a really great venue for shows--intimate but not cramped, great acoustics, nice stage layout--except for when it's really crowded and you end up having to stand crammed in and interspersed among other people's tables, or pressed up against the bar, as perpetually rushed and ragged looking waitresses bustle back and forth every few seconds. Like anywhere else in New York, it's the people that can transform this place into a living nightmare.

Last night, this bitchy smag standing next to my friend Joyce and I shouted, "Excuuuuuse me!" to Joyce and shot her a look that seemed to say, "Are you so stupid that you can't see how you are obviously, clearly in my way...move, now!" This girl then proceeded to position herself right in front of Joyce, at the exact angle so as to completely block my friend's view of the stage. Since she was a smag, it wasn't as bad as some of those super-tall guys who tend to frequent indie shows, whose height always clears out the 3-foot space directly behind them, but still... We both said "What the hell??" well within the girl's earshot.

Part of me thought, "hey, we're all smags here, can't we just get along?" but my baser instincts were more along the lines of, "this smag is going down" (not that I'd ever actually do or say anything, of course). The girl didn't budge an inch during the entire set, and her smaggy, 'me first' sense of entitlement put a small damper on the fun, until a little later that evening, when I got a $10 gin & tonic on the house for "being so polite". I only take this to mean that I didn't harass the bartender by treating her like she was deaf or had the mental capacity of a goldfish, or wave my arms around like an air traffic controller trying to flag her down, or stage whisper/hiss, "Why is this bartender ignoring me?" like the hefty white chick to my left. Instead, I patiently waited my turn, let the bartender attend to everyone else's drink needs first, then in the classic friendly-yet-demure smaggy way, calmly asked, "May I get a gin & tonic, please?" with an even smile, while looking her straight in the eye. And just like that, voila--having good manners has finally paid off! If nothing else, at least I can hope that I managed to balance out the bad smagginess in the room that night with some good smag karma.