makeup in San Fran

So, I’m in San Francisco with my friends who are in this touring rock-band. They did their sound check at the venue, in the afternoon, then, we had a couple of hours to kill.  The keyboardist and bassist said that they needed to go to the MAC store. I needed an adapter for my ipod, so, I thought, “Great!, I'll join! them".  So, I hailed a cab and off we went. After paying the fare, I was standing on the sidewalk looking up and down the street for the Mac store… which really shouldn’t be hard to spot because their storefronts are usually so easy to spot… hmmm, where the hell…?

I noticed that the other 2 were walking away, and I figured that they surely must know where they were going, when- damn it!  They went into the MAC MAKEUP STORE!!?? How could this be? Well, I should have known, after all it is a glam-band. So, I went in and went into security mode for the 2 rock stars I was with. Our Bass player got recognized right away by a very flamboyant male employee who wanted to do his make-up (amongst other things) so I waited at a distance.

My phone rings and it’s the guitarist and my good friend of many years asking where we were. I said the MAC store and he asked to see if they have this software…and I stopped him and said the MAC make-up store. Now this is one of the manliest men I know… which is why when he then proceeded to ask me to get him some black eye liner and black eye shadow with sparkles, I had a good chuckle inside. I'm thinking, you gotta be kidding me, so, I told him, “I would rather buy tampons for my wife!”, but, I then came to the reality of where I was, and the roadie creed in my blood said, “the show must go on!”. I have never bought make-up in all my years in the music business, not even when I worked for glam bands in the early 90's. So, away to the counter I went, and in my manliest, lowest, gravely voice I asked this very flamboyant clerk for some black eyeliner and eye shadow………with sparkles. The clerk looked at me funny, as I felt my face turning beat red. 

This reminded me of the time I was 14 and tried to buy an adult magazine, and at the register, the clerk yelled to the back of the convenience store, “Hey, Herb, can we sell Playboy magazines to minors?”. My friends, waiting eagerly outside, heard that and took off running like I was robbing the place. Like that time, I felt every set of eyes in the store looking at me. I got the makeup, and upon leaving, I felt this sigh of relief like I did when I bought beer at 17. I felt like I had just gotten away with something, so it wasn’t so bad after all.