The FIRST Time I Met a Demi God

For those of you who know me know I LOVE Rufus Wainwright (putting it together now, are you? Rufus the singer, Rufus the dog…..), he is basically my Grateful Dead. I’ve seen him 9 times now in the last three years, 3 times in Portland, once each in Seattle, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Vancouver BC, and twice in LA (one of those times he opened for kd lang at the Hollywood Bowl---how cool is that?). Anyway, long ago I introduced the Roommate to Rufus’s music so he has been my companion for each and every show and our first road trip to see him perform was a one man show in Santa Barbara for their “Sing Like Hell” series at the Santa Barbara Symphony house. I wanted to go to that concert SO BAD so I checked Ticketmaster to no avail, then checked all the other ticket outlets but still no sign of the concert. I called the symphony house and they said the concert was sold out (!) and the concert was part of a series so there were no more seats available (hall only seated about 600---so intimate! I tell the Roommate that we can probably get backstage, huh?). I then tried a couple of ticket brokers and still nada. As a last resort I put an ad in the Santa Barbara paper stating I wanted to buy tickets. A few days went by and no calls until I got home from work one day and there was a message on my answering machine from a nice British man saying he had seen my ad, had tickets for the entire series but was going to be out of town for the concert I was interested in and did I want his? He would sell them to me for face value and they were second row on the aisle. My reply? HELL YEA! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? So I called him and got his address and sent him a check and my address and a few days later the glorious tickets arrived at my door. In the envelope was also a note from the nice British man saying the wine concession lady was a friend of his and if I mentioned his name she’d “take care of us”. Bonus! Three favorite things in the world: a) Roommate b) Rufus Wainwright C) wine, and not necessarily in that order. We get our last minute flights with miles (another bonus) and we are set. We fly to LA; while the Roommate is in the john I upgrade our rental to a convertible and we are on the road to Rufus. We are so hip! We are so LA! We are so Tragic (note the capitol “T”). On the way we stop for a fifth of Jack for the road and I am the mixologist---in the front seat, with the top down. Once we get to our hotel in Santa Barbara we prepare go cups for the pool and nap in the sun. We get ready for the show and go to the main strip (is that downtown Santa Barbara? Could someone look that up for me please?) and decide shots of tequila and sushi are in order before the show. Who the hell drinks tequila with sushi? That’s mixing cultures---is that allowed even? We stumble to the venue and find our wine lady and then somehow the Roommate ends up backstage in the green room. Don’t ask me how, he has his ways. We make it to our seats and they are in fact second row only smack dab in front of the piano. Yea! So close we could spit on him. I almost wet my pants when Rufus comes out on stage. WARNING: SO CLOSE! STALKER IS SO CLOSE TO HER DEMI GOD! We thoroughly enjoy the concert (one of his best I think) and after the show we are all invited to the garden to mingle with Rufus. THE RUFUS. The Roommate worms his way to the front of the crowd and gets Rufus to give him an autograph using his chest to lean on. I’m way in the back trying to get a photo (being polite “Carol”, what the Roommate calls me when I act too polite) which doesn’t work so well. Then the Roommate makes me go up to Rufus and tells the Demi God “Can we get a picture, please? She came all the way from Portland”. Turns out Rufus has a soft spot for Portland so I get the honor of the above photo. It happens to be the ABSOLUTELY WORST photo of ME ever, and not a great one of Rufus either, but I’M THAT CLOSE—TOUCHING EVEN!! It looks like his arm is around me but actually he was holding his cigarette away from my hair. How sweet of him, so thoughtful. So I’m very proud of this photo and grateful that the Roommate pushed me at Rufus, I now have this great memento. By the way, this is only the first time I met Rufus-----and no restraining orders yet! Yea ME!