Where in the World is Roger Waters?

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Presents:

Where in the World

is Roger Waters?

   8:00am: Tuesday, May 15, 2012. I wake up at my parents house. Once again I've been booted out of my wife's place. I'm estranged from my wife and kids, living at my folks (and they don't seem all that thrilled that I'm there either)unemployed, broke, my car has hardly any gas in it, I haven't eaten in days, and it's been nearly two weeks since I was in a mental hospital for nearly killing myself. I'm starting to think that maybe I should've stayed there. Life is so much easier when you're institutionalized, and the food was great. I've never eaten that good in my life.

   The plan for today? get the hell out of the house, library opens at 9am. Go to the library, read books, job hunt, and keep myself occupied til closing time at 8pm. Go home, take my medications, go to sleep. Trying not to think about my almost failed second marriage, my wife who's changed the locks, and my daughter who I've alienated to the point it seems she no longer wants anything to do with me. Psychiatrist appointments I have to get to but can't afford, medications I need to keep me stable but have no money for, bills piling up that won't be paid. I tried to get a job at Walmart but even they wouldn't hire me. Any optimism, or lust for life that I left that mental institution with two weeks ago, is rapidly fading.

  Roger Waters is performing "The Wall."tonight in downtown Phoenix.

• I saw Pink Floyd play in 1994
• In London I went all the way to Battersea Power Station just because it was on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album.
• I saw Roger Waters live in 2000
• I saw him again in Phoenix in 2006
• I saw the first leg of The Wall tour in November 2010

   This could be just the thing I need to get me out of my head for even just a couple hours. I need a break from reality, in a legal, healthy way.



This was from one of the London shows last year, just to show you how bad ass this show is!!!



9:00am: I ask my folks for an early birthday present (my birthday is 5 months away) denied. I decide to sell my acoustic guitar and amp. That just leaves me my one shitty electric left. I just sold another guitar the day before to pay for a new battery for my car. At this point, I need to get happy, and fast. There will always be other guitars, there will never be another concert like this, ever again. My folks tell me they will never give me another dime ever if I sell that guitar to go to the concert. With all the problems I have the last thing I need to be doing is something fun. I back down, and leave the house with my tail between my legs, defeated.

9:30am: I sell my guitar and amp anyways. My fuel light is on, that gives me about 30 miles til empty. No cigarettes, haven't eaten since Saturday evening. If I buy a ticket I have $5 left. Instead I go to the thrift store, buy a dress shirt, pants, tie, belt, just in case I ever get a job interview lined up. Might as well get some good clothes while I have the money. I drop them off at the dry cleaners, I put $7 in my gas tank, buy a pack of smokes. I got about $35 left to my name. I drive towards the library, where I will spend the next 10 hours.

11:30am: Scew it, I'm GOING to that damn concert somehow. I check stubhub, ticketmaster, craigslist. I can't get in any cheaper than $50. I have no way to get any more money. I decide that I will go to downtown Phoenix and wander around downtown until I see Roger Waters. Then I will tell him my story and ask him for a ticket to the show. I know who his three guitar players are, and I know what two keyboardists and drummer look like, so if I see them walking around I can also ask them too. That improves my chances somewhat. I don't have the gas to get downtown, and even if I did, I can't afford the parking. I turn the car around and drive to the light rail.

12:00pm: What the hell is wrong with me? That is the stupidest idea I've ever had. Like that would ever even work. I turn the car around back to the library.

12:30pm: Wait. Sure, thats not gonna work, but WHO CARES? I got nothing better to do, I could use the exercise, and at least I could say I tried. I'm not doing this to succeed. I know its going to fail. But that doesn't mean I can't do it anyways. I heard someone say, that someone once said, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. I turn the car around again, heading to the light rail station.

1:30-3:00pm: Downtown Phoenix, it's 106 degrees out. I haven't had anything to drink. Showtime is at 8pm. I'm starting to think think this was a bad idea. I make my way for the Wyndham Hotel. Just as good a place to start as any. I see a Mexican newspaper on the side of the road, I pick it up cuz I'll need it for later.

   After canvassing the lobby and the escalator to the second floor. I hit the elevator, I stop and get out and walk around on every floor on the way up, and do the same on the way down. I find a comfy chair in a corner of the lobby. They got the AC cranked and it feels great. I sit and pretend to read my Mexican newspaper as if I'm waiting on somebody. If anybody starts asking questions I'll pretend I don't speak English.

3:00-5:00pm: Walk around the block, look in all the cafe's and bars.

   Alleyway behind the Wyndham. See three Mexican cleaning ladys coming out. They look like they've just finished their shifts and are heading home. I decide to ask them if they know anything. I quicky throw together some sloppy ass Spanish.

   Perdon, senoras. Hay un musico de Inglaterra se lo quedo aqui?

   My Spanish is ok but I rarely ever use it so it's rusty and it's entirely learned from textbooks, so I have no conversational experience with it. Consequently, unless I'm being spoken to like a child, odds are I'm not going to understand what anyone says to me. Imagine someone from another country who learned England-English from a tape, but then tried to talk with someone from Alabama. That's kind of the way it is with me but not really I guess. What I'm trying to say is I had no idea what the damn ladies told me. But their body language told me that they had no idea what I was talking about. Ok, so that plan failed miserably.

  I make tracks over to the Hyatt Regency, same routine. No luck. Hit the Arizona Center, no luck.

   I see a a guy sitting outside starbucks talking on his phone. He's got some badge or credentials of some kind hanging on his shirt. F*ck it, I'm asking him.

   Hey man, are you working the roger waters concert tonight?

  Um...what?...no....excuse me [goes back to his cell phone conversation, very irritated]

   Damn its hot outside. Back to the Hyatt, to cool off, then over to Cooperstown, walk around the arena a few times. The Hard Rock, The Tilted Kilt, Majerles. It would be a whole lot cooler if I could afford a beer at any of these places, instead of the dirty looks I'm getting just ordering soda. They try to charge me. I say I'm my groups Designated Driver, and if they could cut me a break on the sodas, we make it up with the tip when we check out. Free soda baby! I might be broke but at least I'm enterprising.  Even if I could drink alcohol which I shouldn't be doing, I couldn't afford it. Then over to the Wyndham, then back again to the Hyatt.

   At the Hyatt, I think I actually see one of the keyboard players,making his way into the bar. It looks like Harry Waters, Roger Waters son who's in the band, but I'm not convinced. I check google for a recent picture  to confirm and no, its not him. Dammit! where is everybody!

Roger Waters, will you stand up please?

   I check craigslist, nobody is selling for under $50. I post on craigslist, Maybe someone out there has a cheap seat that they're willing to undersell to someone a little down on their luck. The whole premise of me even being there is a desperation move, this is even more desperate. But I throw it out there and wait too see if anyone's biting.

   I get a $40 donation on my blog from my cousin. Awesome! with another donation, I might be able to get a ticket at the box office. After about 20 mins of research I find out that whenever anyone donates to my blog, it takes 14 days for me to get the payout. So I'm back to the $30 plan.

6:00pm: It's probably too late to find Roger Waters or anyone else at this point. I haven't eaten, I'm dehydrated, thirsty as hell, I feel like I'm gonna pass out. I get a phone call, I don't know the number and dismiss the call. Oh SHIT, it could be about the tickets! I search for the number but then I get a message asking if I'm still interested in buying a ticket.

  This person goes on to tell me that he won tickets in a radio contest and is driving there now to try and sell them and he'll definitely hook me up for $30. I can't believe my luck. But I'm immediately suspicious. The text is coming from an LA area code. He doesn't say he's driving downtown, or to US Airways Arena, but instead says "The Venue." He asks me how much the tickets on the street are going for. When I say I don't know, he says to go find out.

Yeah I'm not going anywhere.

   Then he asks me to try and find other people for him who also need tickets. I don't know how exactly I'm being played, but I'm definitely being played. That was my last hope. I think about going home.

7:00pm: I walk to the arena. I have to walk past there to get to the light rail station. I find some shade and sit. Its too hot to smoke right now.

7:40pm: I remember when I saw Paul McCartney in concert in 2010 it had sold out months before but I got standing room only tickets the day before the concert hella cheap. I decide to go to the box office and see if I can do the same here.

   Just then fake ticket guy messages that he's on his way and he'll still hook me up with the $30 ticket. I decide to ignore that until I find out whats going on at the box office. I'm waiting in line, I'm making myself crazy, what if the person in front of me gets the last ticket! I'm jumping up and down, I feel like screaming. A window opens up and I cut off some filthy middle aged hippy lady. I have a sneaking suspicion that she probably has pubic hair growing up to her belly button.

   The lady at the window tells me they're sold out. I ask her to check again, she says they've just opened up some "limited view" seats for $39. I look thru my pockets, a twenty, a ten. I open my wallet, two dollar bills. I practically throw them at her while I look thru my pockets again. some quarters, a dollar coin from the vending machine that I got my light rail pass. I got $34 and change. I ask her if I can borrow the remaining $5 and change. She smile's and politely says no.

Dammit! so close! its not fair!!! I suppose I can take my chances with the fake ticket guy. He messages me again, says he's almost there. He's wondering where I'm at.  Maybe if I wait til after the show starts one of the scalpers will hook me up cheap.

   Oh shit, lemme check my bank card, I may actually have like $5 on there. Shit I have to pick up the clothes I bought tomorrow at the dry cleaners. So I actually need to have like $10 on the card, and I seriously doubt that. I try to access the app on my phone to check. My battery is almost dead, the lady at the window is getting impatient. People behind me are getting restless. The friggin phone is taking forever. Sh*t now its not taking my password! I'm shaking I keep entering it in wrong.

   F*ck! it's one of those letter puzzles! I always get those damn things wrong. I ask the lady if she can figure it out for me. This bitch is getting pissed, she aint even looking at me anymore. I get it on the 3rd attempt. I have just enough in my account to cover what I don't have in cash, and I can get my dry cleaning with 72 cents to spare.

Not too bad for limited view, I thought.

   I sat there in the limited view section all by myself. I was so happy, I held back tears. The last few weeks had been very difficult. Cops, mental hospitals, doctors, nurses, counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, marital troubles, people constantly telling how much of a failure I am. Ive been told im everything from ADD, OCD, autistic, bipolar, paranoid delusional, narcissistic personality disorder, social anxiety disorder. Plenty of people around to tell me Everything thats wrong with me.

  With just about nothing going right in my life these days this was a big victory. Just to know that something anything could go right for a change was uplifting. The same problems I woke up with today will be right there waiting for me tomorrow whether I went to the damn concert or not. I still would've been broke anyways. No regrets, I had the time of my life. I'll never forget it. For a couple hours tonite I wasn't the failed husband, father, unemployed, broke mentally unstable looser. I remember when I saw Pink Floyd in 1994 I was 20, young, the whole world ahead of me, before things started going terribly wrong.For a couple hours last tuesday night I was a kid again. No worries, good people, good music, good times again.

  I was just another fan enjoying the show and everything was perfect And yeah that was worth any sacrifice.

***I want to officially add I don't intend to portray my wife Jessica as just some one dimensional, mean spirited, succubus, who does nothing but throw me out and put me down all the time. In her defense, she is very supportive, has a nice butt and tries her heart out to be good to me, until I eventually take advantage of her, alienate her, torment her and piss her off enough to the point that she's forced to throw me out. In person she's actually a very relaxed, upbeat, sociable and classy lady.***