Like the time I pawned my wife’s engagement ring so that I could buy tickets for Shiner. After all, I thought, we’re already married. What does she need an engagement ring for? Ha! Tell that to my wife. She was so angry that she threatened to leave me. Then she made me sleep on the couch for a week. She never understood me. No, she never understood concerts.

Then there was that time I spent our summer vacation money on season tickets for the local amphitheatre. “Who needs the Grand Canyon when you have Blue Oyster Cult?” I asked. “Why would anyone want to go to Hawaii or Jamaica when Jewel and Alicia Keys are coming to town?” I exclaimed. That was the second time my wife threatened to leave me. Instead, she made me sleep in the garage for the rest of the summer. All because of concerts.

Did I stop? Heck, no. I wanted more. More Ratdog, more Radar Brothers and plenty more Foghat and Hank III. I burned through our savings account for Cher, spent the retirement funds on Eagles and Neil Diamond and sold the car for the Honky Tonk Tailgate Party. That was the third, fourth and fifth times my wife threatened to leave me. Instead, she made me sleep in the backyard, camped out over the septic tank, and refused to feed me dinner. But who needs food when you have tickets for Johnny Winter and Tracy Lawrence? Hmmm… Concerts.

You may say I’m weak, that I can’t resist temptation, and that I’d spend my last dollar on Down From The Mountain. Go ahead, I’ve heard it all. In fact, that’s what my wife said before she finally moved out, divorced me and married a Seven Eleven clerk from Bakersfield. She said she needed security. But what did she know? For if security had a name, it would be concerts.

I’m on my own, now. I live in a cardboard box in an alley behind the Ticketmaster. I go from Dumpster to Dumpster scavenging bottles and cans to recycle into ticket money for Al Stewart and Chubby Checker & The Wildcats. And when I think back upon the “old days,” the days when I had a job, a home and a wife that constantly threatened to leave me because I spent all our money on Deep Purple, Dream Theater and Robert Plant, one word comes to mind. One word that perfectly describes my spending every last dime on Bad Company and Trey Anastasio until my wife finally got tired of threatening me and moved in with the Slurpee King of the southern San Joaquin. And no, my friend, that word would not be “concerts.”

That word would be “persistence.”