Hard to fathom that it has been 40 years since I was hired permanently to work at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. It really represented all my '30 something' years and was the prefect career choice at the time to keep maturity at bay for yet another decade. It took me all the way to my 40's when I decided to go back to school and take another crack at becoming an adult.

 I was a 32-year-old working at a car wash with teenagers when I started working at the Civic part time. Actually, I was making pretty good money in tips drying off cars with a combination of knowing how to please people that came with age and life experience mixed with pity from customers for someone my age doing such demeaning work. One of my friends had just got busted for drunk driving and as part of his penance had done his community service cleaning up the Civic after rock concerts. He turned that into a fulltime job and alerted me to a part time, casual 'work when we need you' position of cleaning up after events. I also eventually turned that into a fulltime job, well, actually 32 hours per week, which was perfect. 40 hours per week jobs did not fit my lifestyle needs. The competition was not tough. The pay was decent for what it was and working for the city gave me some security. 

 

I became the 'show person' and worked all the evening events for 8 years. Not a bad gig, as I got to see every 80's band at their peak that came through town in the 80's in addition to a wide variety of other genres of music and acts. Plus, I got first crack at checking the seating area after shows and would always come up with a pretty good stash of recreational drugs, particularly after a Reggae concert, and Santa Cruz punched way above its weight class in attracting A list Reggae acts. Our white hippy girl 'pussy posse' groupies were well known by all the Jamaican bands. They sired several children in Santa Cruz rumor had it. 

 

Probably the most important lesson taken from those years are the ones I learned about age, generations, and pop culture. People have a tendency to romanticize the pop culture of their youth as being the best. The reality is more likely it is related to that biological time in your life. Your body is going through major changes and running on all cylinders as you experience so many new things for the first time on the road to adulthood. I learned an auditorium filled with Generation X kids in the 80's with bumping 80's techno blaring out of a good sound system can feel pretty sweet. It taught me to appreciate the pop music culture of succeeding generations too, always keeping in mind that at the end of the day it is a business feeding off the disposable income of teenagers, a fairly new demographic that was ushered in with the prosperity of the post WW2 economy and lifestyle. I also learned not to grow up. It's a trap!

 

" People are wrong when they say pop music isn't as good as it used to be. It is exactly as good as it used to be. However, you aren't exactly as good as you used to be. "